Category Archives: I believe

Helping “The Least of These”…

Posted on by RJ

I spend a lot of time on this blog trying to convince you that Jesus intended us to help each other out. Especially those less fortunate than us. I have mentioned that I volunteer to do the cooking a couple of days a week at a soup kitchen. That is one way that I attempt to do what Jesus says. But I don’t think I have ever tried to give you any advice on other ways you can help with the homeless and financially challenged. I will attempt to fill that void, at least a little bit, via this post.

  • One of the least productive ways of doing this is by giving money to those who beg for it at local intersections.  It is widely known that almost half of the homelessness is complicated by drug addictions. When we give money directly to those unfortunate souls we are likely inadvertently supporting their drug habit instead of helping them with a hand up.
  • Instead of giving them money offer to take them to a local restaurant for  lunch or to a grocery story for food for their families. That way you know where the money you give is going.
  • Another very efficient way is to contribute to those agencies who support the less fortunate with a place to sleep or a hot meal. There are usually several of these types of places in even the smallest towns.  The one I support with both my time and money is Backstreet Missions in Bloomington Indiana. They support homeless men in one shelter and battered women with children in another. They also serve about four hundred meals a week to the less fortunate in the community.  There are literally thousands of these type agencies throughout the U.S. Most of them do this through no government or religious denominational support.
  • Another way to support “the least of these” is to support the concept of healthcare for all. Over half the bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to people drowning in medical expense debt. That condition is a major contributor to being homeless or very financially challenged. It greatly saddens me that many Christian denominations today that are aligned with radical right politics seem to be against the idea of healthcare for all. The very concept of being against universal healthcare seems very unChristian to me.
  • One of the ways that the children of the financially challenged break the strangle hold of poverty is through Pell Grants. These are annual scholarships given to kids whose families earn less than $25,000/year. Unfortunately, due to the Republican party’s insistence and President Obama’s signing off on it, the latest round of budget cuts just signed into law pretty much gutted these college scholarships. You can help the financially challenged by calling your congressperson and telling them to re-instate the Pell Grants.
In the coming weeks I will try to offer you additional ways that you can help the poor and homeless. If you have time many agencies can use your help. If you don’t have time (but we all have the same twenty-four hours a day :) ) then you can help by contributing your money to their operations. The last few years has resulted in a dramatic increase in the needs in this area at the same time that donations are decreasing. Agencies who support Jesus’ work in this are really struggling to meet the needs.

Sundays???

Posted on by RJ

Sundays continue to be a strange time for me. Up until last November I could always be found in a church pew on Sunday morning. At that time I was told by my church of eight years that my views of God no longer aligned with what their denomination expected of members. Instead of going through an inquisition I choose to separate my self from them.

But I must admit that the very restricted and almost solo message of that congregation became somewhat numbing. You can only say “Christ did it all so nothing is expected of us” so many ways.  After that you are just repeating the same mantra again and again. To me Christ’s message is so much fuller than that. Being a little gun-shy from this experience I have yet to think about joining another current day Christian sect.  There are a couple that are appealing but….

So, here I am on Sunday morning contemplating the words of Jesus Christ on my own. This could be a lonely time for me but I take heart of all the support I get from my like-minded friends in the blogosphere. I know I am not alone in putting the words of Jesus Christ front and center in my life. All the other words in the sacred texts are secondary at best. Jesus has much to teach me even now so I will continue to seek out his messages for how to live while I occupy a space on this earth.

Thanks to all of you out there and God bless you on this beautiful Sunday morning.

Being Estranged From Others….

Posted on by RJ

It is, I have learned, far easier to ask forgiveness of a god we can’t see than from a person we can see. Perhaps this is why many religions are vertical in nature, focused on pleasing and placating God. That orientation has usually entailed sacrifice, the notion of giving God something—our time, our attention, our praise, our skill, our money—and, in extreme instances, our children, our virgins, an animal, our lives, or someone else’s life. But early in his public ministry, Jesus articulated a different understanding of sacrifice—the surrender of pride, the surrender of ego, the surrender of the privilege of being right, the surrender of everything that keeps us estranged from others, so we can be reconciled.

From a book entitle “If the Church Were Christian” by Philip Gulley

I make no apologies about quoting Philip Gulley so frequently on this blog. In my mind he seems to be one of the few Christian clergymen to have it more right than others now days. In my sixty odd years on being on the earth I have come across a myriad of different approaches to God. As Mr. Gulley says many seem to be in the business of either striking the fear of God in our hearts or asking forgiveness of sins we have committed or will commit in the future. Some also seem to be totally fixated on looking to our lives in heaven to almost the exclusion of what we do on this earth.  As was mentioned in the above quote I think Jesus had very different ideas. He meant for us to take care of each other as he showed us by his examples.

Jesus’ idea of sacrifice was not the same as the Old Testament of Abraham or today’s of giving up things for Lent. Jesus meant us to humble ourselves by giving up our pride, our inflated egos, and our insistence on only us being right. We must be reconciled with all of God’s children to be one of Jesus’ followers.  Pride and ego are very powerful parts of many of our lives.  They are also the most dreadful parts of our lives!

As Jesus said many times, if you want to be the best then you must humble yourselves into being the least.  That means taking care of your brothers. Even those smelly homeless ones we so increasingly see now days.

Why Didn’t Jesus Write a Book??

Posted on by RJ

A fellow blogger who happens to be a Quaker asked an interesting question recently. It was

“Why didn’t Jesus write a book while he was on earth and settle this thing once and for all?”

