Public Displays of Religion

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With all the hullabaloo recently over Tim Tebow and his very public prayers--
complete with his famous one-knee pose and augmented by his faith statements
virtually every time a microphone appears -- the topic of "Public Faith" has
gained renewed steam both in the media and in everyday conversation...

From bus and cab drivers who argue for the "right" to snarl traffic 3 times a day
to get out and kneel in the street to pray, to the name "Jesus" being banned from
City board meetings, to these "new Atheists" who are suing to remove all vestiges
of "faith" from public life... Seems like everyone has an axe to grind these days
on God, Religion, World Views, and nearly anything else that can be described in
terms of "morals" or "values" or "truth". "Heaven", or "Nirvana", or "Utopia",
it seems, all look drastically different from one person to the next...

Over against all this cacophony, and despite the pervasive Pluralism which typifies
modern life, I find that PUBLIC demonstrations of even the faith that I myself subscribe
to -- indeed, that I deeply believe to be the Absolute Truth -- make me... well...
uncomfortable.

My Skepticism (left over from my atheist years, and still a fundamental part of
how I pursue Truth) already causes me to quietly avoid much of what I see in
modern Christian faith and practice; but beyond that, even as a practicing Christian
myself, public prayers, public (unsolicited) declarations of faith in Jesus, being
confronted by (or watching someone else be confronted by) some "soul-winner"...
These things cause me to experience an odd sense of discomfort, embarrassment,
even uneasiness. It's not because I am "ashamed of the Gospel of Christ", as some
fundamentalist might bark at me; it's just that...

Well, picture this: You walk into a Starbucks and off in the corner are two
teenagers (a guy and a girl!) who are seriously "making out", as if they are
completely alone; they are, unfortunately, completely oblivious to the discomfort
they are causing in everyone else around them, completely absorbed in their selfish
behavior and seemingly unaware of the unspoken, shared sentiment hanging in the air:
"Get a room!"

So it is -- for me -- with regard to public displays of religion: It's one thing
to IDENTIFY oneself with a particular religion (say, a Jewish co-worker wearing a
Yarmulke, or a Muslim neighbor wearing a Hijab, or a Catholic friend displaying
a figurine of the Blessed Virgin on his dashboard); but to create what is essentially
a "worship moment" in a public place -- to publicly PRACTICE a religion -- is, to me,
a different thing, a mis-placed private thing, something that ought to be subordinated to the tastes and comforts of those in the immediate vicinity...
It's hardly "Christian" to completely disregard the feelings and sensibilities and
comforts of those around us so that we can perform some Christian act, eh?
Who are we fooling, here?

Would you pick your nose in public? Scratch yourself, pass gas, tug at your
underwear, or belch loudly, in a public place? Would you break out in song at
a funeral, or play Sousa marches at a wake? Why not? Well, because you want to
be the sort of considerate, humble, kind, thoughtful, and polite person who keeps
the thoughts and feelings and sensibilities of the people around you always at the
forefront of your mind; in a word, you don't want to be RUDE.

It is interesting to note that far more often than not, Jesus Himself prayed in
solitude, away from the crowds (and, today, we could add, cameras and microphones
and cell phones); the kneel-down, public prayer spectacle of Tebow -- sandwiched
between Dorritos commercials and "December to Remember" ads -- only serves to
expand the absolute Media circus we all have to put up with these days, which now,
unfortunately, includes "amazing!", "unbelievable!", YouTube-worthy attractions featuring
"all that religious stuff"...

What does the Bible say about Public Displays of Religion?

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Thoughts on the "Occupy" Rioting

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Riding the crest of broad news coverage lately has been this "movement"
known as "Occupy Wall Street", which is supposed to be some kind of
"people's action" against so-called "corporate greed", "wealth-hoarding",
and a number of other populist themes and ideals. But just as
the real aims, goals, and message of this "movement" are ambiguous,
murky, muddled, and fuzzy, I thought I'd post my own jumble of disconnected
thoughts on what this "movement" is... er... *Seems* to be... I guess?
Sort of? Maybe? Not sure...

One thing's for sure: It ain't no Tea Party

From the very start, this "movement" has been a rag-tag band of squatters,
who have taken over a park in New York near Wall Street and who have
decided to LIVE there, for the time being; reports are that sanitary conditions
are geting worse by the day, with participants urinating in the streets and
strewing their garbage in every direction. In addition, there are fights
and scuffles with local police on a daily basis, vandalism, public nudity,
even -- by some reports -- pot smoking and other drug use going on...
There is even a YouTube video showing a sympathetic Democratic congressman
who came down to speak to some of the rabble, but who was used, instead, as
the centerpiece of a mock-theatre skit intended to show how "ineffectual"
the government is; the congressman never got to speak and wandered away...

This weird, filthy, combative, drug-using mob-mixture has been joined by
all types of anarchists, Union thugs, scoff-laws and other crack-pots for
a street-festival style, political "mardis-gras" of sorts, but the MESSAGE,
if there is one, seems to be nearly impossible to pin down...

Contrast this to the Tea Party:
It's public gatherings have been almost universally calm, clean, peaceful,
and orderly, events which you could easily see your elderly loved ones
participating in and enjoying without fearing for their safety... The message
of the Tea Party has been CLEAR and CONCISE from the beginning; a quick Google search shows that from chapter to chapter, state to state, and from one Tea Party organization to another, the fundamental principles and themes of this movement have been, and are consistent; the Lists vary slightly, but they are all in agreement with these Core Values:

Free Enterprise beats Socialism
Government must be limited
Government spending must be frugal
The Constitution is our supreme guide

I actually agree with SOME of what OWS is supposedly about

To the extent that this quirky OWS "movement" -- and anyone else from the Left --
proclaims that the "Wealthy" ought to "pay their fair share", I completely AGREE
with them; everyone -- rich, poor, and everyone else -- should pay what they
OUGHT to pay (in Taxes), and nobody should have the benefit of Loopholes,
special Tax shelters, or any other mechanism that provides advantages that only
some people get to enjoy...

I also AGREE that the Federal Reserve is a HUGE part of the problem in this
country, and that it ought to be completely dismantled and gotten rid of;
control of the money supply, and the standard on which it is valued (the Gold
Standard), should be the domain of elected Government, not some non-elected,
above-the-law "private club" whose hidden ways-and-means (including heavy
international involvement) affect the financial health and well-being of
virtually all American citizens...

I also AGREE that it's just shameful that a few Executives
at the top levels of most of the world's wealthiest corporations enjoy
ridiculously LAVISH life-styles, funded by corporate profits, while the
"worker bees" of that organization have to struggle to make ends meet, worry
constantly about lay-offs (especially in this dismal economy), and know that
in any case, only a very few will EVER make it to the upper echelons in the organization:
There are only so many keys to the executive restrooms to go around, and
besides, who would want to tee off at the Country Club with
a RECEPTIONIST, anyway?? (Please note the Sarcasm in that last sentence).

The problem is, WHAT TO DO about it... The GUB-ment is absolutely the LAST entity
who should get their incompetent and money-wasting claws into the mix;
and you can't LEGISLATE Morality (as some on the Right have learned over the
years), forcing the Board of Directors at "Corporation X" to push more of the
Profits back down into the company... So what can be done, so that "Susie-Q
Employee" can enjoy more of the rewards that she helped create, by working hard
and doing her job well?? I honestly don't have an answer for that...

But only a Fool believes that if the Wealthy -- and Corporations -- were just
TAXED more, then more Americans could enjoy a higher standard of living via
Government programs. It's axiomatic that the more money the government takes in,
the more it spends, and usually in Deficit mode; so "Tax the Rich" won't have
any noticeable impact whatsoever on the general health, wealth and prosperity
of the OWS mob...

The Bad is drowning out the Good

Unfortunately, any GOOD that might be included in whatever one can make out as
the primary message of this so-called "movement" (which, not surprisingly, has
gone global by now) is being out-shouted by all the BAD associated with it:
The shouting and uproar is from those who've identified themselves as
Anarchists, and Socialists, and Free Loaders; many have been outspoken and
unabashed in their support of the classic Liberal
"Cradle-to-Grave-Government-Dependency" model,
demanding more Big Government spending (without, apparently, a single thought
about the 800-pound gorilla issue, the 14 trillion dollar National Debt);
add to this the disgusting and dangerous public behavior (urination, fights,
drug use, trash everywhere, smashed windows, etc. etc.) and the sum total
is that this so-called "movement" lost any serious consideration before
it was even off the launch pad...

It is, to put it simply, a Riot that will eventually have to be put down with,
probably, military intervention.

"The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it up
or flee from it." -- Voltaire

"A mob has many heads but no brains" -- Thomas Fuller

"Nothing is so contemptible as the sentiments of a mob" -- Seneca
"It is proof of a bad cause when it is applauded by a mob" -- Seneca

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Love is like a Pitching Machine

If you have ever had children and you live in Suburbia, you have probably
been exposed to youth Baseball, played by thousands of youngsters in ball
parks all over the country. A central object at baseball practice (and in
games, until the kids are old enough for real pitching) is the good ol'
Pitching Machine.

