I don't currently still live in Oklahoma, but I have friends responding to the black mass occurring at the Civic Center.
I should not need to, but will add the disclaimer that as a Christian, I am disturbed by this. Deeply. And it's frankly not a subject for debate with me on a personal level.
Unfortunately, though, in blurring the lines between church and state, this is something that the church has brought on itself. The government simply does not have authority to ban the free exercise of religion, and if you insist that public space be used for Christian worship, it must be available to all faiths. The Constitution is pretty clear on this.
As to the concerns that God will stop blessing us as a nation, or Oklahoma as a state, where were those concerns when protestors spoke up against the immigrant children held in Ft. Sill, only an hour's drive from the site of today's mass and protests? In the light of Leviticus 19:33-34, can the protestors truly be claiming the moral high ground?
When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Lev. 19:33-34)
And what of Governor Fallin's legislation to prevent cities from voting a higher minimum wage than the state? Is it a Christian act to deny workers a better wage to care for their families?
What of the education and the promise to tomorrow's youth? Do those represent Christian values?
Although I left Oklahoma years ago, my heart never has. The problem I see in Oklahoma does not lie with the people in the Civic Center basement performing the black mass. It lies in those protesting outside, who concern themselves more with regulating the lives of those who do not hold their faiths than they do with being salt and light in their communities and in their state.
It does not matter how many Ten Commandments monuments or crosses you erect; all you are doing with that is trading one idol for another. What matters is how you live your faith.
And, although there will always be people who are hostile to the Christian faith, it is possible they might find it harder to gather likeminded followers if we were more persistent and dedicated in walking the walk on a daily basis.
So, protest YOURSELVES, and what you have allowed Oklahoma to become: a state with poor educational rankings, high child poverty, and low household income. I am fairly certain that none of those things are consistent with being dedicated Christians.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
On Adrian Peterson and "Discipline"
I hate to write this article. But I have to. Because it speaks to a portion of the problems I have with the church.
The Adrian Peterson situation has brought the issue of child abuse to the forefront. There are a lot of opinions, and there is a lot of emotion on this issue, on both sides of the fence. And it causes a lot of people to really look at and evaluate their thoughts on discipline.
If you are conservative, traditional Christians, I am going to warn you I am probably about to piss you off. Probably better to stop reading if you cannot take a contradictory opinion.
I was raised up believing there was a difference between a spanking and a beating, and I will admit that from the child's perspective, there certainly is. I've had both, and can tell you there is a difference between not being able to sit down comfortably for days and the stinging rebuke of what Adrian Peterson calls "a whupping".
But does that mean either is right? Does a lesser degree of pain somehow make the message any more proper? If you rate spankings on a scale of 1 to 10, with one definitely being acceptable, and 10 definitely being acceptable, where does the acceptable line get drawn? A 6? a 5? And who determines what constitutes a 6 or a 5?
The conservative church holds out that parents who don't spank their children are neglecting discipline. But is that what discipline really is? If you have to beat your child to follow you, what happens when they become bigger and more powerful? And when we discipline adults, we certainly find ways to do it that don't involve finding a blunt object and applying it to someone's backsides.
This is one area that's reaffirming my decision to renounce evangelical Christianity. Because a very significant part of the spanking culture is a direct result of the teachings of the church.
If you are a new parent begging for parental advice, you will undoubtedly be given a copy of a James Dobson book, which strongly advocates corporal punishment. Worse, you may be given a copy of Michael and Debbie Pearls' book, To Train Up a Child, which I was given when our children were much younger, and which I had to put away after the first chapter.
The problem is, parents who spank their children believe they are doing the right thing. Either through family or church, they believe that this is the way to parent. The people who are teaching that need to own that.
As I grow older, I am increasingly convinced that violence is not a solution in any instance. And I have to wonder if teaching a child that might makes right from an early age doesn't have a good deal to do with the problems we have before us today.
Advocates of corporal punishment will insist that "families that whupped their kids did fine for thousands of years", but they do so based on empirical evidence, and, increasingly in a frightening vacuum where they seriously fear higher education. Is it any coincidence that we emphasize corporal punishment more than any other culture, and we have the highest incarceration rate.