I know Jesus, like most of the twelve apostles was probably illiterate but I’m sure he could have written a book if he thought it was important.  Why didn’t he choose to do that? As my friend said a book directly from Jesus would, or at least should, have settled all the many  many current day differences among us Christians. I have wondered about this many times.

We currently rely on a book finally assembled four hundred years after the fact that was written mostly by the apostles or their representatives to tell us the things of Jesus. Of course there were also those like St. Paul who had no direct relationship with Jesus but was instead inspired by a miraculous act to write what he did.  Many of the early church fathers, meaning those in the first one hundred years, also recorded their opinions, inspired or otherwise, of what they thought Jesus meant for us to do. But most of those writing were not chosen by the council who put together our Bible to be included. It seems we have many second or third hand words about Jesus in the Bible and other documents but none directly from Jesus himself. Why didn’t Jesus write something himself?

My Quaker friend imagined God’s answer to his question to be this:

“I desire a direct spiritual relationship with all men… if my son had written a book… then all men would have a relationship with a book  and not God”

I can’t imagine a more apt response from God than what my friend proposed!  Jesus wants us to have a direct relationship with God. How much simpler could that be! It seems that today many put the book called the Bible above their relationship with God himself. While the book does give us valuable information about Jesus and God it should never be thought of on the same level as God. To do so would be to treat the book as an idol. And of course most of us know what God thinks of idolatry.  Enough said..

Does Jesus Conditionally Forgive Sins??

Posted on by RJ

There are many places in the red letters where Jesus appears to conditionally forgive sins.  If you break certain rules your sins are not forgiven. The most obvious of these are sins against the Holy Spirit. I must admit that I don’t really understand that condition as much as I would like. But that is not the only place where Jesus appears to withhold forgiveness. There are many others. Several of them have to do with corrupting children. He in no uncertain terms says that if you cause a child to sin, faith or no faith,  you will not see the kingdom of God.

Withholding forgiveness is something that goes very contrary to many evangelical churches who latch totally onto Paul’s words in Ephesians to almost the exclusion of even the words of Jesus.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.

Did Paul understand this differently than Jesus? If that is not the case then why did Jesus say your sins are not forgiven in certain circumstances therefore requiring works? If there is only faith required without any corresponding actions then not forgiving sin seems meaningless.

Maybe we need to consult a third voice in the matter and that is James, the brother of Jesus.  James obviously was around Jesus most of his life and unlike Paul was there during Jesus’ entire three year ministry. In his Epistle James basically said the faith without works is a dead faith and therefore worthless.  Enough said…. I am one to take Jesus at his word.

When the Bible becomes a weapon….

Posted on by RJ

Although I don’t focus very much on the Old Testament I have always been troubled about how it seems to condone slavery. There is an interesting article in USA Today about  this topic.  See it at  In Civil War, the Bible became a weapon – USATODAY.com.  Here is a little bit of it.

God said so

In the 1860s, Southern preachers defending slavery also took the Bible literally. They asked who could question the Word of God when it said, “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling” (Ephesians 6:5), or “tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect” (Titus 2:9). Christians who wanted to preserve slavery had the words of the Bible to back them up.

The preachers of the North had to be more creative, but they, too, argued God was on their side. Some emphasized that the Union had to be preserved so that the advance of liberty around the world would not be slowed or even stopped. One Boston preacher, Gilbert Haven, sermonized, ” If America is lost, the world is lost.”

Historian James Howell Moorhead of Princeton Theological Seminary points out that other ministers drew on the Book of Revelation and suggested that a Northern victory might prepare the way for the Kingdom of God on earth. Still others preached that God would not allow the North to win until it ended slavery. The Battle Hymn of the Republic poetically summed up such Union beliefs:

When we take the Bible literally and for all time the above type mentality often prevails.  St. Paul told slaves to obey their masters so God must condone slavery.  This type of logic did not go away after the Civil War. It is still very prevalent today amongst those who take the Bible literally.  Sad as it is I imagine that there are still many around that believe that slavery was instituted by God. When you take the Bible literally you are stuck with all the verses being literal.  That is a very hard thing to cope with.

Of course many Christians know that much of the Bible was written around the  circumstances of the time and not meant for eternity. If St. Paul had said that slavery was an abomination before God he would have been run out of town on the preverbal “rail”. We must understand that some of the Bible simply reflected the times; some of it was allegory; some of it was just giving historical evidence.

Ending this post on the Civil War topic I very much admire these words of Lincoln:

“My concern is not whether God is on our side,” he said. “My greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”

Many throughout the ages claim God is on their side. Hitler used that logic and so did the KKK amongst many others. But we should all ask the question “are we on God’s side?”

The Father, The Son, and the Holy Bible

Posted on by RJ

The concept of the Trinity was something that was invented many years after Christ’s ascension. It did not originate from Jesus but was invented more than one hundred years after is resurrection. It has, however, become a bedrock item in  much of the Christian church. But it seems many church denominations have now replaced the Holy Spirit with the Bible. From my studies on this substitution seems to have significantly grown about 100 years ago but its actual inception was probably during the Protestant Reformation.

During some recent discussion with a Christian clergy I was told that I should not put too much credence in any messages I thought were coming from the Holy Spirit as they could just as easily be coming from Satan.  Jesus clearly told us that he would be sending the Holy Spirit to guide us in areas  that we were not yet able to understand.  For anyone to discount personal revelations is going against those words.  To say that we can’t tell if the message is Satan or God is almost saying that  God is NOT capable of getting his messages through to us!  I personally give God more power than that. If he wants me to know something  he can deliver it to me and I will know it is from him.  I personally have had a few of those revelations in my life.