It's a pretty simple device, really: A large, rubber wheel spins constantly, and a short section of plastic tubing "feeds" baseballs onto the wheel at just the right speed and angle (and the wheel can be angled up or down, left and right), in order to deliver "perfect pitches" to the small Batter at the plate...

Electricity feeds the rubber wheel, keeping it in constant motion,
whether the coach is putting baseballs (from the bucket nearby) onto the wheel
or not; in this sense, the wheel is continuously ready, willing and able
to serve up pitches because it is always in motion; it never stops.

Well, True Love is an Attitude that is just like that: If LOVE is
in our hearts, if it is always already in motion, if we are continuously
ready to act on its momentum, then when opportunities to demonstrate
LOVE (in hundreds of ways that show Grace and Compassion and Kindness and
Courtesy and Respect and Deference and Generosity and Caring), we won't have to
"switch it on" or suddenly "change tracks in our mind" to now "focus" on
Loving someone; we will be already moving in that direction, indeed,
"primed" for whatever opportunities to practice and demonstrate True Love may
present themselves, all around us, every day...

And the more we practice our "swing", well, the greater our chances are for
hitting those home runs, or at least advancing the runner -- our Neighbor --
to the next base...

So where does this "constant Attitude of True Love" come from?

Attitudes are EFFECTS, not Causes; it follows, then, to examine Causes:
It begins with Thinking: "Seek wisdom, seek Understanding", Proverbs tells us;
How we THINK (and WHAT we Think) lays the groundwork for, and begins to set
in stone, what we BELIEVE. Then, our Beliefs -- reviewed, supported, grown,
and erected -- begin to produce in us certain ATTITUDES about the nature of
the thing being Believed, and very often, about the World in general.
The last bit is that it is most often our Attitudes which drive our BEHAVIORS.

Put simply, it looks like this:

THINKING establishes (or "causes") BELIEFS
BELIEFS foster (or "cause") ATTITUDES
ATTITUDES determine (or "cause") BEHAVIORS

So, logically, the first place to focus when we want to create an Attitude
of True Love inside ourselves (and this should be our constant prayer...
"God change me, fill me with Your Love and make me a conduit of Your Love
to those around me") is to go back to how we THINK, about God, about ourselves,
and about those around us...

Indeed, is this not the main purpose of going to church, of reading
the scriptures, of reading good Christian literature, and of surrounding
ourselves with mature, humble, spiritual Christian companionship? To bring us
back, again and again, to the TRUTH of God (Thinking), which can then buttress
or change) our Beliefs, and which then can change our ATTITUDES, resulting in
more mature, God-like Behaviors? "...be being made complete..."

So ponder the Pitching Wheel today. Ask yourself if, right now, in your Heart,
you have this "Attitude of Love", already in motion to imitate Christ,
by "taking the very nature of a servant" and by "washing one another's feet"...
If we don't find that Attitude pervading our hearts, it's time to Think,
deeply, about whether or not the Christ-life is alive in us.
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2 Problems with Materialism

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For the philosophically uninitiated, the philosophy of Materialism (and here I am
paraphrasing) suggests that the only plane of Reality is the physical world; indeed,
sometimes philosophers use the words "Physicalism" and "Materialism"
interchangeably...

Especially in matters of Mind, a strict Materialist will insist that what we refer
to as "Mind" is merely the emergent result of the physical workings of the Brain;
that a Thought, or an Emotion, is merely the result of the chemical and
physiological workings of the organ inside our skulls, and that anything like a
"Mind" (or any other "Force" or "Influence" on that "alleged Mind") is quite
literally traceable to areas in the Brain and the chemical and physiological
processes going on in that region...

Well there are two huge problems with that philosophy and the central role
it plays in many modern World Views:

Truth becomes Impossible
An internal combustion engine works by having Gasoline injected into, say, eight
cylinders; the spark plugs (powered by the battery) provide a "spark" that causes
the gas in the cylinder chamber to explode, forcing the cylinder downward, and a
spring brings it back up. If all the cylinders are "firing" properly, the
aggregate "energy" from the engine is fed into the transmission systems,
eventually finding its way to the wheels, which spin the tires, and the automobile
is put into motion. (This is a recap from a strict amateur on how this all works,
but I think I may have got the basic details right...)

Now, there is nothing whatsoever specially "TRUE" about any of these details;
you would not say that a properly-functioning engine produced some kind of
"statement" about Reality that is "True" (or "False"), and neither can anyone say
that the mechanical, physiological, chemical "firings" in the Brain produce any
kind of "Truth"; they simply DO what they DO, as physical properties; they do not
establish, by themselves, any kind of FACT.

Indeed, statements ABOUT these chemical processes can be "True" or "False,
but if nothing exists EXCEPT those processes, then even those statements lose
all meaning. A physical process cannot make any claims about itself; it just
DOES what it DOES, making no statements and offering no insights on Reality.

So Materialism defeats itself because even the very statement "The Material world
is all there is" is not something mere chemical processes would ever assert.
Something OUTSIDE of those processes -- something BEYOND the chemicals --
has to be *observing* those chemicals in order to arrive at conclusions ABOUT
those chemicals. TRUTH, then, becomes impossible in a purely Materialist world,
since NO "thought" (even about Materialism!) can rise above the physiology.

Localization assumes way too much
Quite a few modern atheist/materialist/naturalist/reductionist Neuro-Scientists
(and others who trumpet the conclusions of this group as some kind of "proof"
that "Science" has figured it all out) are claiming to have found the "God" part
of the Brain, and proudly demonstrate how their various tools -- advanced brain
scans, high-resolution MRIs, etc. -- can pinpoint parts of the Brain that
"light up" when the subject is said to be having some sort of "religious
experience"... "See, it's all just Brain activity!" they gloat...
This is sometimes called "Localization", the idea that certain experiences
*come from* and are *local to* certain portions of the Brain...

You can take a simple radio and apply various electronic tools to "track"
precisely where, in the circuitry, the Sound of your favorite radio station
seems to be occurring at any given moment; but does that mean, then, that the
SOUND originates from, and remains resident in, those electronic components?
Of course not: The Signal is coming from a radio tower somewhere near enough
to be picked up by the radio, and these electronic components ACT on it --
"modulate" it -- in various ways to present the Sound to your ears (we could
talk about Sound "only happening in your ears", too).

So while it may be true that a Neuro-Scientist's tools can identify WHERE in
the Brain certain functions occur, it does NOT follow, then, that those portions
of the Brain are RESPONSIBLE for the *production* of specific events.
Something -- like a Mind -- could be *operating on* or *passing through* that
portion of the Brain, which then lights up the Scientist's detection tools, but
the SOURCE of that activity may very well be something the Materialist simply
cannot capture, measure, or pin down...


I get a little weary of the scientific community dressing up their assumptions
in lofty rhetoric and then excoriating anyone who challenges those assumptions.

But then we Christians know precisely why they do it, don't we...
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Practicing the call to be "Slow to Speak"

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I'm not sure where I heard this, though I am sure that it was when
I was a youngster... And I've heard it a number of times, in various ways,
over the years: These are some great "Guidelines" to help us with the
spiritual discipline of being "slow to speak", as we're encouraged to do
in James 1:19. Indeed, if we were to devote a great deal of energy into
just these three guidelines -- "be quick to listen, slow to speak, and
slow to become angry" -- what a blessing we could be to those around us,
and in so doing, co-operate more fully with the work of the Holy Spirit
inside us and display the glory of Christ more evidently to the world...

So here are some "guidelines" that can help us rein in our speech:

Is it TRUE?
We obviously ought not run around spouting things that are not True;
the absolute Lies are the easy ones. But what about things we say
that we do not KNOW to be True, for certain? Have we got our Facts
quite right? How much of what we blather on about is mere opinion?
If it isn't TRUE, then it shouldn't be said.

Does it NEED to be said?
OK so fine, it's true that that co-worker is lazy, or that man over
there doesn't bathe and is a rather disgusting fellow; yes, it's true,
those comments were sarcastic, but does it not foment additional
animosity to point it out? Might it not be more gracious to let it go,
and let the speaker (hopefully) be impacted by the silence that follows
their caustic remarks? All those bitter opinions, all those cut-downs,
the snide remarks, the brow-beating, the under-the-breath comments in
judgment of someone else... Even if these are True, do they really
NEED to be said? How are they a blessing to anyone who hears them??
If it's True but doesn't NEED to be said, consider not saying it at all

Does it need to be said RIGHT NOW?
There are many, many times where a given comment or remark is
purely benign, or maybe even helpful, and would be a good thing to say,
but is NOW the right time to say it? If my brother is hunched over the
motor of his car and is obviously straining and grunting, trying to get
the wrench positioned just right and is putting all his energy into the
effort, should I choose that precise moment to offer help, distracting him
and forcing him to focus on something other than what he's working so
hard at? Might it not be better to WAIT a minute or two? What makes me
think that my comment or question (True, and Needed) needs to be spoken
right now, urgently, no matter what else may be going on with those
around me?
If it's True, and Needed, but doesn't need to be said RIGHT NOW,
consider waiting to say it until a more appropriate moment...

