2011 A.D.:  The Kids' Artwork On the Refrigerator

  Doesn't almost every family refrigerator - at least in the USA - have pictures attached to it that the Grade School age children have drawn for us to admire?  Sometimes though the artist is cherished more than the artwork, though that fact is kept a well gaurded secret.

  But, there are some interesting things that can be learned by looking at this relationship between the young artists, their art, and the artists' parents.

  Sometimes, a kindergartener or first grader may come home with a picture that they have drawn (and which they are very proud of) and they will tell you that it's for you, and it's supposed to go on the refrigerator.  Then they will ask the dreaded question:  "Do you see what it is a picture of?"

  That can be a rough one, because though it is believed by some that art reflects life, first grade art does not always reflect it as faithfully as other types of art.  First grade art can be a bit 'interpretive', or perhaps 'nebulous', even 'mystical' are better terms.

  A clever parent may say:  "Yes.  I see what it is.  But now tell me so I can see if I'm right."  Some form of that gambit is employed often by parents eager to admire their children's efforts and encourage the young artist, yet puzzled by the identity of some - perhaps all - of the subject matter that the art addresses.

  When that is succussful, the child may explain that it is you that they have drawn.  "Is that what you guessed?"  And the correct reply is something like: "Yes.  Yes it is!  It looks just like me.  You did wonderfully!"

  But, as they beam with pleasure that their art is so well received, you may be left looking at the picture and trying to decide how it could be interpreted to be a likeness of you.

  So, really what we have in this situation is an investigation that is somewhat similar to the arguments for and against the obviousness of intelligent design in nature.....yet in a different context.

  If there is anything that looks at all like a big circle with stuff drawn inside of it, our analytical brain will start with the assumption that this is our head.....possibly.  Those lines drawn inside of the circle are not there by accident we know.  They have been purposely placed there, each line having a function.  After all, our children are nearly all incredibly gifted.....they are just young still, and not quite developed in the motor skills department, and still needing to learn some of the finer points of drawing the human form.

  So, by applying our adult intelligence we can decide to just believe that the two somewhat circular features near the top of the inside of the bigger circle are probably our eyes.  One is much larger than the other, maybe.  One closer to the outside edge of our face maybe.  But on the whole, we can buy into the idea that someone (our little someone) meant them to be eyes.  That allows us to see how the warped and leaning triangle in the middle must surely correspond to our nose.  Not a nose that we would wish upon ourselves necessarily, but fundamentally a nose-like shape in approximately the right place within the big circle which is our head; we find ourselves quite satisfied in the belief that we know which features are the eyes and the nose in this portrait of ourselves, and we might even find them preciously rendered. 

  So, the garrish streak of red crayon below the nose is now easily recognized as our red lips, thus accounting for all of the major features of the face.  The drawing makes sense to us now, after a little bit of ferreting out the details.  And maybe we're proud of it, too.  We post it on the refrigerator, and everyone is happy. 

  Let's suppose that we show our child's work to a visiting neighbor - an adult neighbor.  Let's also suppose they were so unkind and obtuse as to stare at our child's picture skeptically for a while and then say "That looks like the scribblings of a dying drunken blind man.  Do you honestly think that it contains any hint of having been intelligently designed?"  Wouldn't we be taken aback by that?

  We would probably begin to regard that neighbor as a soul abandoned moron who had not the slightest inkling of the artistic ability that should be expected of the beginning child artist.  We would possibly find their lack of even the most basic skills of discernment to be an affront to all that is right and good in the world.  Who are they to suggest that your child seemed incapable of intelligent design due to a few structural non-conformities being evident in our child's effort to reproduce our face?

  How could any parent not think in their heart of hearts: "How rude do you have to be to say something that stupid and insensitive, neighbor?  There are signs of intelligent design all over and throughout that picture.  A lot of obvious and undeniable artistic elements denoting a very special and gifted artist....given their age."

  How could you not ask this neighbor if their even older child was still struggling with the bed wetting thing?  Ask nicely, I mean.

  But isn't it funny that we can quickly and easily spot evidence of intelligent design in our childrens' art work, yet many people won't acknowledge the majestic and unimaginably diverse legion of skilled, crafty, and miraculously well designed features that are to be found in every living thing around us, and within our own physiology as well?

