[Pim Pendergast]

I don’t usually pay much attention to Didymus Much, but a few weeks back in a post welcoming Irinka the Repentant Jewess to the forum, he said:

At least you don't have to try to grow a foreskin back, eh?

And this got me thinking. Circumcision is a major obstacle for Joos and Mudslimes in obtaining Salvation. Wouldn’t it be great if they could grow their foreskins back? So I did some searching on the interwebs. Sadly, short of a divine miracle, it is impossible for them to grow their foreskins back. But there is now surgery available that can restore the foreskin through skin grafting.

Now I’m usually very skeptical about “advances” in the field of medicine (although admittedly this advance has been around for about 2,000 years; we just didn't know about it). These days it’s a field fraught with ethical issues: cloning, abortion, stem cell research, etc. But I think this surgery could be an excellent tool for bringing Joos and Muslims who are seeking God one step closer to finding Him. The surgery is very expensive apparently, but Joos should be able to afford it because they’re all rich. And… well, let’s face it: most Muslims wouldn’t be able to afford it except maybe some sheikhs in oil-rich countries, but I’m sure those are the sort God would prefer in His kingdom anyway. Perhaps now LBC could launch an ex-Joo/ ex-Muslim ministry to complement it’s extremely successful ex-Negro ministry.

And I see another market for it as well. In many Western countries, circumcision is practised routinely on normal babies for “hygiene” reasons. But this poses a problem. For “every man that is circumcised … is a debtor to do the whole law” (Gal 5:3). Anyone who is circumcised today, under the New Covenant, is obliged to keep all the Old Testament ceremonial laws. Yet we “are not under the law, but under grace*” (Rom 6:14b) — praise Jesus! — and we are to “stand fast therefore in the liberty* wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1). Perhaps there is now hope for these people too if they bite the bullet and get this procedure done. God has opened a door for them. What was once irreversible is now reversible. In the past these people would have been irrevocably putting themselves under Jooish law, but no more.

Now that people — and Joos and Muslims — can effectively “regrow their foreskins,” they have one less excuse for rejecting Christ. They can make themselves more acceptable to the church and to God. This whole exercise has made me wonder what else is out there on the interwebs that we Christians don’t know about.

PS Thanks, Didymus!

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*Grace: The gift (Eph 2:8) of having been elected by God (Rom 9:16; 11:5) to hate one’s family and follow Jesus (Lk 14:26), do good works (Eph 2:10) and endure suffering (Jn 16:33) so that one may praise God for ever after one dies (pretty much all of Revelation).
*Liberty: Slavery to righteousness (Rom 6:18); servitude to Christ (Rom 1:1) and to all men (Mk 9:35); submission to God (Jas 4:7), to all authority (Rom 13:1), to one’s husband (women only) (Eph 5:22) and to one’s earthly masters (Col 3:22).