Can it be said NICELY?
So fine, this all-important Comment or Remark or (often rhetorical) Question
is True, it Needs to be said, and it needs to be said Right Now... Can it
at least be said Nicely? My daughter is going out of the house in an outfit
that her parents don't approve of; our son is making a pest of himself in
a group of people we're with; my assessment of the situation, and the comment
I want to make about it is TRUE, and yes it probably does NEED to be said,
and because of the timing of the situation, it does need to be said RIGHT NOW;
but can I not calm my rising anger a great deal, take one second to breathe,
formulate a firm-but-encouraging Instruction for her/him, and deliver it with
a tone more like a "coach" than like a tyrant? How much more of a blessing
could we be to those around us if we simply spoke more NICELY, and with more
GRACE injected into our words and tone?
If it's True, and it Needs to be said, and it needs to be said Right Now,
then at least try to find a Nice way to phrase and deliver it...

It's not difficult to see that the first of these would capture a great deal
of what we let flow out of our mouths every day; the second would filter out
another huge segment; the third would relieve those around us of our self-imposed
sense of "urgency" to speak; the fourth would render what is left over much
more like "apples of gold in pictures of silver" (or, "a word fitly spoken",
and again, "a gentle answer turns away wrath")... Proverbs has quite a bit
to say on this topic.

May God Himself help us to devote ourselves to following these simple
"guidelines" for how we manage that poisonous piece of flesh behind
our teeth...

"Those who consider themselves religious and yet
do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves,
and their religion is worthless." - James 1:26

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Natural vs. UN-Natural LOVE

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In thinking about our mandate to love God and to love those around us,
it's critical that we come to a deep understanding of what Love even means,
and that we dedicate ourselves to the life-long process of studying and
practicing Love... Make no mistake: The central theme and compelling directive
of the Gospel is LOVE; anything less is mere religion, and profits us nothing.

As I've noted here on TPoG before, there is perhaps no better Context in which
to understand and to practice True Love than Marriage; and in regard to this
"proving ground for Love", I had a realization yesterday that I don't think
I've ever had, before:

Married Love is UN-NATURAL.

I heard someone say recently that they know what "True Love" is, referencing
relationships with Siblings, Parents, and even that "first love" romance from
high school; but as I pondered this, I began to see a very clear difference
between these Loves and Husband-Wife love.

The Love one experiences for both Siblings and Parents is what might be called
"Natural Love", that is, it springs from a relationship in which we find ourselves
beginning at birth, having made no *choice* to Love and yet growing to feel,
naturally, the strength of a bond often described with the phrase, "blood is
thicker than water". We grow up in these relationships experiencing a deep filial
affection, a certain "you belong with me" connection that is, from the start,
a central part of our very identity; family ties are who we are, to a very
great degree, and while not all Family ties are necessarily loving and happy and
blessed, they are relationships we are born into, natural and normal
realities that define us throughout our entire lives...

Married Love, however, is NOT Natural, it is UN-Natural: It begins with a Contract
in which both parties vow that certain behaviors can be expected of them until
death parts them; it is the voluntary sealing of the relational "escape hatch" with
Vows that are meant to hold the relationship together specifically when one or the
other, or both, are desperately seeking a way out; and it is the life-long
determination of two deeply sinful and (often) wildly different parties to devote
themselves, BOTH of them, to building, strengthening, and deepening a Bond that is
designed to be "one flesh", a single, new "Super-person".

Contrary to Family love, Married love does NOT arise naturally, by definition; it is
NOT present from birth, and it is NOT an innate part of any of our identities; it
requires, like a garden, a tremendous amount of work, and maintenance, and care and
feeding, so that the couple can mutually enjoy the benefits of its Fruits.
The "weeds" of selfishness, and apathy, and indifference, and infidelity, and many
more, are a constant threat; and, tragically, its Bonds can be broken, by either
party at any time, whereas Family relationships cannot be, at least by definition,
ever be broken: We will ALWAYS be our Siblings' sibling, and our Parents' children,
no matter what any of us ever chooses to do...

Interesting, then, to consider that the relationship of Christ and His Church is
described, primarily, not as a "family" relationship but as a MARRIAGE relationship:
An UN-Natural relationship we must enter into by choice, from which we often stray,
and for which we must "die daily"... This UN-Natural Love requires commitment and
work and fidelity; and yet, ironically, its ultimate Fruit will, when we are finally
and perfectly Glorified, be the transformation of an UN-Natural Love into
a NATURAL Love, a Bond that will last for all eternity.

This then is the highest Love and the most dramatic of all, the epitome of
True Love, our deepest need and our greatest joy.
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Heaven, Hell, and Christian Love

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Just recently, a new book was released by popular evangelical icon Rob Bell,
entitled "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person
Who Ever Lived". I've read the book twice, and I've read other Christian
who have reviewed the book... In addition, I've listened to Rob Bell himself
discuss the book, and I've read other works by Mr. Bell and seen a number of his
YouTube videos (he's very good with modern technology and the tools of what has
come to be known as "Social Media"), so I think I have a good handle on his basic
perspective on our Faith... Indeed, the themes of most of the current crop of
post-modern Christian "pop-culture" figures are strikingly similar:
Read or listen to one and you're sufficiently introduced to them all...

His central thesis is that both the Love that God offers the world through Christ,
and therefore "heaven", can be experienced in the here and now (as well as in the
"afterlife"), and conjointly, that "hell" begins for us as the suffering and pain
we experience in our lives right now... He claims to believe in a literal Heaven
and a literal Hell, based on his understanding of the Bible, but that seems to be
more or less where adherence to traditional doctrine on these topics ends.

In my view, and as I understand the fundamentals of our Faith, I think Mr. Bell's
position on these topics is dangerously close to "it-means-whatever-works-for-you"
Post-Modernism, most especially as it concerns what the Love of God is really about;
indeed, the book seems, to me, to be a classic example of this new "Social Gospel"
that has become so prevalent in modern times... A watered-down substitute for
Scriptural themes that attempts to sponge away the "nasty" stuff in favor of
interpretations that are nicer to hear... But, as in so many other areas of life,
Error is most pernicious when it has a bit of Truth mixed into it...

Based on what the Bible says, clearly, in plain Enlish (no Theology degree, or
slick YouTube video, required), we understand that God DOES love the entire world,
every man, woman and child who has ever lived; it's also clear that God is not
willing that ANY perish (that is, to CHOOSE to REJECT the cleansing from Sin
through the blood of Jesus, and to DENY His Deity and Lordship); indeed the Bible
is utterly explicit that SIN is the problem between God and Man; but since -- as
the Bible explains -- we are free to choose or reject God, there will in fact be
some who reject Jesus, and God's Love... That choice MUST, at some point, become
permanent, and when it does -- when that Soul has lost all Hope and when all
Goodness and Truth and Beauty are removed from its existence, and when that Soul's
SIN Nature is fully, tragically perfected -- that Soul will BE Hell-ish
and will be IN Hell.

Since even the most evil person alive on this planet at least has EVIDENCE of the
Goodness and Truth and Beauty of God around him -- though he may take no notice --
he is NOT, in fact, yet in Hell, no matter how evil his heart is; Hell is not only
the complete and profound REMOVAL of any hint of God... It is a state which -- no
matter HOW badly the Soul suffers there -- is still (stunningly) preferred by
the damned Soul, and so will be, forever... Souls in Hell cannot be rescued
because they WILL not be rescued...

Mr. Bell speaks very infrequently about the Biblical theme of SIN; as for Love,
he is rather weak on what God's Love for us MEANS: Ultimately, God loves us just
like a Father loves his children: We "accept" them and "Love" them the way they
are, right now, but on a deeper and wider level, our "Love" for them leaves us
UNSATISFIED with them in their current state and desiring for them the very BEST
"grown-up" they can ultimately be; we view our role as Parents as the chief
"agents" or "coaches" to help them GET there...

...so God's Love for us begins there: What is the ultimate "ME" I can possibly be?
Well, a Glorified SAINT, in the end: Perfected by God, radiating His Glory,
reflecting that Glory back to Him in a way that only I -- as a unique creation of
God -- can do, and thoroughly enjoying the process of doing so forever and ever.
When God is finished with me, I will BE Heaven-ish and I will be IN Heaven...

But even the most sanctified person alive on this planet still has, at least,
some trace of the SIN Nature inside him, and evidence of evil all around him,
and so is NOT, in fact, IN Heaven just yet; indeed, the Love of God inside us is
intended to motivate us to reach out in Love to each other, desiring very
passionately to help those around us move on toward becoming the Glorified
SAINT that God wants to make of THEM, too...

Mr. Bell's views reflect a trend in some modern Christian circles to dilute these
very strong Biblical themes and to apply them to a much broader audience; it seems
that he seeks to lessen the "sting" of the end result of rejecting Jesus, and to
minimize the impact of the concept of SIN by focusing on a somewhat vague,
egalitarian sense of "love"...

We should be on our guard against any tendency in us toward "itching ears",
hearing what we want to hear instead of what we NEED to hear, the strong meat
of the Scriptures. Part of what we read there is that most Souls will
reject the truth of the Gospel, in contrast to Mr. Bell's fundamental
position that ALL will, eventually, be saved...

