A world gone mad...

(Tim) Although it's something of a relief to know Ms. DeGeneres loves a good cry, doesn't it seem like we've all gone mad?

Yes, the Baylys have a dog we like a lot. So I'm not putting dogs down, figuratively or literally.

Back in 1976, though, I remember reading an essay by an early church father lambasting the believers of his time for fawning over their dogs, feeding them well but not giving a rip about the babies exposed and dying on the slopes of the Roman Empire.

Yes, I know believers of that time often took those little ones in, saving them from slavery, prostitution, and death. Yet the essay was directed at Christians--not pagans.

So what about today? What about us...

What went through our minds when we read this maudlin lesbian tripe? (Anticipating objections, I'll briefly add that I believe Ms. DeGeneres' sexual perversity is a key part of this story's cultural backdrop.)

DeGeneres invited various guests involved in pet adoptions onto her show, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and online pet adoption Web site petfinders.com.

"There are so many dogs and cats out there that need homes and they just need to end up in a good home," DeGeneres said. "That is all I care about .. I don't want anybody to be discouraged from this."

"That's all I care about?" There's more truth than we want to admit, there.

Every single time we lavish time, money, and what we think of as love on a creature not made in the Image of God, we should remember that Jesus wasn't talking about dogs or cats when He warned us:

"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Africa is filled with AIDS orphans eminently adoptable. So far, the extended Bayly family has five adopted children, and we're working on a sixth. If you need help doing it yourself, send our daughter, Heather, an E-mail.

Your city and village has foster children--even sibling pairs--just waiting for a good Covenant home. Your church has fatherless children waiting to be taken fishing or out for lunch this Saturday morning. And you're taking your dog for a walk? Yes, I know dogs have to be walked, but...

There's an abortuary down the street from you where little ones are being slaughtered, for pay. And your church is silent? There's no voice of protest, not yelled-out offers to provide free medical care and anything else she needs to these young women being manfully strong-armed into the building by their ghoulish and efficient mothers?  So far, our church has one child growing up in our midst because of yelling out this offer to the mothers as they enter the killing place.

You know, life is short, then we die, and after that the judgment--yes, for Christians also. Read the Westminster Standards and you'll find it. Read the Bible and it'll wash over you like a wave.

Inasmuch as you've done it to the least of these, my brothers...