Many who discount the power of the Holy Spirit then go on to say that everything God wants us to know is in the Bible and therefore any additional revelations from the Holy Spirit are totally unnecessary. This brings about the title of this post. In many ways the Bible has replaced the Holy Spirit to them! Yes, I do believe that the Bible contains words from God but it is not the total and final word of God.  The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is active even today in teaching us, among many other things,  how to live as followers of Jesus Christ.  I welcome those revelations whenever they come.

Waiting to Die….

Posted on by RJ

It seems that some Christians think that this world is simply a waiting area for the next one in heaven.  They take on the mantel of we are all just poor miserable sinners who are capable of nothing good. So the only thing to do is to wait passively to get into heaven which is their “true” home. This philosophy is primarily accounted for by the epistles of Paul.  Since Protestants latch onto Paul much more than Catholics this world view is associated primarily with them. Many hunker down in their churches each Sunday singing praises to God and waiting for the second coming.  Since they think so little of themselves and their God given abilities they think little or nothing is required of them.  What a sad way to live in this world!

I wonder just how surprised they will be when they find out that God actually intended them to do something while they were here.  I don’t know what the consequences of their inactivity will be? I will leave that up to God.  But, I think Jesus clearly pointed out a different tract for us to take. He meant for us to actively praise God through our actions and to love our fellow man.  To give our neighbors the shirt off our back if he needs it.  Yes, to even being a bleeding heart! Just casually looking at the red letters makes this very obvious to me.

God created the universe which is a vast and wonderful place. He set the earth in motion and then populated it with everything we need to make a fulfilling life here.  Some might say to even make his kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven. To waste all that by being passive is an affront to God in my opinion.

Intrepreting the Bible….

Posted on by RJ

As I have mentioned in the recent past I have disassociated myself with the Christian church that I was part of for over nine years. I have always tried to not mention what my religious affiliations were on this blog but now that they are severed I will say it was with a LCMS Lutheran church.  The pastor of the church was a regular viewer of this blog and gave several often opposing comments which I welcomed. I thought we had agreed to disagree on some of the secondary issues surrounding our individual faiths. That was fine with me. But then I was given notice that since I had among other things so publicly stated that I believe in the “day age” version of Genesis instead of the seven-day 24 hour version he would be taking my case to the elders to get my communion privileges revoked and therefore effectively removing me from membership! If I had not short circuited the process by voluntarily leaving it this would have resulted in a formal inquisition where I would be asked to disavow these false beliefs.

During our discussions on this topic the statement was made that we cannot each decide what to believe about the church or the Bible. Instead we must all believe what the church leadership tells us is the truth. To do otherwise, I was told, would result in mass confusions. In afterthought it seems very ironic to me that I was chastised for trying to understand the Bible on my own terms, especially by a Lutheran church.  After all isn’t that what the founder of the Lutheran church actual did! He dared to go against current church beliefs and especially their practices.

But I have to admit that this type of thing probably goes on in almost all Christian denominations today.  If you don’t tow the line and believe what you are told to believe then you are chastised in one form or another.  In my studies of different Christian organizations about the only one I have found that does not do this are the Quakers. They basically allow any of their members to believe just about anything they want.  I think they go too far in the other direction. There has to be some very basic core beliefs in order to call yourself a Christian. But most denominations today go way beyond that set of core beliefs and instead base their membership qualification more on church tradition and practices than anything else.

So here I am  trying to understand the Bible on my own and not rely on someone else to tell me what each verse means. Maybe I should post my 95 theses on my old church’s doors. Who knows what might happen. (ha)  I will continue to be a very fervent follower of Jesus Christ but not a member of any particular current day denomination. At least for now.

A Follower of Jesus Christ….

Posted on by RJ

I have often said that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. He is indeed my Lord and Savior. But, is there a difference between being a follower of Christ and being a Christian?  Up until recently I had not tried to discern any difference in those two state. But now I am coming to understand that they can be two  quite different things.

Being a follower of Jesus Christ means that I study his words as found in the Gospel text and take them to heart. Those words are what drives me throughout my life. Jesus gave us many insights in what it means to be one of his followers.  The primary message I get is that we are to be our brother’s keeper. We are to love God above everything else and to love our fellow-man as ourselves. Jesus said these two things take in the totality of the Jewish law that came via the old covenent before him.

Being a Christian, at least to me, means being associated with some organization that is trying to tune itself around Christ.  I think there has come to be quite a difference between Christian establishments and the invisible Body of Christ. As I have mentioned often on this blog, there are currently over 39,000 versions of Christian establishments around today.  That number is constantly increasing as more and more are separating themselves over doctrinal and belief issues.   This never-ending division started early in our history.  Many believe that St. Paul in his many letters to different congregations about many different issues put in place a myriad of rules that are at the core of these separations. These divisions also seemed to start growing exponentially about the time that some started taking all the words of the Bible as being literal and absolutely true.  With that stand it is very hard to reconcile so many of the different issues addressed in the Bible so many people latch on to a handful of verses and just mostly ignore the others.

So, here I am a follower of Jesus Christ and not currently associated with any religious establishments of the day. In some ways  this is a liberating state as I can now concentrate on Jesus’ words alone and don’t have to worry about aligning them with any current church practices or doctrine.

