TWO HUNDRED AND COUNTING / Part 200 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

When I began my GPS blog site it was with the intention of expressing my interpretations of ordinary life and world occurrences. I decided that a biblical theology had informed my worldview for decades and this would doubtless be reflected in my blog posts. It never occurred to me that I would ride one theme for as long as I have written about Paul and Zabeth Bayne and their quest for family redemption. Now I have written 200 daily posts related to them.

Having been a clergyman for over forty years you know I do not casually use 'redemption' in the above context as a reference to salvation. Rather, it is 'rescue', from an entrapment that is as riveting a story as the LOST television drama that aired its final segment on Sunday. For Paul and Zabeth the redemption issue is a settled matter for they devoutly believe in the Saviour of the Bible – Jesus, the incarnate God-man, Son of God who came into the world to lay his life down as a ransom for soiled humanity. Soiled in the sense that, if God is God, perfect in all that pertains to deity, humanity cannot approach him for relationship apart from Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. Paul and Zabeth have placed their faith and their hope of personal redemption exclusively in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Their family redemption/rescue is still undecided, at least as far as we know. Will the children be released to return to their mother's and father's house? This makes the story so compelling.

As with the extended fictional drama of LOST, viewers are waiting – waiting for the Judge to make a ruling. No one knows whether any of us who love the primary characters, will be as content with the conclusion as most people are content today with the final episode of LOST. You may think that the identity of the protagonists in this story is a matter of interpretation, that is, whether they are the MCFD social workers and managers or the parents of the three children. As an author I write the story with Paul and Zabeth being the principal protagonists. But this is not a fabricated script. This is reality. When journalists record the news, most of us want it up straight. We don't want a journalistic slant, a leftist or rightist or moralistic pitch. The reason why in my account Paul and Zabeth are the good guys is because I believe their story. If these two people were child abusers and refused to admit their criminality, an outcome that places the three children in another family home where they will be reared with security and opportunity for advancement, would translate into the MCFD team being the good guys and everything they have done would be viewed as good and the final result would be good. Yea team. However, if these parents did not harm their child and have never harmed their children, and have been maintaining their innocence in the face of allegations and court orders; if the medical examinations were correct but the conclusions were in error and; if all the medical data applicable to these children was complex enough to have been misjudged by the professional experts to whom the MCFD listened, then the parents are the good guys and when they are vindicated all the fans will cheer. Yea redemption.

But if despite their innocence, and despite the misrepresentation of their characters and conduct, their children are not returned to them, then this is nothing short of a Stephen King horror.
I can't believe it, 200 and still counting.

This is Part 200. Consider this! Two hundred days, 200 blog posts. And the Baynes have been (952) 946 days without their children. I stand corrected as per comment below.

Images:
Lost logo - ABC
Call to Repentance by Stephen Sawyer

These Intersex Fish Are Further Reason for All of Creation to Want Humanity to Be Redeemed

U.S. Geological Survey results of intersex fish in America were disclosed this week indicating that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs. It is a confirmation of widespread fish feminization that has been reported in recent years. The finding is linked to women's birth control pills and other hormone treatments that seep into rivers.

Before I offer further details I will shine an incomparable light on this news story. I need your momentary indulgence. The Bible provides the wattage with a fascinating statement.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 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. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:18-27 (New International Version)

Humanity is frequently arrogant or inconsiderate with respect to treatment of creation. The 6% of 1500 male freshwater fish that have become feminized is just the latest evidence of our carelessness in creation. Endocrine-disrupting hormones such as estrogen from medicines are he current link to intersex fish which is a general warning about what some experts see as a wider problem of endocrine disruptors in the environment.

Aboriginal spirituality often demonstrates greater reverence for what God has made than do Christian faiths. The redemption spoken of earlier assumes that character and attitudes and actions change when God recreates a person through faith. Creation is frustrated by the blunders and faults of humanity, and the greatest expectation is that this redemption will one day be completed and then creation too will be liberated.

The apostle Paul writing to the Christians in first century Rome reminded them that their lives were not all about survival here. In fact their lives were future oriented and in order to posses that prospect each of them would experience the fulfillment of the spiritual transition that had already begun inside them by their faith. The word used for this process is ‘redemption.’ This redemption upon completion will include believers’ physical bodies and that event will be an indescribable liberation. That human emancipation will affect the welfare of all creatures and toward that hope all of creation yearns.