But the Scriptures are very clear on these topics; we must continue, as millions
of Christians have, down through the centuries, to submit ourselves to their
teachings, no matter how difficult they may seem to be.
May God grant us more grace.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate
and broad is the road that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads
to life, and only a few find it." -- MAT 7:13-14

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Heaven Can Wait

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This 1978 film -- starring Warren Beatty -- was a rather comedic look at
what can happen when a trip to Heaven is postponed by other things...

For some Christians -- certainly for the stereo-typical Evangelist -- Heaven
CAN'T wait; indeed, the pitch most often heard, and repeated even among those
who have no interest in Christianity -- goes something like this:

"Accept Jesus and go to Heaven!" And often the reverse is added or implied:
"Refuse Jesus and go to... well... That Other Place."

Other versions include these: "Do you know where you will go when you die?"...
"It's okay, Grandpa, Grandma is in Heaven"...

This, however, is just like saying that Newlyweds look forward to their
Honeymoon so that they can enjoy nice hotel accommodations, which is,
of course, ridiculous: Newlyweds look forward to the Honeymoon with tremendous
anticipation so that they can be togehter, so that they can
consumate their marriage vows in every sense of the word; it's meant to
be an incredibly beautiful and private and intimate time of Bonding, in body
as well as mind and spirit and soul... Sure, the hotel accommodations are a part
of that mystical, magical, joyful time, but that is a secondary condition;
clearly, the focus is Togetherness.

No wonder, then, that Scripture describes the relationship between Christ and
His Church not in terms of geography, but in terms of Relationship,
most specifically a MARRIAGE relationship.

When we die, and after we are finally and eternally PERFECTED by our Bridegroom
and presented to Him, our highest and greatest Hope is to enjoy TOGETHERNESS
with Him for all eternity, NOT primarily to co-habitate with Him in nice accommodations...

To the extent that any Christian grounds their Hope on GEOGRAPHY in the after-life,
they are in very great danger of missing the whole point of becoming a Christian
at all: The process of Transformation, from a creature beset by Sin and Self and
into a Saint, fully glorified by God, reflecting HIS Truth and Goodness and Beauty
forever, in a way that only they -- as a Unique soul created by God Himself -- can do
once Glorification (Perfection) has been accomplished.

That Transformation can -- and should! -- be going on already in the heart of every
Christian. If a Christian is single-mindedly focused on Geography in the
"sweet by-and-by", they are likely to miss out on the JOY of enjoying the first-fruits
of that Transformation process in the here-and-now...
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How to Love God -- Part 1

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It doesn't take a great deal of studying the Christian faith to understand
that the central Theme of Christianity is LOVE, beginning with God's
unfailing, unflappable, passionate love for us, and then as a response, on
our part, by first loving God Himself and then loving one another in the
same way that we love ourselves... As a foundation for leaning how
to love God, consider these things:

-- The very Nature of God is a 3-way community of Love
which we call the "Trinity", or, Tri-Unity (Three-in-One)

-- God created Humankind because Love seeks to share Itself;
it spills out, overflows, and spreads Truth and Beauty and
Goodness in every direction; so God made Man in order to
continue sharing LOVE, with free-will Souls who could love Him
in return... in a relationship of Love...

-- This is not some weak, foolish love that ignores the hard
questions: All the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament were
foreshadows of the final sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God,
an act that would settle forever the requirement for Justice
wherever there is Evil...

-- ... all because of God's profound, passionate, radical LOVE
for every human Soul that ever has or ever will exist... Each
of whom is a unique product of God's infinite, creative genius...

-- Isaiah 53 makes it clear that God has virtually NO INTEREST in
"religion" per se, but in Justice and Mercy, Self-Sacrifice and
Service to others...

-- To those who understand and accept that Love, God reveals, in
and through the Person of Jesus Christ, just two Commands:
LOVE Me, and LOVE those nearest to you even as you are
loving yourself.

-- Jesus Himself said that the HALLMARK of what would define
His disciples would be their LOVE for each other...

-- Paul wrote to the Corinthians that LOVE is the greatest of
the three Christian transcendentals; he went into great detail to
explain that even Faith and Hope are nothing compared to Love...

So it would seem patently clear that if we are "majoring on the majors and
minoring on the minors", we will understand that LOVE ought to be the
fundamental pillar around which we build our faith and our lives.


The best place to begin, then, is at the beginning:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength and with all your mind", and, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
(Luke 10:27, where Jesus quoted an aggregate of Old Testament sources)

So what does it mean? How do we love God?

Some believers would answer instantly, reflexively, along the lines of,
"Loving God means obeying Him." Well, there are some serious difficulties
with that answer:

Logical Circularity
We're to love God... fine, how? Obey Him. Great. Obedience means doing
what He has commanded; what has He commanded? First and foremost,
Love Him. Fine, so how do we do that? Well, obey Him.
And how do we do that...? (ad infinitum...)

You see the problem, I'm sure: If we answer the "how?" by saying that
loving God means (simply) "obeying" Him, we run into an endless cycle.
Furthermore, you can Obey without Loving, but you cannot Love without Obeying,
so it seems clear that obedience is predicated on Love, and the question
before us is how to Love God; in other words, we'll be obeying God WHEN we
have learned how to love Him, as PART of loving Him...

The next stage of that answer that some might give would be, "well, it means
obeying [all the other commands]"... But if God Himself has said [all the other
commands] boil down to just those TWO, we're right back where we started,
are we not? And didn't Jesus point out, to the Pharisees during His ministry,
the emptiness of following "the Law" without having a genuine love for God?
Jesus borrows a passage from Isaiah 29 and describes them this way:
"These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me"
(Mt. 15:8). It seems clear, then, that God isn't interested simply in
"obedience"; He wants LOVE, so loving God must mean something else...

The Heart
If I tell my son, "please clean the kitchen", and he does so, does that prove
that he loves me? If I tell my daughter to say "Thank You" when someone
pays her a compliment, does that prove that she is indeed thankful?

The obvious answer to both is "of course not." No, I want my son to
want to PLEASE his father by doing the things I ask; I want my daughter to
actually BE thankful when someone says something nice to her. The mere
ACT of cleaning, the mere WORDS "thank you", mean almost nothing to me
if their HEARTS are not in it... God isn't interested in mere "obedience",
He is interested in our hearts, and in our actually and truly and genuinely
LOVING Him, with our Hearts and Minds and Souls and Strengths...
In a word, COMPLETELY...


WOW.
So how do we do THAT?


It's no overstatement to say that I (as do many Christians, I'm sure) ponder
this thought constantly. I came across these helpful thoughts recently
as I've investigated this issue (click the bolded text to view)...

While I think the writer still misses the point, I was struck by the exploration
of the Greek words for "Love" that are used in these verses admonishing us
to love God... I know next to nothing about Greek, but I am impacted by the use
of this word "AGAPAO" ("ah-guh-PAH-oh"), a verb which, in many of its uses,
means "to be totally consumed with"... We are to be "totally consumed with"
God Himself, a Real Person... But how?

"Make Him Lord of your life"... These and other Christian catch-phrases don't
quite do it, I'm afraid; when you truly LOVE someone, you don't need to erect
philosophical banners over your life reminding you of that fact; you just
genuinely and truly and sincerely LOVE, and it comes out of you -- spills out --
all over the place, more and more naturally as the relationship grows...


OK, so how can we be actually and sincerely "totally consumed" with God,
a Person whom we have never seen, never met (not really), never heard
speak (not really), nor smelled, nor touched, and even have some difficulty
imagining?

Let's think on this for a bit,
and then go further in Part 2.

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The Gospel is like Warm Water

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These frigid days being experienced by nearly the entire Midwest
region of the country brings to mind an analogy of what the Gospel
is really like:

When you spend a lot of time outdoors in weather like this, you
of course get a sense that your hands are cold, but it's often a rather
vague sense, because your whole body -- including your hands -- has
acclimated to the cold and you're focused on whatever it is you're
doing (like putting out the trash or picking up those branches that
have fallen, or enjoying sledding with your kids)... You KNOW your hands
are cold, but you just kind of "accept" it as part of your condition...

But then you go inside and put your hands under the water faucet, with
the handle turned all the way to HOT... As the stream of water begins
to heat up, running over your hands, it actually HURTS at first; and actual
sharp PAINS shoot through your hands and you are tempted to pull away...

But you keep your hands under the water, and pain turns to tingling,
and tingling subsides into tepid, and tepid warms you up until your hands
begin to feel NORMAL again...

They turn back into a healthy shade of "pink", and you can even feel
that warmth spreading through your arms and even your whole body...

The Gospel is just like that: We don't perceive at first JUST HOW BADLY
we've frozen our souls; and the initial Treatment from a true understanding of
the Gospel brings PAIN at first; but the more we remain under its influence,
we sense our hearts warming, our minds opening up, our fears and frustrations
and prejudices and deep-seated Hate and Lust and Greed and Laziness being
exposed and soothed away... And we smile a grateful smile as we begin to enjoy
the warmth...

... and that thawed Heart begins to acknowledge God and the act of RESCUE
He is performing in us, a Rescue we didn't even know, really, that we needed
when we were galloping through the frozen Winter of the World and its paltry
and self-destructive amusements...