What is the saddest thing in this world???

Posted on by RJ

That is a question that has been on my mind the last few days.  I have lived for more than six decades on this earth so I have been exposed to probably millions of different situations but what is the saddest? The list initially was quite large but the more I have thought about it the more it shrinks. I think I am finally down the one thing and that is lazy minds. I know, on first thought, that seems a strange answer.  After all there are things like world hunger, hatred, prejudice, homelessness, constant wars, and many other things that seem more serious.  But the more I have thought about it the more I am convinced that all of the above mentioned things are a result of lazy minds.

Our ability to think is perhaps the most significant thing that God gave us to separate us from everything else in this world. Being able to analyze our circumstance and then make knowledgeable decisions and then changes is something only man can do. God gave us our intellect so we could develop it and use it to further his kingdom on earth.  When we lay back and refuse to use our God given intellect I believe we are sinning against God at a most basic level. Lazy minds are not limited to any particular ethnic group, economic scale, or spiritual sphere. It is endemic across the entire spectrum of human condition.

Lazy minds allow us to just sit back and take on our parent’s prejudges as our own.  If our parents didn’t like Jews or Blacks or Hispanic or whatever then it is likely we don’t like them either. If only we exercised our minds and found that all these prejudges are without any merit  or reasoning whatsoever we could more easily purge them from reality.

Lazy minds allow others around us to control how we perceive almost everything in this world. It is just easier to have someone to show us one way of thinking and not even consider that there are other possibilities. It allows politician to tell us what to believe, marketers to tell us what to buy. It allows others to tell us what to believe about almost all aspects of life including our spiritual one.

Lazy minds prevent us from solving many of the otherwise solvable problems in the world.  We have the technical ability to eradicate most of today’s problems if only we got off our butts and did something about it. World hunger is definitely something that is fixable. The main thing that prevents us from doing that is we have not figured out how to interact with each other or how to choose leaders who could do that as our representatives. We allow our leaders to tell us what to think, who are enemies and friends are and almost everything else about our living in this world. We let them separate us into clans that they say must battle each other.

Lazy minds prevent us from knowing who God really is and what he expects of us.  We allow others to tell us  ”their” truth about God instead of us discovering who He really is. We allow others to selectively point us to the particular words in the Bible that “they” deem the most important instead of studying all the words ourselves. We allow others to tell us who to hate instead of following God’s command to love one another, even our enemies.

We allow one generation after another to take the easy way through this world.  All of us in one degree or another refuse to exercise our minds to even a small percentage of their capacity. It is just too easy to let others think for us.  That is the saddest thing in the world to me.

Creationism Gone in Catholic Church

Posted on by RJ

As some of you may know I recently was more or less forced to leave my church home of eight years because I publicly via this blog said I believe that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. The leadership of the denomination insists that this idea is heresy.  In that light it was interesting to note the article today about the Catholic church very publicly professed that they are no longer teaching creationism.  Here is an excerpt from that article and the URL to the source.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110106/lf_nm_life/us_pope_bigbang;_ylt=Atn4zJuRv18tpYCeKNJVh7is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpdHBkcHJoBHBvcwMzNQRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDZ29kd2FzYmVoaW5k

Benedict and his predecessor John Paul have been trying to shed the Church’s image of being anti-science, a label that stuck when it condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, challenging the words of the Bible.

Galileo was rehabilitated and the Church now also accepts evolution as a scientific theory and sees no reason why God could not have used a natural evolutionary process in the forming of the human species.

The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism — the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible — and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way Godcreated the world.

The Galileo thing has been a constant millstone around the church’s neck in regard to science. It is nice to see that the biggest Christian denomination in the world has finally embraced God given scientific revelation. It is too bad that my previous church still stubbornly clings to the seven twenty four hour day theory.  Of course the Bible story is an allegory for what actually happened just as many of the other stories in the Bible are allegories. The people at the time these stories were written were just not ready for the full truth. With the stories being allegorical take nothing away from the message presented. To take a literal view of these stories  is myopic and hurting God’s kingdom on earth.

The Link between Evangelicals and Radical Right Politics..

Posted on by RJ

WARNING

I am going to get on my soapbox here. I try not to do it very often but sometimes things just grate on me too much! I want to get this off my mind so I can start fresh in 2011

 

I am sorry to say that I have evidenced a strong link between what is probably the majority of Christians who call themselves Evangelicals and the radical right wing of the Republican Party. It is unfathomable to me that those who say they take Jesus’ words as absolute truth can then turn around and align themselves with such a anti-brother’s keeper type worldly organization. The two seem to be diametrically opposite in their philosophies so I am confused as to why they seem to be linked by so many?

Yes I understand those who are religious are opposed to abortion, I certainly am. But to then  attach themselves to a political party just because they verbally, but without any corresponding action, say they are also against abortion are words only intended to accomplish a politically advantageous association and nothing more. Why can’t more people see that obvious fact?

The latest example of the radical right mentality is their attempted blocking of the child nutrition bill which give poor kids at least one hot meal a day. They deemed the program unnecessary government intrusion and a waste of taxpayer money. I guess they think the money would be better spent on building a few more smart bombs than on poor kids. They certainly don’t have any compunction about giving unlimited resources to the world’s biggest war machine. This is something that many in the evangelical community seems to be actively promoting and even celebrating. Where are God’s words in this action? (Since I have written these words the Republican has finally given in and allow this bill to pass above their objections.)