This, like so many other thoughts I've been having, is not an easy one. It is hard going forward in my faith journey accepting that so much of what I was taught by people who sincerely believed is wrong, but honestly I cannot see violence towards another person as being Godly in any sense of the word.
There will be those who will toss out Proverbs 13:24 at me ("he who spares the rod hates his son"), but the rod was used to guide; it was not used to beat the sheep, and the analogy, like many Biblical analogies, was written for shepherds to understand.
So when is a spanking right, and when does it become a beating? at a 3? at a 7? I am not going to come out and tell anyone what to do, but I do think it's a question we should be asking. Because, after all, none of us would knowingly harm our children. So it is in our own best interests to ask whether our actions are unknowingly doing so.
The Adrian Peterson situation has brought the issue of child abuse to the forefront. There are a lot of opinions, and there is a lot of emotion on this issue, on both sides of the fence. And it causes a lot of people to really look at and evaluate their thoughts on discipline.
If you are conservative, traditional Christians, I am going to warn you I am probably about to piss you off. Probably better to stop reading if you cannot take a contradictory opinion.
I was raised up believing there was a difference between a spanking and a beating, and I will admit that from the child's perspective, there certainly is. I've had both, and can tell you there is a difference between not being able to sit down comfortably for days and the stinging rebuke of what Adrian Peterson calls "a whupping".
But does that mean either is right? Does a lesser degree of pain somehow make the message any more proper? If you rate spankings on a scale of 1 to 10, with one definitely being acceptable, and 10 definitely being acceptable, where does the acceptable line get drawn? A 6? a 5? And who determines what constitutes a 6 or a 5?
The conservative church holds out that parents who don't spank their children are neglecting discipline. But is that what discipline really is? If you have to beat your child to follow you, what happens when they become bigger and more powerful? And when we discipline adults, we certainly find ways to do it that don't involve finding a blunt object and applying it to someone's backsides.
This is one area that's reaffirming my decision to renounce evangelical Christianity. Because a very significant part of the spanking culture is a direct result of the teachings of the church.
If you are a new parent begging for parental advice, you will undoubtedly be given a copy of a James Dobson book, which strongly advocates corporal punishment. Worse, you may be given a copy of Michael and Debbie Pearls' book, To Train Up a Child, which I was given when our children were much younger, and which I had to put away after the first chapter.
The problem is, parents who spank their children believe they are doing the right thing. Either through family or church, they believe that this is the way to parent. The people who are teaching that need to own that.
As I grow older, I am increasingly convinced that violence is not a solution in any instance. And I have to wonder if teaching a child that might makes right from an early age doesn't have a good deal to do with the problems we have before us today.
Advocates of corporal punishment will insist that "families that whupped their kids did fine for thousands of years", but they do so based on empirical evidence, and, increasingly in a frightening vacuum where they seriously fear higher education. Is it any coincidence that we emphasize corporal punishment more than any other culture, and we have the highest incarceration rate.
This, like so many other thoughts I've been having, is not an easy one. It is hard going forward in my faith journey accepting that so much of what I was taught by people who sincerely believed is wrong, but honestly I cannot see violence towards another person as being Godly in any sense of the word.
There will be those who will toss out Proverbs 13:24 at me ("he who spares the rod hates his son"), but the rod was used to guide; it was not used to beat the sheep, and the analogy, like many Biblical analogies, was written for shepherds to understand.
So when is a spanking right, and when does it become a beating? at a 3? at a 7? I am not going to come out and tell anyone what to do, but I do think it's a question we should be asking. Because, after all, none of us would knowingly harm our children. So it is in our own best interests to ask whether our actions are unknowingly doing so.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
To the Nonbelievers and NonChristians: Give Us a Chance to Make This Right!
A funny thing happened on the way to obsolescence.
For years, atheists and nonChristians have pointed to some of the rather callous actions of the church as evidence that there needs to be serious change. And for years, there have been many of us within the church who agree, but lacked the platform from which to speak.