Letting that warmth change us forever, and sharing that warmth with others...
And someday experiencing COMPLETE warmth and eternal Enjoyments...
That's "The Rest of The Story", from the Christian's perspective.
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The Other Half of Forgiveness

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The Bible has a lot to say about Forgiveness and its central role
in the life of a Believer; Jesus Himself included it in the Lord's Prayer,
and He specifically told His disciples, "if you forgive men when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not
forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Mathew 6:14,15

In my own spiritual journey, I've come to understand Forgiveness as an utterly
fundamental goal of the process of Sanctification in our lives,
along with Humility and Wisdom, and all three of those rooted and grounded in the
most supreme quality of all, LOVE Itself...

As I've pondered this, and read a great deal on it, I've come to understand that
there are really two halves to this idea of Forgiveness; most of us understand
the first, but perhaps few have contemplated the second:

Debt Relief
When we extend TRUE Forgiveness to someone, we are saying to them, "I permanently
waive any 'debt' that you owe to me for what you've said or done to me; I will not
attempt to 'get back at you' or otherwise and in any way try to 'punish' you or
make you feel 'guilty' for this offense."

Like so much of the Christian world view, this would seem to go totally contrary
to the World's perspective, which preaches that we have the "right" to exact
justice for harms we've suffered, to "get back" at someone, to "make them pay"
for what they've done... Sometimes, though, even the secular world understands
that this kind of retributive approach not only (a) eats away at one's soul, but
also (b) ignores the truth that we ALL sometimes do and/or say things that we, too,
need Forgiveness for...

This is a hard thing to do, most of the time -- to let go of our "right"
to "hit back" -- but it is fundamental to the Sanctification of our souls to
understand this requirement and to practice it daily. There is no way around it.

Restoration
Some years ago, someone I knew -- I'll call this person "Pat" -- unleashed a
furious tirade against me over some inconsequential circumstance, saying horrible
things and non-verbally communicating a good deal of hostility and malice toward me,
wild-eyed and waving arms... It was quite a sight...

The next morning, Pat came to me, teary-eyed, noting the bad behavior and expressing
remorse over it; for my part, I wanted to share, in that moment, how the behavior
had made me feel and what some of the real circumstances were that had apparently
"caused" the tirade... I didn't get 2 sentences out before Pat's expression changed
to a hardened, patronizing glare, and the rebuke I received was, "I've said I was
sorry, now YOU need to Forgive..."

It became immediately apparent that Pat's only goal was to be absolved of Guilt,
to have me apply salve to a stinging conscience, only so that Pat could feel
better... The "apology" really had nothing to do with me at all; I was only a
player in Pat's quest to obtain personal peace and a restored view of Self...

Well of course I had already forgiven Pat the night before, almost as soon as
it happened (as we become more and more aware of our OWN desperate need for
continual Forgiveness, it becomes easier and easier to Forgive others quickly
and sincerely)... But what Pat's reaction made me realize was that Pat had no
interest in RELATIONSHIP, either before or after the incident...

In many human relationships, and certainly in our relationship to God,
the "second half" of Forgiveness -- the GOAL of Forgiveness -- is the beginning
of RESTORATION of that relationship...

Restoration is the process (and sometimes it may be a long process) of building
back the Trust that was damaged by the behavior, to arrive once again at the level
of Intimacy that the relationship is intended to provide... God certainly FORGIVES
us when we sin, and He is even willing to expedite the Restoration process, I have
to believe, but we might do well to ask ourselves, when we ask for
"Forgiveness", do we really intend to then move on toward Restoration?
Is it relationship with God that we seek, or mere absolution of our own feelings
of Guilt?

Thanks be to God that Jesus took on the Guilt and then the Punishment
for our sins, and one day (as part of the completion of our Sanctification)
our Sinfulness will be ripped away (and I believe it's going to be painful), but
for now, we can enjoy Forgiveness when we ask God for it sincerely, and we can even
begin, just a little bit, to enjoy something like Relationship to Him, in this life,
if perhaps shrouded in mystery, for now...
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Why Illegal Immigration is a Big Deal

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There has been lots of news coverage of Arizona and its new
Illegal Immigration law for the past few months, and it seems,
if FaceBook and the Blogosphere are any indication, that there
are a good many Red Herring opinions and views being tossed
about in the public square... Here's my own attempt to put the
issue in the light of Common Sense (not so common in today's
highly-charged political environment)...

Let's say you own a large apartment complex. You've invested
a great deal of your time and money in this real estate venture,
and for a long time everything went well: Your Tenants are,
for the most part, just what you'd hope for: They all have
jobs, they obey the by-laws they signed when they first came
to you, they keep their units in good condition, and (perhaps
most importantly) they pay the Rent on time.

In addition to providing them a nice place to live, you're
successful enough in this venture to provide -- using a small
portion of their Rent and other Dues -- a pool, a clubhouse,
and even Group Rate insurance for the complex as a whole.
The local police and fire services are good, there are 2
"Urgent Care" facilities nearby that welcome your Tenants,
and the entire complex has gained a reputation as being one
of the nicest places to live in your city.

Then trouble develops in this paradise: You find that some
of the newer Tenants are sneaking in their relatives, and units
that (by law and in practical terms) are meant for 6 people are
now occupied by 12; some are violating your "No Pets" policy
by harboring dogs and cats, and your visits to some of their
units smell of urine and dog-hair; you find ample evidence of
children in the sections clearly designated as "adults only",
and you even suspect drug activity going on here and there.

Then things get worse: Local police have begun to be called
on a regular basis because you are discovering break-ins in the
middle of the night to a number of your units, many of which are
encouraged and abetted by the Tenants themselves!

At great cost to you, you erect a Privacy fence around your
entire complex, and you post "No Trespassing" signs aplenty,
but to your dismay you find intruders climbing the fence, or
cutting their way through it, not only in the middle of the night
but more often now right in broad daylight!

Squatters are now frequently busting their way into vacant units,
your "good" Tenants are either moving out or cowering in their
units out of fear -- as guns and violence are now more prevalent
than ever -- and the situation is CLEARLY out of control as more
and more invaders flood into the complex...

NOW,

Just how LONG could you be in business in a situation like that?
Would there not be an immediate need to address this crisis and
put a stop to this? Can you agree that continued invasions and
lawlessness along these lines will ultimately DESTROY this complex?

Nobody is saying that the squatters -- the invaders -- are not
human beings, and perhaps SOME of them are trespassing ILLEGALLY
into your complex because they want to work for some of your Tenants;
but how can you tell which is which? And isn't it TRUE that you
want A) only those who are SUPPOSED to be there (have signed a contract
with you and can pay the rent) to be there? and B) if they want
to "work" inside the complex, they should AT LEAST come through
the FRONT GATE and do things in an HONEST and LEGAL way???

I simply cannot understand the mindset that LOOKS THE OTHER WAY
as throngs of Illegals flood into this country, consume resources,
and (at worst) are bent, many of them, on carrying out their
nefarious intentions. Does NATIONAL SECURITY not mean anything??
Does the physical safety and security of LEGAL Americans along
our southern border not MATTER to the bleeding-hearts who see these
Illegals as poor, hungry "victims" who only seek to "work"?
Is there any naivte so profound as this?

And instead of protecting its CITIZENS, the current administration
is SUING Arizona for trying to enforce a FEDERAL law that has been
on the books for 70 years. It seems the leadership of the country
has completely lost its mind.

I don't know what the end of all this will be, but as the
destruction of America accelerates, one can only shake ones head
in disbelief and dismay. NOTHING is being done about the problem
and more Washington "committees" and "meetings" on so-called
"Immigration Reform" will never stop a single bullet. It's time
for real Leadership again in this country.

One more point:

Some are saying, "We're a nation of immigrants", which of course
is true; but there is Immigration that helps, enriches, expands,
and contributes to our melting-pot nation; THIS situation is
NOT that kind of Immigration, and it's a disgrace to those who
endured so much, for so long, to at last reach our shores LEGALLY
to call it such.
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The Faith of an Atheist

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In talking to the average atheist, you are likely to hear them making statements
such as, "I have no religion; I am not religious", or "my world view has nothing
to do with 'faith', it's all based on science and reason." These, or some
variation of these, are themes in their discussions.

But when there are very good counter arguments, or scientific data, or any sort of
patent lack of certainty in any given discipline about which they've already
drawn conclusions (or accepted as fact the ones fed to them), wouldn't something like
"faith" be required to continue to retain those conclusions in spite of evidence
to the contrary?

Indeed, isn't the response of "well, science will figure out the answer someday"
an absolute Faith statement? Of course it is.

So it seems, like it or not, that atheists exercise faith every bit as much
as Theists do, only with a different anchor. Consider these examples of the
blind faith of atheism:

Cosmology

Cosmologists have identified more than two dozen constants in the laws of Physics
that are required, and required in precisely the right amounts, with infinitesimally
allowable degrees of variation with each one, to allow for the existence of Planet
Earth and for its complex Life forms.