Does this link between Evangelicals and radical right politics damage the kingdom of God on earth. In my opinion it absolutely does! Someone who, like myself, has an ingrained God given desire to help others is surely very turned off by this association. I’m pretty sure Bill Gates among others has mentioned this strange  link as a reason to totally separate his philanthropy from the religious environment. Given my strong propensity to trying to obey God’s command to help others I am often times very reluctant to let some know of my religious affiliations.

It is extremely sad to me to see this type of negative link between religion and worldly politics. Jesus warned us of this many times but I guess many choose to ignore those biblical passages. That saddens me greatly!

The Rambling Questions of a Past Jesus Freak

Posted on by RJ

Sometimes a burst of questions comes into my mind. They usually come and go before I have time to even put them on a Post-It for further study. This time I was at my keyboard. Here is what I have been thinking of this afternoon.

In the past I have been a member of different Christian denominations who say we must go out and save the rest of the world by telling them about Jesus.

  • But I’m not a Jesus freak as the world has come to know many of us. At least not any longer. If you want to go about your life without any in deep knowledge of Him that is your business. You will certainly have many opportunities to know Him if that is your desire. Unless you ask me I will not try to push you in that direction. I am a guy who has chosen to make the teachings of Jesus the central theme of my life. If you choose otherwise I won’t bug you. But if you ask I will certainly tell you why I have the joy that I have in my life. I will not try to intimidate you into believing by threatening God’s eternal damnation. That is between you and God. I have been exposed to various methods that supposedly bring people to Christ. I have come to believe as the Bible says that is the business of the Holy Spirit.

     

  • Are there other paths to heaven besides belonging to a present day Christian organization? At this point in my life I am not willing to say that there aren’t. Jesus said to get to the Father you must go through him. But to me that does not necessarily mean that you must fall in lock step with any current groups who call themselves Christians.
  • Is it possible to be Spiritual without being religious? If being religious means going to church every Sunday (or Saturday) then I don’t know? But I believe I have found my path to the Lord. It is studying the red letters found in the Bible. All of the Bible contains some degree of inspiration from God. All of its many human authors believed they were speaking for Him. But if I really want to know from a firsthand account what God is all about then I must concentrate on those words that came directly from His lips. All the other words found in the Bible at best just reinforce those words. Jesus’ ministry lasted three years. He had enough time to personally tell us what God is all about. I believe he did just that. Study the red letters if you want to know the real messages of God.
  • I know the words of Jesus known as the Great Commission tell us to go out and make disciples but he did not give us a laundry list of just how to do that? I think he chose to leave the details up to each of us individually. I chose a way that is best for me. That is to listen to the last half of that message which is to obey all that he has commanded. That part of the Great Commission seems to have been lost in much of today’s world. In order to know what he has commanded we need to study his words on a daily if not minute by minute basis and to make every attempt to obey them. We will lead people to Christ by our examples, not by our words. And no, I don’t obey his commands perfectly; that is just not possible for us human beings but that does not excuse us from even trying. Giving up even the attempt is a total cop out.

Science & Religion…

Posted on by RJ

Why must some versions of Christianity pit scientific discovery against religious doctrine? It seems from my personal experiences that to some if you believe in God then you cannot believe in scientific discovery. Of course much of this goes back to the literal interpretation of Bible. Since those holding that view must believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old how do they reconcile that with all the scientific facts known today. The most prominent of these recent discoveries is carbon dating. I don’t pretend to know all the details of this branch of science but I do know that it has been shown to be accurate in every instance that it has been challenged.

Since it seems impossible to disprove carbon dating then those who dispute it on religious grounds must do so by saying that it is just God tricking us! But why would God need to do that? This is just one discovery of a long line of discoveries that God has presented us with through the ages. Of course the most remembered disputed discovery was made by Galileo when he publicly stated that the earth is not the center of the universe. The religious establishment at that time came down hard and mercilessly on him for that and they were the power to be reckoned with at the time. They were convinced from their interpretation of the Bible that God had to have made the earth the center of everything. They simply would not even conceive of the idea that the earth was simply a very minor and almost totally insignificant part of the universe. Fast forward five hundred years and the Catholic Church finally got around to admitting and then apologizing for this error. I guess by that time the scientific proof was just impossible to deny even for them.

Todays logic by some is that since carbon dating must be wrong then we must be skeptical of all scientific discovery. So to those who believe this they must also look with suspicion on anyone who is a proponent of science. If you believe in science you must not believe in God. Of course this small group (at least I hope they are small) could not be more wrong.

There are many scientist Christians around today who are just as much a Christian as anyone. I consider myself to be one of them. I think the group that has the most problems being accepted by the religious community are the scientists. For them it seems much harder to be a Christian than not as they don’t feel they are welcomed in many Christian communities. The most visible scientist and Christian today is probably Francis Collins. He was the leader of the genome project that mapped out DNA. His book entitled The Language of God does a very good job to point out how science and religious beliefs can be melded very nicely if only we let it. It does no good for any of us to put a high fence between religion and science. It only drives people away. I will close with a paragraph from the above mentioned book.

If you are a believer in God who picked up this book because of concerns that science is eroding faith by promoting an atheistic worldview, I hope you are reassured by the potential for harmony between science and faith. If God is the Creator of all the universe, if God had a specific plan for the arrival of humankind on the scene, and if He had a desire for personal fellowship with humans, into whom He had instilled the Moral Law as a signpost toward himself, then He can hardly be threatened by the efforts of our puny minds to understand the grandeur of His creation.

