If you’re inclined to the view that all human behavior can be explained in purely rational, organic, psychological terms… If you don’t believe in satan and demons and spiritual powers of darkness and our need for a savior… If you think that most people are mostly good most of the time and that total depravity and utter evil are things off at the fringes and that they’re not on the march with impunity in the world today… and/or if you imagine that infanticide and abortion are entirely separate phenomena and that the moral revulsion everyone feels at the former is not part and parcel of the latter, then read this and be prepared to re-consider your assumptions… unless you’ve eaten in the last several hours, in which case you should either get a bucket… or wait and read it anyway. Here’s the very tamest part:

Police say the 33-year-old Sanchez told officers who were called to her house early Sunday that she killed her son at the Devil’s request.

(Interesting how the secular media capitalizes devil, no?)

For the rest of us, it’s worth recalling that, 1) one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus (the one who acknowledged him for who he was) was assured by Jesus that he’d be in paradise with him that day and, 2) after realizing that Christ was who he’d claimed to be and had already forgiven him, the Centurion responsible for carrying out the gruesome details of his crucifixion (as well as those with him) were, “filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” When you’d think they’d have been in utter anguish at having made perhaps the biggest mistake in the history of the universe.

Which is all to say, it’s not too late for the poor possessed woman in the horrific story linked above. Pray for Otty Sanchez and her late son, Scott Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez.

If you want some tamer fare, try this, on the arrest of 44 in New Jersey over the weekend (there’s that number again…)

“They existed in an ethics-free zone.” [said Ralph Marra Jr., acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey] The probe includes a bizarre sideshow: the alleged trafficking of human kidneys, a lucrative, illegal industry and not one that’s typically showcased alongside political shenanigans.

There is another ethics-free zone that’s a natural extension of the temporal one. It’s called hell.

UPDATE I: The Sanchez murder story has gone big now. Not to distract from the sheer tragedy of the situation and need for prayer, but here’s something I hadn’t noticed before — ironic in light of my Sunday post about OBH’s likely mental illness (malignant narcissistic personality disorder) and his potential reaction to increasingly credible demands for his long-form (i.e., real) birth certificate:

…on Saturday, [Otty] Sanchez brought “Baby Scotty” for a visit [with the baby's father, Scott Buchholz] but stormed out after he asked for a copy of the birth certificate and other documents, Buchholz said. Buchholz called 911 to report that Sanchez stormed out and drove away with the infant without properly restraining him in the car, and deputies investigated it as a disturbance.

The deputy took a report but could do little else, said Bexar County Sheriff Chief Deputy Dale Bennett. “If this guy had given us an indication that she had postpartum depression, or mental defects she was suffering from, we may have addressed it differently,” he said.

If a mother is diagnosed with psychosis, she should immediately be hospitalized and separated from the child, Puryear said.

If we’d known, many might have voted differently and the mother president separated from the child country he’s killing and dismembering.

Sorry. Sometimes the symbolism is just sitting there in plain sight.

UPDATE II: In the original vein of this post, in the same AP report, this:

Postpartum psychosis is far rarer, affecting only about one woman in 1,000. Women with postpartum psychosis have delusions, frequently involving religious symbols and a desire to harm their newborn, said Richard Pesikoff, a psychiatry professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

He testified in the second trial of Andrea Yates, the high-profile case of a Houston-area mother found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her five children. Similar to Sanchez’s claim that the devil told her to kill her son, Yates told authorities Satan was inside of her and she was trying to save her children.

“The most common part of postpartum psychosis is the delusional thinking,” said Pesikoff. “Often but not always, it encompasses some type of religious thought. God is telling you to do something. The devil is telling you to do something.”

I’ll go with option ‘B’ — the devil. God doesn’t demand infant sacrifice. That’s a human invention (now a protected ‘right’ and a taxpayer-funded, aggressively exported industry — the subject of an upcoming post I’m researching). Abraham was a very special case, frequently twisted out of context.

Once again and quite disappointingly, the MSM lumps all “religious thought” under the same umbrella of “delusion”.  Yet we’re told that not all delusions are the same and not all supernatural voices are the same:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12)

“…sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:7)

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. (1st Peter 5:8-9)