The odds that ANY of these would be so finely tuned are very small indeed, and the
odds that ALL of them would be in precise relation to each other are so small that
we can rationally assert that it is IMPOSSIBLE that Planet Earth and its complex
Life forms could have come about by mere Chance.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html#RezFp675GVHF

AND YET, a typical atheist will thunder and rail against any hint of
Intelligent Design, insulting its supporters, because of their blind faith in a
god-LESS Cosmology and a god-LESS Darwinian approach to origins.

Metaphysics

Here is what Richard Dawkins -- a modern-day atheist preacher -- has to say:

"An atheist ... is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural,
physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind
the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles -- except
in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand. If there is
something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now
imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it
within the natural." -- from "The God Delusion"

AND SO, Dawkins proclaims his faith that against-all-odds, and despite
things "we don't yet understand", Naturalism will someday explain everything...

Wired Magazine

... and yet, other atheists maintain that this kind of wild hope -- zealous Faith --
is precisely the problem:

In an article in the latest issue of "Wired" (known for, among other things, its
antagonism toward Creationism, Religion, and all things Conservative), a staff
writer (probably unwittingly) lent support to a fundamental Intelligent Design
principle: Irreducible Complexity, which is the idea that the basic building blocks
of Life are composed of highly complex and interconnected systems, *machines*,
which, if broken apart, would cause those systems to cease to function.

Speaking of science, this writer says scientists continue to foolishly pursue
something like a "Theory of Everything", touting the latest tool or gizmo or theory
to do far, far more than it is capable of:

"Time and time again, an experimental gadget gets introduced...
and we're told it will allow us to glimpse the underlying logic of
everything... But the tool always disappoints, doesn't it?
We soon realize that those pretty pictures are incomplete and that
we can't reduce our complex subject to a few colorful spots...
Scientists...should anticipate that the Universe is always more
networked and complicated than reductionist approaches can
reveal."

He goes on to say,

"Thanks to [recent advances in Neuroscience, there is now a] mandate
to forgo the measurement of local spikes in blood flow in favor of
teasing apart the vast electrical loom of the cortex. God and Love are
nowhere to be found -- and most of the time we have no idea what we're
looking at. But that confusion is a good sign. The brain isn't simple;
our pictures of the brain shouldn't be, either."

He finishes by noting that Reality is more like a Cloud than a Clock:

"Karl Popper, the great philosopher of science, once divided
the world into two categories: Clocks and Clouds. Clocks are neat,
orderly systems that can be solved through reduction; Clouds are
an epistemic mess, 'highly irregular disorderly, and more or less
unpredictable'.

The mistake of modern science is to pretend that everything is a Clock,
which is why we get seduced again and again by the false promises of
brain scanners and gene sequencers. We want to believe we will understand
Nature if we find the exact right tool to cut its joints. But that
approach is doomed to failure. We live in a Universe not of Clocks
but of Clouds."

STILL, atheists believe so fervently in the lofty and vaunted
capabilities of science that they will not abandon that faith even in the
face of constant, less-than-stellar outcomes...

Neuroscience

Jerry Fodor, a Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist at Rutgers University, continues
this theme:

"We don't know what makes some cognitive states conscious.
(Indeed, we don't know what makes any mental state, cognitive
or otherwise, conscious, or why any mental state, cognitive or
otherwise, bothers with being conscious.) Also, we don't know
much about how cognitive states and processes are implemented by
neural states and processes."

"We don't even know whether they are (though many of us are
prepared to assume so faut de mieux). And we don't know how
cognition develops (if it does) or how it evolved (if it did),
and so forth, very extensively."

"In fact, we have every reason to expect that there are many
things about cognition that we don't even know that we don't
know, such is our benighted condition."

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-149898429/mind-works-we-still.html

SO, in direct contrast to scientific data, and despite not knowing much
about how the physiology works in some key areas, the atheist resolutely
clings to his faith in No-God and in the promise of "science".
This is perfectly understandable, of course; just don't let an atheist tell you
his world view has nothing to do with faith.
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The Wedding Dress

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In today's pluralistic, morality-means-whatever-you-want-it-to-mean
culture, there are quite a lot of us who still believe that Sin is
at the heart of the world's troubles. Good ol' fashioned word, "sin",
and its use sometimes draws snickers from modern and post-modern folks
who'd rather talk about "positive energy" or "balance" and so forth...

I've heard some people pose variations of a common question on sin:
"Why are you Christians always so hung up with this 'sin' thing?
Don't you see that human beings have both good and bad in them?"

Well of course clear thinking requires that we first define our terms;
I'd like to focus on the meaning of "Good" (moral Goodness) here by
asking a simple question: "Good" compared to WHAT?

Christians believe that God does in fact have a Standard -- Himself --
by which all of us are to measure what "Good" looks like; and by that
standard an honest and humble soul will find him/herself woefully deficient;
there is no sense in talking about "goodness" unless some absolute
Standard of "goodness" exists...

To spark our imaginations about how horribly short of God's standard
we all fall, consider this idea:

A young lady plans to be married. Her mother brings down from the attic
a box, dusts it off, and from it she presents to her daughter the most
beautiful, pure white wedding dress that the girl has ever seen. It's made
mostly of silk, a simple but classic style, and is stunningly white and pure.
"My mother wore this at her wedding, and I at mine," the mother shares.
The daughter is moved deeply, and plans are made to tailor it only just
a bit to fit the daughter for her wedding day.

That day comes, and while the mother and daughter are sharing a few
moments together as they get ready for the ceremony, they laugh at old
memories, talk about the future, and even enjoy a glass of wine together.
Then the unthinkable happens: A near-spill of the wine, but just enough
to plant a purple STAIN right on the front of the dress, in plain view...

There is a scramble for soda water and other treatments, and some frantic
attempts to sponge away the stain... No good... It's right there, clear
as can be, for everyone to see. No other dress is available, and the church
is already full of people, all expecting the service to start in a few minutes.
Attempts to cover the stain are awkward at best, and the only option is to
go through the ceremony with this stain on the dress...

Now, you might say, "Well hey, what's the big deal, the dress is still
MOSTLY white, right?? Come on, why should she focus on the 'negative'?
There's good AND bad about the dress, right? Don't be such an old
fuddy-duddy, with those old-fasioned ideas about 'white dresses' and all..."

A ridiculous response, of course: The fact is that the PURITY of the
dress has been spoiled, and the WONDER and BEAUTY of a virgin in a pure
white clean beautiful wedding gown, in which to be presented to her new
husband, has been RUINED... The bride is probably devastated, for a
number of reasons, and all she can think about is that obvious purple blight
on the front of an otherwise-gorgeous gown. She's embarrassed, in front
of a whole church full of people...

Sin is the same way: God has in mind for each of us the beautiful, pure,
glorious SOUL He made each of us to be; we have STAINED ourselves by our own
SIN, ruining what He had in mind for us when He made us.
Even the smallest stain ruins the gown, and some kind of amazing remediation
is needed to set things right again. Simply put, Christians believe that the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's remediation for sin.

So it's no good talking about "Good" unless you see that term in its proper light;
only God Himself can, through the finished work of Jesus, make any of us pure again.
Anything less is Man-made religion, a cheap substitute, and those who do not
submit to that Cleansing will someday be horribly and eternally embarrassed and
ashamed of their stains when presented to the Creator of True Goodness.
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Lessons for Liberals, Part 1: Match Stick economics

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I don't claim to be a business expert, but having reached mid-life, and having
watched and listened and read a bit on economics, I think I can say that I have
an "every man's" understanding of basic business principles.

Obama said during his campaign that his administration would "rebuild the economy
from the top down"; now he is focused on a "jobs" bill and setting up town hall
meetings to talk about "job creation". His multi-BILLION dollar "bail-outs" were
supposed to "stimulate" the economy, but nobody knows for sure what that even means,
let alone whether or not it "worked"... Most of that money cannot even be accounted
for, and the Banks -- who were supposed to "lend" it to small businesses -- are
steadfastly REFUSING to disclose what they did with the billions they received of
TAXPAYER dollars...

Spending our way out of a Recession is, to anyone who applies even a modest amount
of common sense, not only bad economic policy, but also serves to DEEPEN the
Debt sinkhole the country is already in. You don't keep digging...

All of this (and so much more of what Obama and his "progressive" pals are doing
with TAXPAYER money) is what I call "Match Stick Economics": Take a match
and strike it, and for a few seconds you have flame, and bright light, and the
appearance of getting a fire started. But of course it burns out, shortly,
and not only are you right back where you started from, but you now have FEWER
resources (one less match) for starting a REAL fire, one that could go on burning
and providing REAL warmth and comfort.

This is why economies are NOT built "from the top down", but rather from the Bottom
UP. It's so simple even a middle-schooler can understand it; here is a basic
evolution of how a successful business usually works:

Entrepreneur "Hank" gets an idea... He scrapes together some initial finances and
buys the first round of materials to make a few units of his idea (let's call them
"widgets")... He pitches his widgets to a few folks around him... They love Hank's
widgets and ask for more, and they tell their friends to buy some, too... Hank
starts working nights and weekends, cranking out widgets to fill his orders...
Soon he needs more capital to keep buying the materials he needs, so he borrows
money (lenders will eventually get their money back with interest, perhaps even a
stake in the company)... Armed with fresh capital, Hank buys twice as much material
and now gets his kids involved in the widget-production process... Soon Hank has
so many orders coming in that he has to hire another worker, who is paid wages plus
some very moderate benefits... Sales increase, and now Hank has to move his
operations from his garage to a low rent Commercial Real Estate location (maybe some
old warehouse)... Word of Hank's widgets spreads like wildfire, and before long,
Hank has 28 employees, a bigger space, better machines to triple his widget output,
and now he is focusing more of his time on book-keeping, advertising, and human
resources (even paying his wife now, as an employee, to help with these duties).

