Christianity
Taking a brief hiatus
25/August/2010 09:52 Filed in: Weekly
Column
There will be no column this week, for we are
taking a brief hiatus to get a little perspective
on the way forward. There seems to be bad news
everywhere, especially with the economy. The
popular prescribed ways forward all rely on some
sort of miraculous improvement of past human
failures.
The president made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue that has only intensified, bringing into question even Obama’s Christian confession. Historic Christianity is about the completed work of Jesus Christ and not about liberation theology, social justice, and especially about some heretical concept of collective salvation.
Wonder Springs exists as a virtual reality alternative to a real Death Valley. To the best of my knowledge, Glenn Beck is the only person, with a broad based secular following, who has proclaimed America’s problems to be faith based. But it also follows that way too many people think the solution to the country’s and world’s problems stem from human enlightenment and not with God. In that darkness the economic bottom is still a long steady decline away, made bearable only by the grace and mercy of the Almighty.
Because our angst is a God induced redux of the Divine Providence of the founding of the United States, solutions will come as we look to God created natural laws and common grace. The problem is that nobody is actually willing to look at those natural laws as they might relate to human institutions. Therefore what play these principles get in the media either relates to self centered individualism, or described by the Social Darwinist elites, as primitive, knuckle dragging, myths of the religious stupid folk.
These last few weeks have been as financially stressful as I can remember in over twenty years. The ability to increase the Wonder Springs influence demands some changes not only financially but they also relate to location. All of this demands resources that are not now apparent other than a miracle from God. So until our next installment we shall try to live expectantly in that hope.
The president made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue that has only intensified, bringing into question even Obama’s Christian confession. Historic Christianity is about the completed work of Jesus Christ and not about liberation theology, social justice, and especially about some heretical concept of collective salvation.
Wonder Springs exists as a virtual reality alternative to a real Death Valley. To the best of my knowledge, Glenn Beck is the only person, with a broad based secular following, who has proclaimed America’s problems to be faith based. But it also follows that way too many people think the solution to the country’s and world’s problems stem from human enlightenment and not with God. In that darkness the economic bottom is still a long steady decline away, made bearable only by the grace and mercy of the Almighty.
Because our angst is a God induced redux of the Divine Providence of the founding of the United States, solutions will come as we look to God created natural laws and common grace. The problem is that nobody is actually willing to look at those natural laws as they might relate to human institutions. Therefore what play these principles get in the media either relates to self centered individualism, or described by the Social Darwinist elites, as primitive, knuckle dragging, myths of the religious stupid folk.
These last few weeks have been as financially stressful as I can remember in over twenty years. The ability to increase the Wonder Springs influence demands some changes not only financially but they also relate to location. All of this demands resources that are not now apparent other than a miracle from God. So until our next installment we shall try to live expectantly in that hope.
Natural Law and Christianity
19/July/2010 12:30 Filed in: Oikos
Thoughts | Web News
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and
to God the things that are God’s.
Mark
12:17, Matthew 22:21, Luke 20:25 ESV
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Why Me? A Hundred Year Bad Marriage
24/March/2010 10:31 Filed in: Weekly
Column
So you think your marriage is great, that is
wonderful!
If you think your marriage is awful and you want or need a divorce, sorry about that!
But the really sad thing is if you are married to another party for over a hundred years and then you find out that the troubles you have been experiencing for most of a century are rooted in a mutual codependency. You seemed to want the same thing but you never really understood why you were always arguing about virtually everything in life. It took a hundred years and you recently found out by reading this Wonder Springs article that you have totally incompatible religions. You always thought that you were progressing towards the same goal, and now after all this time you realize that you need to split the sheets.
The two twentieth century religions that are in the process of breaking up after all this time are evolving atheistic materialism and Christendom; better known as those who promoted a social gospel, Protestant liberalism, or in some extreme cases, social justice, and Liberation Theology. Those who were around at the beginning of the marriage believed that it was a marriage made in heaven. After all both parties in that early relationship were interested in creating a utopian city here on earth. A shining city on a hill to show the world how well Christians could get along with pagans and in turn everyone would turn their hearts to Jesus.
The problem that both participants in the marriage did not understand was the vision of creating heaven on earth is really the only religion of man for all of recorded history, with very few exceptions. If you take the Bible, not as a holy book, but rather just a brief synopsis of human history virtually every story is about someone intent on creating the kingdom of God in the here and now. A utopia is the goal, it really doesn’t make any difference on the means required to get there, if we all just work together there is nothing we can’t do.
Read More...
If you think your marriage is awful and you want or need a divorce, sorry about that!
But the really sad thing is if you are married to another party for over a hundred years and then you find out that the troubles you have been experiencing for most of a century are rooted in a mutual codependency. You seemed to want the same thing but you never really understood why you were always arguing about virtually everything in life. It took a hundred years and you recently found out by reading this Wonder Springs article that you have totally incompatible religions. You always thought that you were progressing towards the same goal, and now after all this time you realize that you need to split the sheets.
The two twentieth century religions that are in the process of breaking up after all this time are evolving atheistic materialism and Christendom; better known as those who promoted a social gospel, Protestant liberalism, or in some extreme cases, social justice, and Liberation Theology. Those who were around at the beginning of the marriage believed that it was a marriage made in heaven. After all both parties in that early relationship were interested in creating a utopian city here on earth. A shining city on a hill to show the world how well Christians could get along with pagans and in turn everyone would turn their hearts to Jesus.
The problem that both participants in the marriage did not understand was the vision of creating heaven on earth is really the only religion of man for all of recorded history, with very few exceptions. If you take the Bible, not as a holy book, but rather just a brief synopsis of human history virtually every story is about someone intent on creating the kingdom of God in the here and now. A utopia is the goal, it really doesn’t make any difference on the means required to get there, if we all just work together there is nothing we can’t do.