I'm proud to say that I see that changing. Ted Cruz being booed offstage recently is evidence of that. The fall of Mark Driscoll further underscores the point. There is a silent majority in the church that has never endorsed the positions of its leaders, but when threatened with eternal damnation, even the most dedicated folk will moderate their stance quickly.
But in the midst of the mess, suddenly it became clear that what may be appropriate to discuss is not necessarily appropriate for legislation. As the Republican agenda has very clearly shifted to maintaining the power base of the wealthy and increasing the distance between America's wealthiest and America's poorest, it has become clear to moderate Christians that there is also great distance between the message of the cross and the message of the contemporary evangelical church.
As we soberly contemplate grace, we're beginning to do so with an understanding that the same grace that covers our own inadequacy covers that of others. That mercy should never be the domain solely of those wealthy enough to afford it or those who limit their sin to socially acceptable sins. That grace is grace and it is not ours to bestow or deny. That duty belongs to God.
There are those who refer to this era as the "post Christian" era, and I'm often inclined to think that way. But the more I consider it the more I'm inclined to believe that it is an era of transition, an "emerging church" era that will see a lot of radical reformation.
Was the church in the "Christian" era when slavery and Jim Crow dominated the landscape? Did we have better values during the 80 some odd years following the Civil War that saw the lynching of more than 3500 persons of color, almost entirely by those who claimed to be Christian, and often even carried the cross as they went about their filthy business? Were we more righteous in the era of back alley abortions when women would be shipped off to live with cousins in order to spare the family the stain of an illegitimate pregnancy? And was the genocide of the American Indian guided by the hand of God or the hand of greed?
The truth is that, while expressions of faith wavered and waned within the church itself, the world around it was never truly "Christian", no matter how we tried to idealize it as such. For this to be a "Post Christian era", there must first have had to be a Christian era. And in all honesty, it didn't exist. If anything, the church fought against the advance of labor rights, women's rights, civil rights, you name it.
And so to those who do not believe as I do, I ask you, be patient. Because the generation of Christian exiles to whom I am proud to count myself a brother, is likely the most self aware group of Christians you will ever encounter. We KNOW we've done wrong. We see the mistakes of the past, and, all too tragically, the present. And if you give us a chance, we WILL make this right.
In short, we beg of you the tolerance that we (the royal "we", not necessarily individuals) unfortunately too often denied you in the past. We ask you for grace, for mercy, not because we deserve it, but as a means of building bridges.
I am certain that the Christian church 10 years from now will not look like the church of today. We are at a crossroads, and it is my fervent prayer that the church will be regarded as the agent of change and hope that it should be. And it is further my hope that I may be part of that process.
For years, atheists and nonChristians have pointed to some of the rather callous actions of the church as evidence that there needs to be serious change. And for years, there have been many of us within the church who agree, but lacked the platform from which to speak.
I'm proud to say that I see that changing. Ted Cruz being booed offstage recently is evidence of that. The fall of Mark Driscoll further underscores the point. There is a silent majority in the church that has never endorsed the positions of its leaders, but when threatened with eternal damnation, even the most dedicated folk will moderate their stance quickly.
But in the midst of the mess, suddenly it became clear that what may be appropriate to discuss is not necessarily appropriate for legislation. As the Republican agenda has very clearly shifted to maintaining the power base of the wealthy and increasing the distance between America's wealthiest and America's poorest, it has become clear to moderate Christians that there is also great distance between the message of the cross and the message of the contemporary evangelical church.
As we soberly contemplate grace, we're beginning to do so with an understanding that the same grace that covers our own inadequacy covers that of others. That mercy should never be the domain solely of those wealthy enough to afford it or those who limit their sin to socially acceptable sins. That grace is grace and it is not ours to bestow or deny. That duty belongs to God.
There are those who refer to this era as the "post Christian" era, and I'm often inclined to think that way. But the more I consider it the more I'm inclined to believe that it is an era of transition, an "emerging church" era that will see a lot of radical reformation.