At some point, "Hank Enterprises" is incorporated, investors are calling Hank on a
fairly regular basis, and as Hank re-invests in his own business, borrows carefully
based on Growth projections, and adapts to changes in Demand, well, old Hank
begins to do very very well for himself: Not quite a "millionaire" yet, but well
on his way, and nearly FOUR DOZEN workers now know "Hank Enterprises" as the place
where they have a JOB.

THIS kind of economic strategy is BOTTOM-UP strategy, and thanks to
his hard work and success, Hank is one of several hundred million Americans whose
Tax dollars can actually HELP his State and the Federal government. He's helping
to build and maintain a REAL "fire", not just ignite a Match Stick for 3 seconds;
his is a fire that provides REAL warmth as long as he works hard, and plays it
smart, to maintain it and keep its embers glowing.

Now that Hank has earned his way into a certain Tax bracket, what in the world
SENSE would it make for the State and especially the Fed to PUNISH Hank
by slapping him with outrageous Taxes? How in the world is it FAIR that
Hank's hard-earned Wealth should be ripped from his hands and redistributed to
other Americans via these massive Federal give-away programs?? Why should
HANK (who lives in Jersey) have to PAY for an appendectomy for an illegal immigrant
who sneaked across the border into Arizona??

Listen up Liberals and Socialists and "Progressives": When the government
PUNISHES the "Hanks" of the world with high Taxes, fees, fines, limits, regulations,
and redistribution of wealth, it KILLS economic growth! You will never get a
Job from a POOR person! Giving multi-billion dollar "bail-outs" to a few, and
letting the Federal Reserve dictate the money supply, is BAD for Business and
therefore BAD for the economy. You don't build economies from the "top down", but
from the Bottom-UP, doing everything you can do to help the "Hanks" of the country
Thrive and Grow and Expand and HIRE MORE PEOPLE as a result.

The soak the rich, spend like there's no tomorrow States are in
REAL TROUBLE right now: California, Oregon, Florida, Arizona, Illinois, and many others
are experiencing Budget shortfalls that may land them in Bankruptcy within the year;
these same "economic" policies -- which Joe Biden called "the patriotic duty" of
wealthy Americans (to pay more Taxes) -- are the HALLMARK of the "progressive" and
liberal socialist ideologies... And they are KILLING Hank -- and the nation's
economy -- who will likely be forced to move his operations to Texas, leaving his
employees in Jersey JOBLESS.

Match Stick economics, pitched by an out-of-control government led by a highly
inexperienced president, will never save America. Only REAL, common-sense,
help-the-small-guy policies (which will, to a very great degree, mean government
gets out of Hank's WAY) will turn this Titanic around.
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A Domestic Enemy of the Constitution?

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Every single member of Congress swears THIS OATH not only upon taking office
but apparently every few years, as well... This same oath is sworn by all members
of the Armed Forces as they are accepted into the military...

It's eerily relevant to ask, in these times, what would a DOMESTIC "enemy
of the Constitution" look like? Is it possible that that person could be the
president himself? An "enemy" would, I suppose, be anyone who at best simply IGNORES
the Constitution as the supreme guide to any and every decision, and, at worst, actively seeks
to thwart it guidance and usher in an era of "Change" in which
the leadership does whatever it chooses, including speeding the country as quickly
as possible to Socialism and even Communism (step-siblings, of course).

Take note, an ENEMY of the Constitution likely wouldn't fare very well invading the
country with tanks and airplanes and battleships; there would be no flag-waving
battalions of foreign soldiers storming our shores; those would clearly be "Foreign" enemies. A DOMESTIC Enemy of the Constitution would come from inside America herself, a WOLF dressed in Sheep's clothing, delivering nice-sounding speeches with
a smooth tongue, dressing up a Socialist agenda to look like America's "hope"...

On this one-year anniversary of Obama's reign of power, I would submit here that we
have had SEVERAL Enemies of the Constitution in the Oval Office, the two most
notable being FDR and then Obama himself; there have been others, including GW Bush
and his "Patriot Acts" and his ILLEGAL Invasion of Iraq... But perhaps no other
Enemy of the Constitution prior to Obama has been so eager to do so much, so fast,
with so little regard for the Constitution, as the current president; perhaps no
other president has studied Socialist manifestos for so long, gathered to himself
so tight a group of Socialist radicals, and then fooled, bamboozled, and zombi-fied
so many voters than this one.

You see, the CONSTITUTION is the only line in the sand that the American
people HAVE to protect them from Tyranny, Totalitarianism, and, yes, the
RADICAL SOCIALIST AGENDA. Ignore THAT foundational document -- the document written
by the Founders of our country whose primary AIM was to prevent bloated, abusive
government -- and Congress and the Administration can do absolutely whatever they
choose. THAT DOCUMENT is the only weapon any American citizen HAS in the fight to
keep Government off our backs and out of our bank accounts.

Any clear, unbiased reading of the Constitution will show that this Administration,
and this Congress, are far, far LEFT of the designs and intentions of the Founding
Fathers. And as the people are beginning to wake up and realize this -- as we've
seen now in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia -- then the fight to unseat
these Enemies of the Constitution will become more and more pronounced.

Will the fight become a military one? Will a commander in some segment of America's
military take his Oath seriously enough to use the military means at his disposal to
DEFY this Enemy of the Constitution? Worse yet, will there be fighting in the
streets, as a new wave of Federal marshals fan out across the country to enforce
Socialist mandates, and Freedom-loving Americans bring out their guns and resist?
This country was born in blood, and Apathy has brought us again to the point where
this is indeed a serious question.

With God as my witness, I sincerely hope not. "The pen is mightier than the sword",
and may it be so, now... Here are my predictions for the next couple of years:
We will see more Massachusetts-style defeats of Democratic AND Republican
"Progressives"; we will see STATES standing up to this Enemy of the Constitution,
suing the Fed over their mandates; and as a result we will -- finally, 145 years
after the Civil War -- see States taking back MUCH of the power yielded to the Fed
ever since then...

Hopefully, the TRUE America is making a comeback; but if it happens it will only be
because the appropriate Supremacy has been given back to
The Constitution of the United States of America.
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Jesus and the health care bill

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Over the past few months, a number of people I know who could be classified
as "Liberals" have raised the question of the Christian perspective on the
current health care bill, noting that "Christian compassion" and a sense of
"Christian charity" should compel Christians everywhere to support this bill
as a way of fulfilling the Christian mandate to care for the needy...

I could not disagree more; here is my response to any Liberal who takes this view:

It's a PERSONAL thing
Example after example, in Scripture, of God's model for charitable giving
shows that His intention is that Charity should be a PERSONAL thing, coming
from the heart and extended to those directly around us. There is absolutely
no mandate in Scripture to manipulate Governments to forcibly extract taxes
from citizens in order to direct those funds to the needy... And any attempt
to correlate Christian Charity with Government Programs simply demonstrates
both a profound misunderstanding of scriptural principles on Giving and Serving
as well as a complete disregard for America's Constitution, which LIMITS the
powers of the Federal government, most especially when it comes to taxes...
WE are to care for the needy, WE are to work for Justice, with our own hands
and backs and voices and resources, NOT to write to our Senators to vote for
an abusive TAX bill that masquerades as a "health care bill"...


Please don't feed the Animals (teach a man to fish)
Supposedly the Liberals' motivation is "compassion" for these needy, those who
do not have any health care coverage at all... But if this is true, which approach
is truly the more compassionate, to GIVE a man a fish, or to TEACH a man to fish?
What is more "compassionate" for America's citizens, to FORCE us all into
complete dependence on Big Government, or for Big Government to get out of the way
so that we can learn to fish, learn to rely on ourselves? Which approach is a
more long-term solution, and therefore more "compassionate"?


Waste, Fraud and Abuse
The Bible also teaches us to be shrewd, to make wise decisions, to take a
mature and thoughtful approach to big decisions, especially those that
involve Money... If I give money to a Charitable organization, and then find out
that the management of this organization has been blowing its contributions
mostly on things like trips to Vegas, or prostitutes, or big homes for its staffers,
etc., would it be "uncharitable" of my neighbor, who hears about this, NOT to give
his money to this organization? Do you honestly think the Bible would still
compel him to give his money to this organization despite these demonstrated
reports of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse?

So it is with the current Administration and this health care debacle:
Obama, Reid and Pelosi have clearly demonstrated their complete disregard for any kind of financial prudence... They have spent billions of federal dollars with virtually no accountability (the GAO chief says they have "no idea" where
50 billion dollars of Bailout 1 went...)... The massive and out-of-control Spending has been done under the alarmist banner of, "if we don't do this the world will end!!"...
And all of this driven by their determination that the Government should control as much of the private sector as possible...

