Confusion, part three

Below is another thought pattern that brings about confusion. These contemporary patterns make their way ever closer to what is generally consider traditional "Church", and are born out of a desire to make Church more palatable to the masses. This pattern seeks Unity. Now while unity is laudable, it becomes an ugly thing when truth is sacrificed in order to bring it about. We must know that hiding truth leads to confusion.

In more severe cases the quest for unity has given way to a new theology known as "Emergent" theology. The churches that subscribe to this theology appear to have given themselves over wholly to unity, even at the expense of truth. Much of this fact is hidden due to the redefining of words. This can be especially seen in the redefining of Jesus. The real Jesus is exchanged for a symbolic Jesus upon which pet causes such as environmentalism, social justice, and self, can be placed. These causes are then elevated above the actual object of God's love for whom he gave his life on the cross to save: Man.

Except for the use of the same Christian words that have been redefined, this "Christianity" bears little resemblance to true Christianity beyond its worship customs. The redefining of words like love and compassion to suit modern day sensibilities is very confusing. Though such redefinitions help to bring about inner peace when all is well, it does precious little to carry one though the real trials and tribulations that are promised; not to mention the trials brought about by behaviors like premarital sex and divorce that come more easily as the result of a self-centered religion.

To a lesser degree, by giving in to the spirit of the age, many traditional churches are sacrificing increasing segments of truth at the alter of unity as well. They do this either outright, or in more passive ways by simply avoiding certain subjects or conflict. All of this increasingly contributes to an important fact. There is an increasing fog like confusion that now lays thick in Western Society.

Coming To A NEA Unionized, Democrat Controlled Government School Near You

Teaching to not bully--Good
Teaching Homosexuality as normal--Bad
Using Bullied Children As An Excuse To Teach Homosexuality As Normal--Really Bad
Grade For California Schools-- F --

If anyone was wondering why prop-8 was so important for California, wonder no more. I have contended for years that homosexuals need access to your children through the government school system in order to make their lifestyle acceptable and to make those who disagree unacceptable. The extreme leftist California Supreme Court has opened that door. Do not be mistaken. This is coming to your school system, and by the time it gets there it may very well be criminal to disagree. Like it? Keep voting Democrat.



H/T Neil Simpson

Confusion, part two

“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”

In my last post I discussed the confusion brought about by Harold Camping's failed judgement day prediction. But if people were able to see Camping for what he is, an outlier to true Christianity, there are still other outliers spreading confusion with much greater efficiency. Some, of one type in particular, have become masters at harnessing the power of television combined with the method of making empty promises. With this powerful medium they are able to blanket the land with their shameless lies of the so called prosperity gospel. For most believers and unbelievers alike the antics of the televangelist, by his making promises from God to some poor soul in exchange for a “sacrificial” check or "seed money", is self-serving of the "preacher". It takes advantage of the weakest of these: the weak minded. Worse yet, it muddies the waters about the real salvation message to all and therefore brings about more confusion as well as more deserved mockery.

Not to be outdone in casting confusion however there is also the confusion wrought by the so-called “social gospel”. This religion is not much more than good old-fashioned communism repackaged in Christian wrappings. As is typical with communism this religion is political in nature and is in its inner workings a thinly veiled arm of leftist party politics. Right and wrong are not determined by scripture but rather is determined by what is in or out of favor at any given time with the party. This is why the social gospel is indistinguishable from its true head, the Democrat party while bearing very little resemblance to Biblical Christianity . It wreaks confusion by exchanging truth for increased government power while parading itself in Christian outer garments. It takes advantage of the least of these, the poor and down trodden, by confusing truth with a lie based on materialistic this-life ends while preaching hate and envy.

These are two more reasons confusion reigns in this day, perhaps more than in previous days. I will be adding several more to this list in the days to come.

Confusion, part one

“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”

Working from the premise that deception is a product of confusion about truth, this passage foretells of a great confusion in the world; a confusion that not even the elect would escape save for the supernatural hand of God. Though we have our fair share of false prophets in these days, we have not yet seen from them, as far as I know, “great signs and wonders”. But we are most certainly living in a time of great confusion. That said, it makes me ask if we are living in a time of unprecedented confusion? I don’t know, but consider a few things.

Harold Camping's recent folly is but the latest of many such follies. One of the saddest commentaries on Camping's prediction is not that he ignored clear scripture, or that he had to torture scripture to make it agree with his hair-brained numbers game, but instead it is the amount of confusion he has wrought. Such nonsense plays right into the hands of the mockers of Christianity. Such deserved mockery brings about wide spread confusion.

Love does not envy, it is not self seeking, it does not delight in evil

This is a C.S. Lewis quote worth considering:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

At first glance this quote may seem to say nothing about love. But compassion by its nature is an outpouring of love, therefore, a misunderstanding of love can turn the outpouring of compassion into oppression.

Scripture tells us that in our last days the love of most will grow cold and that men will become lovers of self. What better way to love self than to claim for self the attribute of "compassion" while doing nothing to exercise compassion save being for compassion through political means?

Politicians love such a mindset because it gives them unlimited access to the nation's wealth through taxation for the purposes of exercising "compassion". This in turn gives them ever increasing power because each failure only demands more "compassion" when measured by intentions rather than results. To resist their political posturing is to resist their compassionate intentions, and what emotion based democracy is willing to resist compassionate intentions?

It's worth contemplating that the concept of envy found itself in the ten commandments(don't do it)and in I Corinthians 13(it's not love). In a strictly materialistic view of the world, which is arguably the predominate American view inside and outside of christianity, well-being is reduced to materialism, and compassion to material based "fairness". Such a view is a petri dish for envy. It denies the twin possibilities of happiness without wealth and wealth without happiness because in materialism, happiness and wealth are synonymous.