 

Soon I will be reviewing a small book written by another scientist Christian. He is an astronomer named Hugh Ross. His book entitled Genesis One – A Scientific Perspective reconciles the creation story with that account in Genesis. It is very interesting reading at least to those who are not locked into the literal interpretation of the Bible.

What about the Bible???

Posted on by RJ

I don’t believe that the collection of documents put together in the fourth century by Emperor Constantine’s council which is known today as the Bible was one hundred percent dictated by God.  Because I believe there is a human element to it some say that I surely must therefore deem it all worthless.

No! No! No!

I really tire of saying this but I must repeatedly explain to them that that is absolutely not the case!

I am unlike most of the inquisitors on this topic in that I am not an all-or-nothing person. I am instead like the most people in that I believe that almost everything, theology included, is shades of grey.

  • Yes, I recognize that many of the documents that made it into the final version of the Bible were ancient texts probably go back the 400 years to Christ’s times on earth.
  • Yes, the four Gospels are valuable resources in learning the messages of Jesus as understood by his immediate followers.
  • Yes, I believe that the authors were inspired by God to wrote down their accounts. I believe this is particularly true of the twelve apostles. Even though almost all of them were illiterate they managed to get their messages into written form. Some through Mark and Luke in particular
  • No, I don’t believe that every word, letter, punctuation mark was directly dictated by God.
  • No, I don’t believe that just because of the above that I must therefore throw out the Bible as worthless. To me that is the epitome of irrational thinking.
  • No, I don’t believe that God quit giving us messages once these authors had completed their works. He told us that he was giving us the Holy Spirit to eventually learn things we were not ready to learn during those biblical times. I believe he continues to do that through others and from scientific knowledge of his kingdom on earth. He told us to believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Some have chosen to substitute the “Bible” in place of the “Spirit”. I am certainly not one of those.
  • No I don’t believe that the Bible is the word of God, that title is reserved solely for Jesus.  But I do believe that the Bible contains many inspired words from God.
  • No I DO NOT believe that the Bible is full of errors! The vast majority of what I read in the Bible I will take as truth. What I do believe is that some people’s interpretations of the Biblical messages are full of errors. They take fables which are only meant to teach us lessons and turn them into literal events. They then wrongly take that literal interpretation and use it as a corner post for their stands on institutional purity.  This same group would have very likely turned Jesus’ parables into literal events if Jesus had not directly told them that they were just stories to relay his message.  Too bad the other stories were not as clearly labeled.

So, do I think the Bible is a useful document? I can give you an emphatic YES to that query. In fact it is a totally awesome collection of works! It would have been wonderful beyond belief to have been one of those who actually sat at Jesus’ feet for the three years of his public ministry. The closest we can come to that now is to read the words of those who did. And many of those words are recorded in the Bible. Maybe someday some more Dead Sea type Scrolls will show up giving us more insight into those early accounts. But, until that time the Gospel text are the best we have. They are in my study on a weekly if not daily basis.

The Musts of Institutional Purity

Posted on by RJ

This post will close out my current thoughts on institutional purity. I have made it a point that institutional purity has done some grievous harm to the Body of Christ. I am therefore saying that we cannot insist that there are certain things you must believe in order to call yourself a Christian? In my mind yes there are some things that are fundamental but they are very few in number. Everything outside of this short list is small stuff.

Here is a list of those essential things that I personally am very much attuned to. It is from a book by Jack L. Willcuts .

  1. We come to Jesus in faith for forgiveness of sins to be made new persons. Christ becomes our Savior, our Lord.
  2. We are baptized in Christ with the Holy Spirit and are cleansed, sanctified, directed, and empowered.
  3. The process starts of learning, of nurture, witnessing, teaching others (beginning with ourselves), our loved ones, our neighbors, and our world the word of peace and truth as revealed by Scripture and the Spirit.

I am not going to pretend that is list is all inclusive to everyone who reads it. I realize there are differences of opinion on this topic. But we must all remember that our lists of the foundational things of God should be as limited as possible. None of us has excusive rights to claim what is absolutely on this list. But we should all realize that our current lists that we use to enforce our idea of institutional purity are certainly bloated with items that should not be there.

All glory goes to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Institutional Purity (Part 2)

Posted on by RJ

The idea of institutional purity is noble in purpose but very faulty in delivery. The idea goes something like this:

“Since we are the only ones to really understand the true nature of God we must protect our ideas from getting polluted by the rest of the world and in particular other Christians who think differently but are wrong. In other words we must fight the barbarians at the gate to insure God’s truths are kept pure. “

The main fallacy of this idea is that we, and we alone, know the true nature of God! When we are convinced of that false assumption then we end up judging ourselves as somehow superior to all others who are seeking God. Isn’t judging others something the Bible has a lot to say about?

I want to bring up the quote I have recently used by Phillip Gulley on this topic:

Indeed, when Jesus did speak of institutional religion, he was often scathing, saying at one point that those who were religiously pure on the outside were inwardly deceitful and rapacious. This serves as a caution to those of us who’ve convinced ourselves that the goal of the church is institutional purity. To be a follower of Jesus is to choose, at every ethical crossroads, to serve people above structures.

Is the goal of the church institutional purity or is it to serve others as Christ served us and to point them to Him as our Lord and Savior. During the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity the Catholic church many times enforced the concept of institutional purity by torturing “heretics”. After the Reformation the Protestant churches have continued that practice although with less physical methods. Today many churches use this concept to purge themselves of people who might be asking the “wrong” questions or having the “wrong” ideas about God and the world. In one respect Christianity is like Democracy in that diversity is a good thing; it keeps us from getting lazy with our thoughts and actions. A lazy Christian is not a good thing.

