An Interesting Thought

I am currently reading Brad Jersak's Kissing the Leper and have found what I believe to be both a profound quote and a damning truth buried in it's pages.
The Pharisees thought repentance preceded relationship... (p.161)
The is damning because this is exactly what the evangelical church believes; a relationship with God can not begin until "the sinners prayer" has been said.  In the book Brad gives examples of people experiencing God before repenting, infact that is what Jesus did.  He met people and gave them the "Jesus experience" or God's grace and then let them come to repentance.
Jesus want to meet them and then let them choose repentance.

Isolation

I am sitting here trying to read but I am distracted by a series of recent events that have left me feeling completely isolated.



There is a woman I know who was encouraging me to comment on her blog and she recently posted on an experience that I thougt I could be encouraging about. I failed miserably. It is not even the failure that is bothering me, I know that I can be forgiven for whatever pain I caused her. It is the hypocrisy of some other commenters and her seeming inability to consider who risked commenting and to defend me when I was attacked.



Regardless of whether I was right or wrong, constructive or destructive I was sharing and being encouraging and supportive in the best way I knew how and this person has known me long enough to understand that. But like I said what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy of one other person, a person who was so offended they chose to comment despite the fact that they rarely do. A complete stranger attacked me for being myself having no idea that one of their issues with me was actually the very issue that the blogger and were discussing off-line only days earlier.



I admit I am somewhat socially awkward but attacking me and allowing others to do the same in no way helps me and in fact drives me further away and deeper into the pit I am trying to crawl out of. Is it any wonder that I choose intellect over emotion and isolation over socialisation when I get punished for my attempts at blessing and supportiveness?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Strippers want alcohol ban removed

first read: Strippers want alcohol ban removed


I have mentioned this issue to a few people and feel like screaming:

When your eyes have been blindedBy society's woolWhen the streets erupt
In your own backyard
You'll be on your knees
Praying for the national guard
If you don't care now
How the problems get solved
You can shake your head later
That you never got involved
'Cause the call came ringing
From the throne of gold
But you never got the message (got the message)
'Cause your mind's on hold 

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmania.com/whatever_happened_to_sin_lyrics_steve_taylor.html
All about Steve Taylor: http://www.musictory.com/music/Steve+Taylor


Or maybe I should quote Niemoller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

After speaking with one person I came away feeling like calling them Neville, but I doubt if they would have got the reference.

The point is we are currently the majority but the opposition is armed and frankly winning because no on this side of issue cares, so they have not bothered to show up for the battles, and won't care until it is too late, just like Neville Chamberlain!!!!

What do I do with this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

For years I have been infuriating my socially conservative friends by pointing out that it is hypocritical to be "pro-life" and not have at least adopted child because actions speak louder than words.

But I recently became more familiar with the work of Economist Stephen Levitt and his theory that there is no social policy that does more to drive down the violent crime than unfettered access to abortion on demand. He also points out that the same policy also deals with poverty in general; the violent thugs are aborted before they have a chance to become thugs and the teenage girls they would impregnate are aborted before they become single teenage mothers on welfare.

Now for those of you who need me to connect all the dots here goes. If it is true that nothing provides more "bang for the buck" than unfettered access to abortion when addressing poverty and crime issues it is hypocritical to be both a fiscal and social conservative unless one is actively involved (read volunteering) in addressing crime and poverty.

This is not an endorsement of abortion, as Levitt points out, but merely a factual conclusion drawn from an academic study of the data. In other words, regardless of how offensive you may find it, if what he says is correct, this is no less a revolting fact than it be if your son grew up to be a pimp or your daughter a prostitute. A fact, an unpleasant one, but a fact nonetheless.

So the question is what do I do with this information now, because to me, if his conclusion is correct it demands action and dissemination regardless of how offensive it is to people. A person is a hypocrite if they demand the government find the cheapest solution possible to the issues of poverty and crime and while demanding that abortion be regulated because those two objectives are at cross purposes; or to put it more bluntly; you are a hypocrite if you are pro-life and want the government to lower taxes and do more with less.

Not only is The Church the only army that shoots its wounded. The Church is also the only army that does not expect its soldiers to get wounded in the first place.

Sex in the Media

I was challenged recently to seek the positive. Not to focus on the negativity that the news media thrives on and to that end I present a positive spin on Hollywood Finds Sin in Soda Ads, Not Televised Sex Scenes?

First there is the health issue about the sugar, the empty calories and the childhood obesity epidemic particularly among the lower socio-economic demographic. It is good that the media is concerned about this because, well frankly many of these children are deprived of other sources of entertainment and therefore watch a lot more television than they ought to because television can be free while swimming is not and many parents concerned for their children's safety keep them indoors to protect them from the neighbourhoods they live in.