Was the church in the "Christian" era when slavery and Jim Crow dominated the landscape? Did we have better values during the 80 some odd years following the Civil War that saw the lynching of more than 3500 persons of color, almost entirely by those who claimed to be Christian, and often even carried the cross as they went about their filthy business? Were we more righteous in the era of back alley abortions when women would be shipped off to live with cousins in order to spare the family the stain of an illegitimate pregnancy? And was the genocide of the American Indian guided by the hand of God or the hand of greed?
The truth is that, while expressions of faith wavered and waned within the church itself, the world around it was never truly "Christian", no matter how we tried to idealize it as such. For this to be a "Post Christian era", there must first have had to be a Christian era. And in all honesty, it didn't exist. If anything, the church fought against the advance of labor rights, women's rights, civil rights, you name it.
And so to those who do not believe as I do, I ask you, be patient. Because the generation of Christian exiles to whom I am proud to count myself a brother, is likely the most self aware group of Christians you will ever encounter. We KNOW we've done wrong. We see the mistakes of the past, and, all too tragically, the present. And if you give us a chance, we WILL make this right.
In short, we beg of you the tolerance that we (the royal "we", not necessarily individuals) unfortunately too often denied you in the past. We ask you for grace, for mercy, not because we deserve it, but as a means of building bridges.
I am certain that the Christian church 10 years from now will not look like the church of today. We are at a crossroads, and it is my fervent prayer that the church will be regarded as the agent of change and hope that it should be. And it is further my hope that I may be part of that process.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
The Church Should Not ACCEPT the Status Quo; the Church Should CHANGE It!
One of the things that cemented my renunciation of the evangelical church is the response of the church to labor. I live in one of the most Republican areas of the country, and that Republicanism dominates the political discussion within the church.
The most telling example is the wage debate. Many within the church believe that it is noble to accept wages that are inadequate for survival, and a good deal of these churches will even preach that it is sinful to accept government assistance. Basically, you are expected to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, whatever it takes, to survive.
Oh, and don't forget to give 10% of those earnings to the offering plate. I must add a sidenote here: yes, tithing is Biblical, yes tithing is appropriate, but so is paying a livable wage (James 5:1-6). You can't exactly tithe if you have no excess to tithe.
I previously blogged on ten things I feel the church should be doing to address poverty. You can find that article here. The final item I placed on the list is living wage advocacy. Yet in the wake of one of the worst eras of income inequity in history, the church remains silent. They are enjoying too much of the adulations of the wealthy; they are enjoying the comfort and prosperity that comes from preaching sermons that assuage the guilt of those who gather their wealth into barns, against the admonition of Jesus in Luke 12:13-21:
The most telling example is the wage debate. Many within the church believe that it is noble to accept wages that are inadequate for survival, and a good deal of these churches will even preach that it is sinful to accept government assistance. Basically, you are expected to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, whatever it takes, to survive.
Oh, and don't forget to give 10% of those earnings to the offering plate. I must add a sidenote here: yes, tithing is Biblical, yes tithing is appropriate, but so is paying a livable wage (James 5:1-6). You can't exactly tithe if you have no excess to tithe.
I previously blogged on ten things I feel the church should be doing to address poverty. You can find that article here. The final item I placed on the list is living wage advocacy. Yet in the wake of one of the worst eras of income inequity in history, the church remains silent. They are enjoying too much of the adulations of the wealthy; they are enjoying the comfort and prosperity that comes from preaching sermons that assuage the guilt of those who gather their wealth into barns, against the admonition of Jesus in Luke 12:13-21:
13Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
20“But
God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded
from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
The Bible, not surprisingly, has a good deal to say about wealth. The problem is, the wealth the Bible describes has little to do with money or material goods. And the hirelings who sit the pulpit prefer to teach the Bible to the exclusion of the admonition against greed. Otherwise, we certainly would find a frightening conviction in the words of Ezekial 16:49, which could as well be describing the culture of modern America as of ancient Sodom: 49‘Now
this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were
arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
But those are not the only words the Bible has to say about greed. We can point to the rich young ruler in Matthew 10:17-27, but that is commonly dismissed by evangelicals as being instructions to one particular individual and not to the church at large. Or we can address the instance of Ananias and Sapphira, who were struck dead for lying to God about the proceeds from the sale of the property, but evangelicals will say that has to do with their lying hearts, not their greed.