Read More...
Why Me? Priggish Blathering Compost
17/March/2010 13:49 Filed in: Weekly
Column
We have reached the point in this expose´ of the
self where history is about to catch up with the
present. In that illumination we will soon be able
to understand the context that makes us right,
meaning correct, and everyone else is not so smart.
We base our enlightened understanding on our
evolving change we can believe in, never venturing
outside our comfort zone, because that is our
right, essentially because we are so very cool.
Last week we looked at how New England Calvinism pushed a number of new religious leaders out of the Calvinist box, and the changes they rent we still see among us today. Many Americans and people around the world, still find those rejected box outers to be our prophets and patron saints, even though we would never be so outwardly religious. Religion after all is really not something, we, the enlightened, need because it is so primitive and dare we say, priggish. Thanks to our lucky stars we will never be that way.
We work very hard for our money, even though it never really increases our wealth, and we never have the time to really question who we really are, or where we are going. Again thanks to our lucky stars, for if we had the time to reflect, we might not like the reflection.
However if you look at that out of the box history from two hundred years ago, today really isn’t that different. Just like back then all of life was and is about the present material. You go to church and for the most part they teach you how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. They seem to talk about God, but no one seems to know God.
You go to the outdoor store and they show you all the neat stuff you need to bring with you when you go to the wilderness, so you can make it just like home. While the wild is somewhat free, the stuff you need to get you there and keep you comfortable surely isn’t. So you need your full time vocation to support your part time advocation.
Is this all there is? Those with the most toys are subservient to their idols’ wishes — no demands. So when you come right down to the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, the problems we face today is that we are both natural and transcendent personalities in a totally common or natural world.
Read More...
Last week we looked at how New England Calvinism pushed a number of new religious leaders out of the Calvinist box, and the changes they rent we still see among us today. Many Americans and people around the world, still find those rejected box outers to be our prophets and patron saints, even though we would never be so outwardly religious. Religion after all is really not something, we, the enlightened, need because it is so primitive and dare we say, priggish. Thanks to our lucky stars we will never be that way.
We work very hard for our money, even though it never really increases our wealth, and we never have the time to really question who we really are, or where we are going. Again thanks to our lucky stars, for if we had the time to reflect, we might not like the reflection.
However if you look at that out of the box history from two hundred years ago, today really isn’t that different. Just like back then all of life was and is about the present material. You go to church and for the most part they teach you how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. They seem to talk about God, but no one seems to know God.
You go to the outdoor store and they show you all the neat stuff you need to bring with you when you go to the wilderness, so you can make it just like home. While the wild is somewhat free, the stuff you need to get you there and keep you comfortable surely isn’t. So you need your full time vocation to support your part time advocation.
Is this all there is? Those with the most toys are subservient to their idols’ wishes — no demands. So when you come right down to the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, the problems we face today is that we are both natural and transcendent personalities in a totally common or natural world.
Read More...
Why Me? Outside the Box
10/March/2010 11:45 Filed in: Weekly
Column
The United States and the world today are facing
“Outside the Box” stresses. It has been a long time
since the stupendous changes of economics and
politics have not only forced people to look
outside their comforts and securities for
solutions, but also to examine the basic paradigms
on which their perceived security is based.
In previous articles we have stated that in western culture about every five hundred years a major reboot of the way we do things occurs. This turmoil creates the fertile soil for new developments that redefine our individuality and communities in ways that were unknown before the plowing or tilling began.
Beginning with the absolute understanding that humanity is a creation of God, and was indeed a creation in the image of God, it logically follows that this five hundred year upheaval, forces us again to look beyond the temporal world and refocus upon the transcendent nature of common life. That understanding then brings about the incorporation of that transcendence into the religions of mankind.
While all religions including evolutionary materialism are exclusive in their worldviews, stresses develop that quickly become fault lines between the reformers and the establishments they are attempting to reform. Within Christianity the last time this occurred was in the Protestant Reformation.
That Reformation led to an era known as the Enlightenment where those new religious views received a more common application. At the time when the human development and religious fervor were properly understood within the broader culture, time was right for the miracle that became the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America as a constitutional republic.
Notice all the “re” words that accompanied the changes from subjugation by divine right of kings into a worldview that valued individual liberty above all else. It then attempted to formulate a minimal governmental structure in which all humans would have the opportunity to pursue happiness, without class distinction.
Read More...
In previous articles we have stated that in western culture about every five hundred years a major reboot of the way we do things occurs. This turmoil creates the fertile soil for new developments that redefine our individuality and communities in ways that were unknown before the plowing or tilling began.
Beginning with the absolute understanding that humanity is a creation of God, and was indeed a creation in the image of God, it logically follows that this five hundred year upheaval, forces us again to look beyond the temporal world and refocus upon the transcendent nature of common life. That understanding then brings about the incorporation of that transcendence into the religions of mankind.
While all religions including evolutionary materialism are exclusive in their worldviews, stresses develop that quickly become fault lines between the reformers and the establishments they are attempting to reform. Within Christianity the last time this occurred was in the Protestant Reformation.
That Reformation led to an era known as the Enlightenment where those new religious views received a more common application. At the time when the human development and religious fervor were properly understood within the broader culture, time was right for the miracle that became the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America as a constitutional republic.
Notice all the “re” words that accompanied the changes from subjugation by divine right of kings into a worldview that valued individual liberty above all else. It then attempted to formulate a minimal governmental structure in which all humans would have the opportunity to pursue happiness, without class distinction.
Read More...