This is the "charitable organization" that is compelled by the Bible to now force
health care on its citizens??? You cannot be serious... I'm amazed that this even
needs to be said, but the Bible in no way condones Waste, Fraud, and Abuse,
even for "charitable" reasons... Indeed, one famous example is the bitter hatred the people of Israel had, in Jesus' day, for what they called
"Publicans", or "tax collectors", who were Jews working for the occupying
Roman government and who were famous for extorting high taxes from the Jews
while sucking up to the Romans...

I think there is plenty of Scriptural basis to say that Government, and its Tax
schemes, is the complete OPPOSITE of the methods and means by which Christians are to
care for the needy...


Fools for Jesus?
It's very important here to make one critical point that keeps being
overshadowed in these health care discussions: Nearly everyone AGREES that it
would be a very good thing to make sure that everyone has access to affordable,
quality health care; we just disagree about the who, the how, and the how much.
Sensible thinking requires that any big project, with a big budget, any
substantial Venture, needs to be carefully and thoughtfully planned out,
guided by three big questions:

How will the venture be structured?
Who will control it?
How much will it cost (and you could add, Where will the money come from?)

There is nothing in Scripture that encourages us to be foolish, even when it comes to
Charity... Again, I'm surprised that this point even needs to be made...
Nothing in Scripture approves of individuals, or government, acting like Fools, and
to the extent that Government foolishness oppresses the individual, Scripture
certainly condemns it...


The Hypocrisy thing
This is perhaps the most disgraceful part of a Liberal's attempt to tie
Scripture to government programs... The appeal of such an approach is a kind of
Christian-ized "moral imperative" thing, a kind of, "we ought to do this because
the Bible wants us to care for the needy"... Well the Bible also clearly
and thunderously condemns homo-sex, so where is the call to make that
activity illegal, to manipulate Government to allow or disallow Scriptural imperatives?
The Bible clearly holds the life of the Unborn as precious in the sight of God,
so how does that square with the so-called "pro-choice" position??

How can anyone invoke Scripture to support personal Political views on certain
issues, and competely ignore Scriptural positions on other issues? Either we
manipulate Government to carry out Christian agendas or we do NOT, but we cannot
pick-and-choose which issues to tie to Scriptural compulsions and which not to...

That's called Hypocrisy.

And if the true reason to support this health care mess is "compassion", where is
the outrage over the TRILLIONS this Administration is wasting, and will continue
to waste? Where is the horror over the national DEBT, demonstrated to be roughly
200% worse at this point than during any past Administration? If we truly care about the poor, the needy, the under-privileged, the "disenfranchised", where is the indignation over the complete devastation this Administration is foisting on the country's finances,
money that could be used to help with the social programs some think we need?
We should be calling for their heads...

But this too is Hypocrisy.

It is disingenuous to link any kind of Scriptural imperative to the utter chaos
coming out of Washington these days; a clear, honest, informed understanding of the
whole message of the Bible (not just a bit here and a bit there, twisted to make it say
what we want it to say) shows that there are virtually no grounds at all for Government-run, Tax-funded "charities". I think Jesus would be (is) outraged at this "health care" catastrophe, primarily because it will make the plight of the needy worse, and it will prove to be a significant injustice to millions of Americans...
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Only Two Religions

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There are really only two major divisions of Religion in the world:
One acknowledges and reveres some kind of God or "higher power" or
"great Spirit", a supernatural Force that transcends humanity and
has certain "intentions"or a Will for how humans ought to live
(some religions of this type affirm multiple gods, but the
concept is still the same: HE is -- or THEY are -- far, far above us
and should be worshiped and feared and obeyed)...

The second disavows any kind of "god" in favor of a MAN-centered
view, focused mainly on "spirituality" or "inner peace" or "balance",
or even one's "path" in life, not because some "god" wants it that way
but because walking one's "path" is (they believe) the way to achieve
true and deep "fulfillment" in this life...

Today's neo-Atheists, Reductionists, Materialists, and Naturalists
DO have -- contrary to what they try to insist -- a "religion",
if "religion" is defined as any organized system of beliefs which is
followed assiduously, and which functions as the framework for one's
entire World View... This type tends to elevate Science or "human
potential" to god-like status, and they revere these pursuits every bit
as much as Theists revere their Deities...

We can believe whatever we choose, of course, from "the Great Pumpkin"
to Jehovah and every supernatural -- or natural -- icon in between.
But for those who THINK, and who therefore are more interested in TRUTH
above all other motivations, when it comes to World Views, the picture
changes quite a bit:

A MAN-centered World View cannot be viewed as "equal to" a Theistic
World View; that is a confusion of Premise and Conclusion. The proper
comparison of a "non-god" religion to a "God(s)-centered" religion would be,
"I believe the more RATIONAL position is that there is in fact NO god,
THEREFORE, all that remains, for this life (which ends at death) is to find
my 'higher purpose', my 'path' while I live." The comparison is between
Theism and Atheism, not between Theism and MAN-centered "spirituality"
or even "Science"...

So, to me, the most important question of Life is not about "fulfillment"
or "destiny" or finding one's "path"; the most important question is a
two-fold inquiry: (a) Is there a God (or gods), and (if yes),
(b) what is His (Their) Will for me? If the answer to (a) is "NO"
(on purely Rational grounds), then it would seem to me that we are free
to believe whatever we choose, and the subject of TRUTH becomes irrelevant.
But if the answer to (a) is "YES", then (b) becomes the most important
pursuit of our lives.

I for one simply don't have any interest in discussions on World Views or
"religion" that don't begin from this base, because I want the TRUTH
above all else. Arguments along any other lines seem to me to be just
a chasing after the wind, an abyss of Subjectivity, and not very interesting...
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The Kitchen Door

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For decades our old house used to have a door between the dining room
and the kitchen, one of those swings-both-ways doors, though it was
almost always propped open... This door had (as most kitchen doors
do) a certain kind of hinge mechanism that would return the door to
its DEFAULT position -- closed -- any time it was left to itself and
not pushed on (or propped open)...

It struck me this morning that the Christian is in a similar state, as we
walk through this life looking forward to Christ's coming: If we are not
vigilant, if we do not DAILY struggle against the sin nature still hanging
around inside us -- and which will remain there until we are finally
perfected by God -- if we are not actively involved in the spiritual disciplines,
we will naturally return to our Default position, which is, at the least,
Apathy, and at worst, Rebellion.

Romans 7 and Ephesians 6 give us a good view of what that struggle
looks like and how to prepare ourselves for it, and Hebrews 12 talks about
continuing in that struggle, day after day, with PERSEVERANCE, so that in the end
we may reap what the author calls a "harvest of Righteousness".

Don't ever be taken in by, or hypnotized by, any "modern" version of the
Christian faith that jettisons the reality of SIN in favor of focusing on
"God's Love"... Indeed, it is the very wonder of a God who loves us in spite of
our sin that provides the strength we need along the journey...

So let us continue to work out our own salvation -- to PUSH against the door --
even as we humbly acknowledge, moment by moment, the work of God inside us.
HIS door is ALWAYS open.
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The Audacity of Arrogance

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Well, just when I thought the craziness of Obama-zombie-ism couldn't
get any more dramatic, we all woke up to the news this morning that
Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The NPP Committee's own statement on why its Prize was awarded to Obama
was vague; their reasoning really boiled down to what they believe to be
a positive change in "global MOOD" that (they think) Obama has affected...

Here are the questions many people -- surprisingly, including many of
Obama's own supporters -- are asking today: Why him? SHOW US his
body of work, his lists of accomplishments, that would warrant an award
like this... DETAIL for us the YEARS he has spent working on behalf of
humanity... DESCRIBE for us the specific impact he has had for Peace
in the international community... EXPLAIN to us the personal suffering
and sacrifice he has endured, over the years, that would
justify this kind of recognition...

To use an expression from the 80's, where's the beef???

Because short of that, the awarding of this Prize to Obama makes an
absolute mockery out of this recognition; it is a slap in the face
to anyone who has actually DESERVED this award and has received it after
tremendous, legitimate achievement and/or personal sacrifice...

HERE is my pick for who should receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year: In the face of grave personal danger from the oppressive and despotic regime of Ahmadinejad, this young Philosophy student attended a pro-Democracy rally in Iran a few months ago, and was gunned down in the street by government-hired militia.

Since then, her death has inspired a great many Iranians, and those who support
Democracy in Iran, to work toward FREEDOM in that theocratic nation... We hope
that they are successful and that Neda will not have died in vain...

So over against these thoughts, only megalomaniacal self-aggrandizement
can explain why Obama, with virtually NO qualifications, would not respectfully
REFUSE this award on the grounds that compared to past Awardees, he has
no right to accept it... Only the most blatant Arrogance would allow the world
to fawn over him with recognition meant for TRUE humanitarians who have
demonstrated their worthiness to the world over the years.

If there was ever any question that Obama lacks the dignity and honor
and humility that ought to distinguish the presidency, this stunning and
unbelievable news should settle it.
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