It is harder, though, to escape the words of the Lukean beatitudes found in Luke 6, but the response is to simply teach the Beatitudes found in Matthew instead, because those words do not include the following:
It is harder, though, to escape the words of the Lukean beatitudes found in Luke 6, but the response is to simply teach the Beatitudes found in Matthew instead, because those words do not include the following:
24“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Now, to be sure, we are admonished in Exodus 23:3 and again in Leviticus 19:15 not to favor the poor over the rich in judgment. But those are admonitions against favoritism, and the judgment of the church has favored the wealthy (which is also forbidden) for far too long.
If the church is to survive the post Christian age, they must again become agents of social change and not concern themselves with minutia. The "Great Awakening" periods in US History were also periods of great social change, as the church recognized its need to address the pressing social issues.
The problem is, the church should not need to be "awakened" to that, the church should be doing that before, during, and after the awareness for that need arises.
Evangelicalism is not about producing books and movies on how to live the Christian life. Those are important tools for the exhortation and discipleship of the believer, but they should be viewed as supplements, and never replacements. The ultimate tool for evangelism has already been written. But it is not enough to preach those words, it is essential to live them.
In the 60's and 70's, there was a massive wave of new thought within and around the church. Although there were some great doctrinal realizations, the offshoot was a number of aberrant faiths. Many people followed Jim Jones into the jungles of Guyana because he preached a gospel of action not of words. Unfortunately, they didn't see the massive deception in his words, and it cost them their lives, but there is a lesson we can take from the tragedy: people will follow action, they're tired of words.
We have been empowered to be world changers. We are not only discouraged from holding the world too closely, we are FORBIDDEN on multiple occasions from doing so (sample passages: Matthew 6:24; 1 John 2:15). And yet the world consumes us and owns us.
It's time to stop accepting injustice, racism, poverty, bigotry, and hatred and start working to change it. We will not eradicate it entirely, but that is not a justification for us to stop trying. We must be lights in the darkness, and we must hold on to each other moving forward.
If the church is to survive the post Christian age, they must again become agents of social change and not concern themselves with minutia. The "Great Awakening" periods in US History were also periods of great social change, as the church recognized its need to address the pressing social issues.
The problem is, the church should not need to be "awakened" to that, the church should be doing that before, during, and after the awareness for that need arises.
Evangelicalism is not about producing books and movies on how to live the Christian life. Those are important tools for the exhortation and discipleship of the believer, but they should be viewed as supplements, and never replacements. The ultimate tool for evangelism has already been written. But it is not enough to preach those words, it is essential to live them.
In the 60's and 70's, there was a massive wave of new thought within and around the church. Although there were some great doctrinal realizations, the offshoot was a number of aberrant faiths. Many people followed Jim Jones into the jungles of Guyana because he preached a gospel of action not of words. Unfortunately, they didn't see the massive deception in his words, and it cost them their lives, but there is a lesson we can take from the tragedy: people will follow action, they're tired of words.
We have been empowered to be world changers. We are not only discouraged from holding the world too closely, we are FORBIDDEN on multiple occasions from doing so (sample passages: Matthew 6:24; 1 John 2:15). And yet the world consumes us and owns us.
It's time to stop accepting injustice, racism, poverty, bigotry, and hatred and start working to change it. We will not eradicate it entirely, but that is not a justification for us to stop trying. We must be lights in the darkness, and we must hold on to each other moving forward.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
When the Community Fails
I received a letter from my daughter today that was helpful in healing. The last year has been absolutely horrible, and it has been made worse by the fact that I have had no support system. I have been lied to, lied about, the subject of a great deal of gossip, disrespected, and called every single word that you can imagine.
The reason? What did I do that was so horrible? One, I do not let my kids party every weekend. Two, I expect their boyfriends to treat family with respect, and not to lie continually and completely belittle the members of the family. Three, I didn't go into massive debt to buy a brand new car for graduation. Four, I expected her home on time. I must note that with that last requirement, I let them decide when they were going to be home, I just make them adhere to it.