Second, things have improved on the sex front. It is doubtful that anyone could make Pretty Baby or The Blue Lagoon today without repercussions from both Hollywood and the legal system. There may be more adult sex on television and film but there is far less overt child sex tolerated in the media. Further it is now routine to find someone who has found some hidden sexual message in what is supposed to be children's programming and publicized it; google 'Lion King sex' or 'Bugs Bunny penis'. The point is that as the medium has matured that it has become harder to produce such material and the child sex laws have changed enough that it is illegal to produce what was once legal.

Like I said focusing on the positive rather than being negative. Affirm what is righteous and do not unnecessarily reward with attention what is not.

What if God is using them to correct us?

If one has had any sort of Christian indoctrination they are familiar with the idea of the still small voice. God does not scream, he whispers. God does not send his rebukes through the "credible" leaders rather he send them through the outcasts so that one must be attentive in order to hear it. He has a record of using animals, pagan nations, and shepherds (who I have been taught would have had a status close to that of niggers, with all the baggage attached to that word, in much of the history of mainstream American society). My point is what if God wants out of Christmas and he is using the Humanist, those whose message is most despised by the Church, to send his message to the Church?

Quite a few years ago I had the experience of being in a church service on either the last Sunday of November or the first Sunday of December where it began to rain inside the building (the new roof was inspected), there was evidence left on the pews and the floor, but not the ceiling. The response of the leadership was to set the morning's agenda aside and go with the flow, as it were. In the following week the senior pastor made the decision to set that Sunday aside until the new year and to pursue the Christmas program as planned; whatever happened that one Sunday died in December. The follow year I was in a different church in a different city, having moved over the summer, when a word from Amos was highlighted at the same time of year, I hate, I reject your festivals, and I will not smell [the sacrifices of] your assemblies.

What if God wants out and we are drowning him out with all our noise, both inside and outside the Church?

A Question of Commitment

Over the weekend I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin; a book that Abraham Lincoln is said to have credited with starting the American Civil War. When I heard that I decided that I had no choice but to read the book.

But I did not find it that powerful. Maybe it is because I was reading it nearly 200 years after it was published. Maybe it is because I have a more secular mind than what the book was targeted at. Maybe I just have a hard heart. Regardless I did not find the book to be powerful enough to start a war.

But what book, what ideas would I find powerful enough to go to war over? It is no secret that I find the current Canadian government's justice policy to be as anti-Christian as Harriet Beecher Stowe found slavery but am I willing to declare war on the Canadian government? Is this a cross I am willing to die on? Am I literally willing to give my life for the cause of holy justice and the gospel?

Am I so committed to the absolute superiority of Judeo-Christian ideals that I am willing to publicly humiliate and expose the the so-called Christian politicians who disagree with me as charlatans and false prophets or be labeled as one myself and face public humiliation like a true martyr? Am I as committed to my cause and the purity of the gospel as Stowe was?

November 11

Earlier today, as I was observing Remembrance Day in my own way, I discovered that November 11 is also date of the feast of St. Martin of Tours.

You can be forgiven if you are ignorant of St. Martin of Tours, that is if you are a protestant. Although I think more should be taught about the early saints and martyrs of the Christian faith, which is what my ultimate point will be.

But returning to St. Marin of Tours, it is very interesting, possibly even prophetic that the feast of St. Martin of Tours and Remembrance Day are both on November 11. This saint is famous for being willing to go into battle unarmed and wearing only a cross as his armour. He was a soldier in the Roman army who embraced Christianity after a vision in which Jesus thanked him for literally clothing [Jesus] as he sat on the side of the road posing as a beggar a day or so earlier. Upon his conversion he came to the conviction of that he could no longer take a life and so he offered to go into battle unarmed with only a cross around his neck to protect him; fortunately for him a peace treaty was signed before he had to make good on his offer.

His conversion brought about a radical change and a teaching that many could possibly use to learn today. We are called to be a peculiar people, radically and significantly different from those we associate with in the mainstream, or pagan culture. My concern, in fact it is becoming a conviction, is that our churches stand for virtually nothing today, and what they do stand for I fear they ought not to. There are great things that can be done using the economies of scale of a congregation but it seems to me most exist for the sake of existing and are having no impact on the society.

Part of this is because we are ignorant of those who have gone before us and what they stood and died for. The stories of the saints are the stories of people who did great things and the biblical ideas and conclusions that motivated them, something that I think we ought to discuss more often as we grow in and examine our own faith in more detail. Unless of course Tertullian was wrong and the blood of the martyrs was not the seed of the church.

What are the ideas, the convictions that those who went before us were willing to die for? As Protestants we know about the reformers, but what about those who kept the faith from the very beginning and up to the reformation? Why is more not taught about them and the theology they clung to that caused them to suffer for their faith?