The main reason there are 39,000 different denominations of Christianity is due to this concept that “I am the only one who has it right and I must preserve my institution against all those heretic who believe differently than me”. When you espouse this belief aren’t you really putting yourself on the same level at God? You are saying “I know God because I am most like him”. Isn’t this a very pompous thought?

I am enough of a realist to know that most religious institutions today are much too entrenched in their personal forms of institutional purity to change anything now. That saddens me greatly but I know short of direct intervention by God himself that will not likely change. I just wish that somehow God would give us the knowledge to know who he truly is. I know manyof you out there are saying he already has with the Bible.  But in reality almost everyone cites their favorite Bible verses as the reason for their form of institutional purity. Someday I hope we Christians will quit judging each other and realize that no one has a lock on who God really is. To believe otherwise is pompous and arrogant at best and sinful, self-centered and evil at worst. Until God tells us very directly we must assume that none of us have it all totally right. Sometimes we Christians act like little children in the world’s school yard who never learned to play with others. I just wish God would smack us across our knuckles and tell us to get along with our playmates.

Institutional Purity & the Diet of Worms

Posted on by RJ

I know some of you might be confused by the title of this post. Let me assure you up front that it is not about how you make your body pure by eating worms :) . This topic is much too heavy to settle well in your stomach even if it were steak.

The theme of the next three posts is really about is that we have done a great disservice to the Body of Christ by believing that we are the only ones who totally understand what being a Christian is really about. The belief is that since we are the only ones who have it right we must keep our institution pure no matter what is required. We must not let the heretic get a foot in the door. In my mind this grossly inflated belief is one on the primary reasons we have more than 35,000 different flavors of Christianity today. So let’s get on to the first round of this idea. More posts will follow this one on this topic.

For the first fifteen hundred years or so the Catholic Church had pretty much the sole authority and power when it came to being a Christian in the western world (no I am not forgetting about the Eastern Church; I just choose to not address that here). They decided what the heart and soul of God was about. Not many, at least successfully, challenged that authority. Then along came a lowly monk by the name of Martin Luther. He was a person who was totally obsessed with his sinful nature. To try to find some relief he studied the Bible and discovered a small verse in the Epistle of Ephesians where it is told that we only saved by the grace of God and absolutely nothing else. He clung desperately to this tiny verse for relief of his long time suffering of inadequacy. Using that verse he studied the Bible to find other possible confirming words. He was convinced that this small verse was at the very heart of what it meant to be a Christian and the Catholic church just had it wrong. The Catholic Church at the time did not put much credence to that particular sentence. Since “they” were to sole authority when it came to being a Christian they insisted that Luther recant his words. They insisted that he publicly admit that he was wrong and to therefore return to the true Christian fold. The Diet of Worms was an edict put out by the Catholic Church to admonish Luther. Here are some of the words:

For this reason we forbid anyone from this time forward to dare, either by words or by deeds, to receive, defend, sustain, or favor the said Martin Luther. On the contrary, we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic, as he deserves, to be brought personally before us, or to be securely guarded until those who have captured him inform us, whereupon we will order the appropriate manner of proceeding against the said Luther. Those who will help in his capture will be rewarded generously for their good work.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_worms>

Of course this was not the first time for the Catholic Church deemed someone a heretic. They had done it many times before. The most notable instances were the Inquisitions of the 13th century. There they tortured thousands and thousands of people in some of the most grievous ways possible in order to get them to “admit” that they were wrong and the church was right about this or that.

After more than a millennium of autocratic authority the Catholic Church had some pretty serious problems. It was time to take them down a notch or two and that is what Luther ended up doing. He challenged the institutional purity concept of the Church and to a certain degree won out.

Next time we will delve further into this topic of institution purity. Did this idea disappear after Luther successfully challenged it? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact as a result of his actions it then grew exponentially! More on that the next time.

A Right of Passage….

Posted on by RJ

Here I am a senior citizen so I thought I had completed all of life’s rights-of-passage. But I was recently proven wrong. Because of my stand, here and elsewhere, that I  believe that the earth is more than 6,000 years old I have been asked to refrain from some worship activities at my current church! It seems I am not allowed to believe the age of the earth according to God’s laws of nature; instead I must believe that the Bible is literal and absolutely true in every respect.  I am not allowed to believe that the story of Jonah and the whale was a fable to teach us a lesson; instead I must believe that he did indeed spend three days in the intestines of a whale.

The church pastor has basically said because I believe things I am not allowed to believe that I am now only welcomed as a guest in the church as I am  no longer a member of that club. Obviously my beliefs in the validity of God given science confirming that the earth is millions of years old and that dinosaurs are not a myth but reality go contrary to what I am allowed to believe. I guess if I had not made such a public stand by saying so on this blog maybe they could have continued to ignore our differences but I chose to go public with this belief and I am glad that I did. More on that later.

The threat of being expelled from my church was probably  intended to shock me in to refuting these “faulty” science based beliefs but in reality it came as more of a relief. It will allow me to no longer have to publicly pit God given scientific discoveries like DNA and carbon dating against their view on an inerrant and literal bible. The all or nothing attitude of  this church when it came to be Bible has been something I have been struggling with for a number of years. I thought that since we are in total agreement on the foundations issues such as the means of grace, salvation, and the deity of Jesus that would be enough. But I guess this secondary stuff is just as important to them.  As I mentioned many times before I am just naturally a person who has questions. I am just a person constantly seeking the truth. I have always known that this church is not one that willing accepts many questions, especially about their traditions. I should have seen this coming before now.