I am certainly stricter than some parents (especially in this culture), but am actually not over strict. I have expectations for my children, and I hold them to those expectations.
In other words, parenting.
My daughter's letter acknowledged some of the problem she had had with obeying authority. I figured a drill sergeant would help drive that home, but wish it didn't come to that.
Over the time this was building, I addressed this with some of the parents of the community. I wasn't exactly laughed out of the room, but I wasn't taken seriously, either. "Kids drink, it's what they do"; "Kids are going to be promiscuous; it's natural"; "don't be so strict".
Huh, silly me. And here I thought "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are older they will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6) was actually the Christian guideline.
The last year has been hard because we have had to do it completely and utterly alone. Now, before I go further, I understand kids do fail. They mess up. That happens. But we shouldn't set failure up as an expectation. We shouldn't hand them a box of condoms and tell them to go to town, just don't get pregnant (quite literally the response of my daughter's boyfriend's parents, despite their being uber, Glenn Beck worshipping Christians). We shouldn't buy them a keg and tell them to drink up. We should guiide them, we should encourage them to make wiser choices.
As I tell my kids about alcohol, they can make the choice when they are of age, but not ONE person can look at their lives and say they were made better by drinking. If you drink to fit in, you're drinking for the wrong reasons period.
The church, it seems, has a poor understanding of WHY we are instructed to "not forsake the assembling of yourselves together" (Heb. 10.25). It is because we were designed to be a community, designed to build each other up, designed to strengthen each other in areas of weakness.
And the church as a whole has done a poor job of that. The scores of people leaving the church are testimony to that.
These days, my life is a semi hermitage. I come out for church, I come out for work, I come out for shopping. But beyond that, my social contacts are extremely limited, as we've been torn apart by the gossip of people who judged us even as we attempted to raise our children to a certain standard. And that's a horribly lonely way to have to live.
I hope that some day someone reads this and truly understands, truly attempts to rebuild some semblance of community. Until such a time, I don't see much changing.
My daughter has at least come to grips with the reason for some of the problems. But the other people involved are a long way from that point. As for my point, I did the best I could, even TRYING to reach out to others for help even as the issues were getting worse. There was nobody to whom I COULD reach out.
And people wonder why I have trust issues.
The reason? What did I do that was so horrible? One, I do not let my kids party every weekend. Two, I expect their boyfriends to treat family with respect, and not to lie continually and completely belittle the members of the family. Three, I didn't go into massive debt to buy a brand new car for graduation. Four, I expected her home on time. I must note that with that last requirement, I let them decide when they were going to be home, I just make them adhere to it.
I am certainly stricter than some parents (especially in this culture), but am actually not over strict. I have expectations for my children, and I hold them to those expectations.
In other words, parenting.
My daughter's letter acknowledged some of the problem she had had with obeying authority. I figured a drill sergeant would help drive that home, but wish it didn't come to that.
Over the time this was building, I addressed this with some of the parents of the community. I wasn't exactly laughed out of the room, but I wasn't taken seriously, either. "Kids drink, it's what they do"; "Kids are going to be promiscuous; it's natural"; "don't be so strict".
Huh, silly me. And here I thought "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are older they will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6) was actually the Christian guideline.
The last year has been hard because we have had to do it completely and utterly alone. Now, before I go further, I understand kids do fail. They mess up. That happens. But we shouldn't set failure up as an expectation. We shouldn't hand them a box of condoms and tell them to go to town, just don't get pregnant (quite literally the response of my daughter's boyfriend's parents, despite their being uber, Glenn Beck worshipping Christians). We shouldn't buy them a keg and tell them to drink up. We should guiide them, we should encourage them to make wiser choices.
As I tell my kids about alcohol, they can make the choice when they are of age, but not ONE person can look at their lives and say they were made better by drinking. If you drink to fit in, you're drinking for the wrong reasons period.
The church, it seems, has a poor understanding of WHY we are instructed to "not forsake the assembling of yourselves together" (Heb. 10.25). It is because we were designed to be a community, designed to build each other up, designed to strengthen each other in areas of weakness.