But scripture rejects this view and warns against the deceptions of material wealth. From a truly Christian perspective these two are not at all synonymous but rather are at war with one another. Furthermore, which trench one occupies in this war will reveal his true allegiance, whether to God, or to mammon. The love of mammon, which is a manifestation of the love of self, is evidenced by a preoccupation with material things while ignoring spiritual things.

There are many examples of this contemporary mindset, but one especially obvious one can be found in the financial black hole of our modern education institutions. In these cauldrons of loveless envy, God and objective truth have been expelled while simultaneously attempting to hold fast to ethics. This of course is Folly. Lewis has another famous and astute point regarding this:

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

Love is not satisfied with material possessions, and it does not demand some arbitrary standard of fairness concerning them. It demands much more, and it grows out of a much more fertile ground... like the real and true compassion that is more concerned with eternity than gratifying the vain and temporal flesh.

Shortly after I began blogging a wonderful lady stopped by to make a comment. She said she would be back. That was over three years ago and our relationship has grown over those years. I've never seen her, but our family and hers has become ever closer through the years. We were planning a cross country drive from Phoenix to Atlanta and were planning on routing our trip so that we might get to visit this family for the first time. Those plans are on hold now as her daughter lost her battle with cancer last night. I had no idea when I set out on this venture that I would become so attached to the people I would meet; people whom I've never seen with my own eyes, but feel as if they live just down the street.

Please join with me in praying for this family in this time of great loss, as well as thanking God that we do not grieve without hope. Her daughter was a believer, and as such, though we grieve with our friend, we also look forward to that glorious reunion.

Green?

If the word "green" being constantly spouted by carbon-gobbling globetrotters like it's the new world savior grates on you like it does me, click here for a pretty cool story.

Love And 1st Corinthians Chapter 13

This chapter consists of 3 sections. The first section discusses the futility in what all Christians do when what they does not come from a heart of love. Paul begins this chapter with those who are all about tongues. But Paul warns that speaking in tongues is nothing more than a bunch of annoying noise when love is absent.

And to the faith, prophet and knowledge crowd, he reduces their exercises to “nothing”; as in might-as-well-stay-home-drink-beer-and-watch-the-game nothing. And to those who think staying home drinking beer and watching the game is just fine as long as one loves his neighbor by redistributing to them other people’s money, he says such also gains nothing. In fact, forget the faux compassion of giving someone else's possessions to the poor, Paul actually proclaims that even if we did make a sacrifice personally, even if we sacrificed every material thing we owned--a feat far and above the trite and easy symbolism of redistribution--we still gain nothing. I gather from this that not only do we not “gain” the object of our enterprise--actually helping the poor--but we also gain nothing for ourselves. And if that isn’t enough Paul ups the ante further by including our own flesh in that sacrifice, and in a most painful way, by fire. To be sure, love is key in understanding the Christian life.

This chapter goes well beyond the sentimental wedding gift wall plaque; it demands a question. That question is, “What must I do to love", the answer to which is of the utmost importance. The first step to accomplishing that feat would be to correctly and accurately grasp the meaning Paul was attaching to the word in his attempts to convey this truth. Almost as if anticipating this problem, Paul takes the time to point out some of the fruit that will and will not accompany the person who has begun to grasp it. I will be taking a look at some of those fruit in a forth coming post.

Love

What does it mean to love? This is the question I have been asking myself for the last few months. The reason I've asked it is two fold:

1. I've felt sub-par in my ability to love.
2. How the word today is defined is not what is meant in the Bible; this goes for the world's definition, to be sure, but it also goes for the commonly accepted Christian definition as well.

So, I've been on a quest of sorts to solidify my understanding of that word. As I stumble down the road on this quest I am becoming ever more convinced that the prostitution of the "word"; indeed the flipping of the word onto its head, is a prime reason for the unraveling of our society. To wit, another denomination instituted sin just this past week in the name of love. Western civilization is drowning in red ink, in the name of love. Truth and sound doctrine have been evicted from many, if not most churches, in the name of love. Today a bunch of rot-gut sermons will be preached, in the name of love. Families are being laid waste, in the name of love. As one talented poet/musician asks, "what more in the name of love?" Sadly, much much more.

Here are some of the posts I've written as a result of this quest:

Leaving The Church

Love Protects

Living In The Here And Now

Calling Sin Sin

Legalism vs. Legalism

Don't Tell Me That You Love Me

Don't Tell Me That You Love Me II

The Mystery Of The Missing Comments

I had some time and was going to respond to some comments to my last post and saw that three of them had disappeared. Blogger? Hacked?

Anyway, wanted to say that I always appreciate comments as long as they are thoughtful. I have a limited amount of time, and even though I don't always get around to responding to comments that are left here, I always want to. Sometimes I simply can't think of anything meaningful to add or say in response, generally because I agree. Otherwise, it is a time issue. I take the time to read any comments left right away, but it may take me up to a couple of days to respond. After that, I figure it's too late. Please don't see this as indifference, it isn't. I am always grateful. I say this because I love to get responses when I take the time to comment elsewhere, though it's fine if I don't, which seems to be the case about half the time. Also, I don't comment now near as much as I once did. Though I do try to read most of the blogs I follow on "reader". I have about 40 good blogs there.

Sorry for the missing comments. I have no idea what happened to them, though I know it didn't just happen here. It also happened on my other blog as well.