  God is the creator of all things .....not random chance.  Not evolution.  God with His Son Jesus there beside Him to see it all made.  That is what it says in the opening few lines of the Gospel of John, and the Gospels are words truly given from God to man.  But for those people who were once taught that evolution did it all, but who may now be willing to admit that random chance could not by any means have created all that is to be seen in nature's living creatures....for them, I guess that admitting to the obviousness of intelligent design in nature is at the very least a good first step.  Without naming God as that 'intelligent designer' that still cheats God out of the praise He deserves for having done it all, but .....admitting to intelligent design is a step in the right direction. 

  Once that step is taken by all reasonable men and women, we will be at least one step closer to seeing that it was God Almighty, our Holy heavenly Father, who has done so very many wonderous things in the course of providing mankind a home.  And we can quit teaching our children that baseless evolution garbage in our schools.  How deeply we Christians must lack true faith if we send our own dear and loved children to school so that they can be taught to scoff at the existence of our own dear Father.  But I've been guilty, with step children, of doing it.  They wanted to go where there friends went, for one thing.  The real heart of the problem is just that evolution is taught at all.  It's a failed hypothesis. 

  It doesn't paint a pretty picture, does it? (pun intended!) 

  Imagine if concerned Christian parents by the many dozens scheduled a meeting with their local school administrators and just explained, at length but courteously, how very much they resented having to fund a public school system that did so very much to undermine and disparage their children's belief in their Holy Father.  That would be a whole lot of meetings that those administrators would have to sit through.  I think they would get so tired of them that they would feel well supported and fully justified in joining your side of the fight against the continued teaching of Charles Darwin's hogwash. 

  If they said it would be culturally insensitive to teach God, you can remind them that 'Christian' is a type of culture, and that Christian sensitivities were being bashed mercilessly by teaching evolution and not God.  If the administrators pointed out that non-Christians attend the school too, you can tell them that people from nations where false gods are worshipped are quite welcome to enjoy the knowledge of Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit right along with the Christian children in school, with no requirement to convert.   And, since it was a Christian nation that they fled their old land to come to, they should be willing to accept that.  But, if not, why would it be wrong for them to build a Muslim school, a Hindu school, a Confucian school if they wish.  Give them vouchers, in fact, if they wish to do that.  But when the 'public' is largely Christian, the 'public' schools quite justifiably should be too.

  If someone argues that public schools shoud be comfortable for everyone, then point out that teaching evolution in public schools makes them quite incompatible with the Christian faith, and quite uncomfortable for Christian children because of that.  And maybe tell them that continuing on that course is a purposeful affront to the bulk of the tax paying Christian public - the Christian public which largely supports the schools. 

  And just keep electing Christian politicians. 

  Babylon finally fell.  New Babylon can also.  Assyria finally fell.  Rome finally fell.  If you read the gospels you will notice that demons being cast out of people almost always scream and make a lot of racket and try to harm the person that they reside in as they are cast out.  It's just the nature of demons.  It doesn't mean you shouldn't cast them out anyway.  And this is a very good time to work at destroyinbg a few of the world's more prominent demonic strong holds.  Can anyone argue that public school systems which teach Christian children that God is a myth and Jesus just a gifted teacher - Christianity as just another optional belief - is not such a stronghold?

  Is it about time that we help them 'get the picture' from the Christian perspective?  It seems to be the Christian nation's that draw men from every land to feast on the decidedly superior fruits of the one true and Holy Father, and His Son Jesus, granted to us unworthy Christians.  If Christian lands draw people from every corner of the globe, don't they deserve to find a Christian land when they arrive?  Just who is it we're trying not to offend when we cater to the wishes and sensibilities of immigrant peoples that follow faiths that seem founded by the enemies of our Lord, faiths which seem to hold Jesus to be at least part charlatan?  If the Holy Father Himself voiced His approval of Jesus audibly and on several occasions, calling Him His Son, then why bend over backwards to not offend those worshiping a god that has no such endorsement?  Why have there been great miracles wherever the name and teachings of Jesus have been brought, yet this was not seen in the case of any other religion but the ancient Jewish, from which Christianity was birthed and which also holds to the truths of the ancient Jewish heritage?  We have so many reasons to be grateful and to have great faith in our Lord, and to uphold Him!  So many. 