And the church as a whole has done a poor job of that. The scores of people leaving the church are testimony to that.
These days, my life is a semi hermitage. I come out for church, I come out for work, I come out for shopping. But beyond that, my social contacts are extremely limited, as we've been torn apart by the gossip of people who judged us even as we attempted to raise our children to a certain standard. And that's a horribly lonely way to have to live.
I hope that some day someone reads this and truly understands, truly attempts to rebuild some semblance of community. Until such a time, I don't see much changing.
My daughter has at least come to grips with the reason for some of the problems. But the other people involved are a long way from that point. As for my point, I did the best I could, even TRYING to reach out to others for help even as the issues were getting worse. There was nobody to whom I COULD reach out.
And people wonder why I have trust issues.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Ken Langone Shows Us Where the Church Has Gone Wrong.
Ken Langone is a billionaire. He would also have you believe he is a philanthropist, and indeed he has contributed funds to a number of worthwhile projects. But his recent remarks have made it clear those projects are nothing more than an attempt to bribe the church into delivering a message that is more friendly to those who steal the world's wealth and leave billions in poverty.
As this article points out, he has deemed Pope Francis' comments about the world's wealth inequality "exclusionary" and has threatened to stop contributing unless the message is changed.
There's only one problem: the Pope's message is directly supported by Scripture.
It will be interesting to tell if Langone can reform the Catholic church with his bribery attempt; it certainly wouldn't be without precedent. But it would be inconsistent with the message Pope Francis has preached his entire life, and it would certainly fuel a rash of extreme criticism if the church were to so blatantly demonstrate that it is open to bribery.
Pope Francis has made great strides in delivering a message that evangelicals are afraid to deliver, but one has to wonder how long his support will hold if the wealthy throw a tantrum and remove their donations until the church stops condemning them.
But it raises a larger point, one of which we need to be aware. With Langone so publicly bribing the Vatican, is it entirely inconceivable that the same level of arm twisting has gone on in the back rooms and board rooms of the mega churches? Could that be the reason that the message has shifted from the cross to the checkbook, and why financial prosperity has replaced Godly living as the purpose of many within the church?
This is pretty clearly why we were warned that we cannot serve both God and Mammon; if the Pope backs down, there is no question as to the path the church has taken. And if they refuse, somehow they are going to have to figure out how to make up the balance that they are losing when Langone takes his ball and goes home.
I am not a believer in boycotts, and will not threaten one. But I will promise to personally not send another dime in that company's doors. If Langone believes he can bribe the church, that is fine. But he will not receive another dime from my pocket!
As this article points out, he has deemed Pope Francis' comments about the world's wealth inequality "exclusionary" and has threatened to stop contributing unless the message is changed.
There's only one problem: the Pope's message is directly supported by Scripture.
It will be interesting to tell if Langone can reform the Catholic church with his bribery attempt; it certainly wouldn't be without precedent. But it would be inconsistent with the message Pope Francis has preached his entire life, and it would certainly fuel a rash of extreme criticism if the church were to so blatantly demonstrate that it is open to bribery.
Pope Francis has made great strides in delivering a message that evangelicals are afraid to deliver, but one has to wonder how long his support will hold if the wealthy throw a tantrum and remove their donations until the church stops condemning them.
But it raises a larger point, one of which we need to be aware. With Langone so publicly bribing the Vatican, is it entirely inconceivable that the same level of arm twisting has gone on in the back rooms and board rooms of the mega churches? Could that be the reason that the message has shifted from the cross to the checkbook, and why financial prosperity has replaced Godly living as the purpose of many within the church?
This is pretty clearly why we were warned that we cannot serve both God and Mammon; if the Pope backs down, there is no question as to the path the church has taken. And if they refuse, somehow they are going to have to figure out how to make up the balance that they are losing when Langone takes his ball and goes home.
I am not a believer in boycotts, and will not threaten one. But I will promise to personally not send another dime in that company's doors. If Langone believes he can bribe the church, that is fine. But he will not receive another dime from my pocket!
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