Just a quick recap of the recent news story about a rural Tennessee family whose house burned to the ground while a local municipal fire department refused to extinguish the blaze because an annual fee of $75.00 had not been paid.

Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he “forgot” to pay the annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a fee.

I have heard of such arrangements where an annual subscription is available for those outside city limits which covers the services of a fire department should they become necessary. The exception being that the fire department will respond and do what they do best. Put out the fire! If the subscription had not been paid in advance the homeowner is billed for the actual expenses incurred by the fire department. The cost to the homeowner can exceed hundreds of dollars but at least the loss by fire is minimized.

Now we hear from the spokesmonster of the American Family Association, Bryan Fischer who said in his blog, “Firefighters did the Christian thing in letting the house burn to the ground.”

In this case, critics of the fire department are confused both about right and wrong and about Christianity. And it is because they have fallen prey to a weakened, feminized version of Christianity that is only about softer virtues such as compassion and not in any part about the muscular Christian virtues of individual responsibility and accountability. The Judeo-Christian tradition is clear that we must accept individual responsibility for our own decisions and actions. He who sows to the flesh, we are told, will from the flesh reap corruption. The law of sowing and reaping is a non-repealable law of nature and nature’s God. We cannot make foolish choices and then get angry at others who will not bail us out when we get ourselves in a jam through our own folly. The same folks who are angry with the South Fulton fire department for not bailing out Mr. Cranick are furious with the federal government for bailing out Wall Street firms, insurance companies, banks, mortgage lenders, and car companies for making terrible decisions. What’s the difference?

Thanks Mr. Fischer. Your vile remarks help open minds to the radical concept, for some anyway, that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Dan Barker, P. Z. Myers and countless others who are without the shackles of theism are right and that you are wrong.