  Imagine this scene.  There is a family and the parents are very good parents....and always have been.  On a certain night the children are laying all lazy on the living room couch eating popcorn and drinking soda pop, and in the adjoining kitchen their parents are working together at the table to organize the family finances and their children's activities for the coming month.  Suddenly a band of scrawny thugs - their own bad children who ran away years ago to live evil lives of their own choosing just as they wished to - broke down the door into the kitchen and began beating on the parents with cane poles.  What would you think if the kids on the couch just looked over at the scene with looks of disappointment and slight disgust, but didn't even rise? 

  "Look at those wicked ruffians.  So you see how they are treating Mom and Dad.  That just isn't deserved.  Mom and Dad have always been good to everyone!  Hey, would you please pass the popcorn." the daughter might say.

 "You couldn't be more right!  Look at us for instance.  We owe Mom and Dad for everything they did for us during our entire lives.  They've always been faithful and true.  The whole scene just revolts me.  Can I get a refill on the soda pop?" the son might answer.

  End of scene.

  So would it strike you as bizarre to see a couple of lazy indolent children lay there and comment on the tragedy and sadness of it all, yet never get off the couch, while their parents - the ones that have given them life and cared for them tenderly and always - are being assaulted by wicked wretched runaways right in front of the children who had stayed with the family?  Shouldn't those couch children be up on their feet and be in it tooth and nail to defend their parents from this outrageous and lawless assault?  Shouldn't they be hustling those home invaders right back out the door?  What children could care so little for their parents that they just remain there on their lazy butts opining about the injustice of it all?  They should be shielding their parents from these undeserved blows and doing all they bloodlessly can to repel those misled invaders.  That's what the parents deserve!  Anything less calls into question exactly which group of children are the worst, doesn't it? Is it the misled group, who can at least blame their ignorance?  Or the ones that lay there lazy and barely concerned while the source from which they spring is attacked, knowing full well that what is being attacked is right and good?

  So, should we be couch Christians at such a time as this, when the very foundations of well grounded and amply justified faith are under attack by both liars and those that the liars shamefully mislead? 

  Look at all the good in the world that has come through Christ.  Then look at what has come through Satan and his many fraudulent faces with which he misleads the world. We face lawless, immoral, and God defying behavior in cinema, digital games that involve hours of unthinking digital slaughter, false religions and false gods, false science, or even just the creation of a generation of cold, spiritually indifferent, morally cauterized humans, happy enough with the idea that the world merely exists, then you die and it ends, so gratify your senses all that you can while you can!

  We may not be a throng of First Apostles, or Faithful Bishops, or Martin Luthers, and none of us can equal Christ who we follow, but we can all get off the couch and see what we can do, out of gratitude to God and His Son and the Holy Spirit, out of love for even the ones that attack the source of mankind's only salvation unknowingly.  It's no particularly big accomplishment to love a fellow believer, though it is important, called for, and good.  But in reaching out to blunt the attacks and feed the souls of those who don't know about Christ yet, we Christians, somewhere over a billion of us by the numbers, can do for Jesus' second coming what John the Baptist did for His first coming.  We can prepare a way in the wilderness of human misunderstanding.  We can make straight paths for His coming. 

  We could impart, as a beginning, knowledge that those pictures on the refrigerator stem from planning and intelligence, and not from chance.  But that the Creation illustrates that it also stems from the same....except that it is an unsearchably vast and beautiful intelligence.  And then we can build quite rationally upon that to show, through the many means at our disposal, that this intelligence is Yahweh, who dwells with the Son and Spirit that proceed directly from and of Him, at the head of all the Creation and its creatures. 

  It is a logical and easily believable progression of understandings which lead from intelligent design to the Bible's truths.  There are no empty chasms such as Evolution glosses over.  Christianity (and Judaism up until Jesus), is a house built on a firm and sensible foundation, with a great deal of evidence to support each step of the journey.  Christians should not be proud and certainly not ever arrogant, but we needn't ever shrink back from professing the truth as Jesus gave it to us for the simple reason that our faith and its derivation stands up to scrutiny every step of the way.  It is not through the Christian that this is true.  It is from God.  But we Christians happen to be clinging to the one thing that is true.  And there is room for a great many more to join us if only we will call out into the crowd, the glaring, hissing, scornful, unsure, suspicious, misled, and sinful crowd, that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and welcomes all who will turn from the wrong paths and follow Him!  As many as will follow He'll bring home.