I really don’t know why I have stayed there as long as I have. I think mainly it is because my wife, even though she like me was not attending church during her middle thirty years, considers herself a life long member of that strain of Christianity. For her sake I have tried to downplay my differences with them.   Stepping back now,I am amazed I lasted as long as I did there.

It is refreshing to finally not have to pretend to anyone that the Bible is the say-all and end-all for God. Jesus clearly told us that the Holy Spirit would give us more info when we were ready for it. I can now say that loud and clear without facing any further retribution! God’s revelations did not abruptly end when Constantine assembled our Bible. God continues to this day to give us both general and personal revelations. They can come to some at a personal level as I have witnessed a few times or they can come through things like scientific discoveries he allow us to make. For instance, while knowledge of DNA would have been totally worthless to the first century inhabitants it will soon prove to be life changing for us in the twenty-first century. Thank you Lord for giving us this revelation.

So, here I am churchless. But I must admit that I am the second one in recent weeks to be excluded. I don’t know if or how many others are on the list for this action.  Maybe they are trying to purge the  perceived dissidents from the congregation. Things go much easier if no one is asking any serious questions.

I will probably stay away from doing church for a while. I need to decompress some.  I need to listen for the Holy Spirit and consider my options. I probably should have moved on myself some time ago but I was just too comfortable where I was. Good friends made over an eight year period are hard to leave. Especially at this point in my life. I also know that my wife will probably suffer the brunt of the consequences as a result of this action. She was much more embedded there than I was. I sincerely apologize to her for that fact.

Instead of treating this event as a negative one I choose to treat it as a right of passage to the next level of my journey with Christ.

Works and Heaven….

Posted on by RJ

With the previous post about works being on my mind I am thinking of my Christian friend who, at least in my mind, is a “No Assembly Required” Christian. Whenever I mention works he immediately says that I must be doing works in order to gain heaven. No matter how many times I have to told him that is not the case he continues to bring it up.

So, once again for my friend no, I don’t do good works in order to earn my way into heaven or certainly not to obey some ancient Old Testament laws. As anyone who has been following my blog for any amount of time knows I don’t put much effort into studying the Old Testament especially the traditions and laws. Jesus made it clear that we cannot gain heaven by fulfilling those ancient laws. I take him at his word to that. I know the Jewish faith continues to believe they can but I rejected that many years ago. Too bad I just can’t convince my “No Assembly” friend of that fact. Most Christians, but I’m sure not all, believe that the sole purpose of the Old Testament was to point to Jesus. Jesus himself said that not one iota of the law and Old Testament prophets would be abolished until it was all fulfilled. I am one to believe that Jesus by his life, death and resurrection did indeed fulfill it so it therefore becomes not very important to me now. I am totally into the new covenant brought by Jesus not the old one that it replaced.

Then why do I seem to constantly emphasize good works? I do it because Jesus told me to obey him and do good works in his name. I do it because he is my Lord and Savior. I choose to not worry about Old Testament laws and traditions. I choose to not base my entire spiritual self on the Bible being inerrant. Instead choose to just follow Christ. Everything else is just small stuff.

Assembly Required….

Posted on by RJ

Since we are into the beginning of the Christmas season the above title came to mind. Although I was not fortunate enough to be a parent I certainly sympathize with those who are when it comes to having to assemble things like bicycles and such for their kids for Christmas. I imagine to many parents the words “No Assembly Required” is a much sought after feature when it comes to Christmas presents.

Ok, so now what does all this have to do with Red Letter Living? In my mind there are two basic types of Christians: 1) the Assembly Required Christian and 2) the No Assembly Required variety. Let’s start with the last type first. The No Assembly Christians are those who believe that due to our totally sinful nature we are incapable of pleasing God with absolutely ANYTHING we might be able to do. Many of these Christians believe that all that is required of them is, depending on their denomination, baptism, an alter call, or a maybe another type of proclamation of faith. God expects nothing else from them as any effort they might expend is totally worthless in God’s eyes. I.E. one-size-fits-all or “No Assembly Required”. Once they make the original leap of faith they only need to sit back and wait for the end.

The other type of Christian is the “Assembly Required” type. They like the first group believe that they need to make a leap of faith but to them that is a starting point not the end point of their Christianity. Strangely in some ways this type of Christian is more of a literalist than the first type. They take Jesus’ words to heart when as he tells us in his Great Commission to obey what he has commanded. They realize that Jesus meant for us to be active in our faith as faith without works is dead and really no faith at all. They truly understand that Jesus loves each and every one of us and is joyful with our acts of kindness to others in his name. To them coming to faith is just a starting point. Yes, Assembly is indeed required throughout our Christian lives.

Which type of Christian are you? Are you a “No Assembly Required” or an “Assembly Required” Christian? As for me I am without any doubt whatsoever an “Assembly Required” one. Yes it does require more work on my part but that is just what it means to be a Christian. In my mind words without actions are totally meaningless.

I Believe…

Posted on by RJ

  • I believe that to constantly harp about our sinful state is more harmful than anything it might accomplish.
  • I believe that we should teach our children that they were made by God and God does not make junk.
  • I believe that God means for each of us to accomplish certain distinct things while we are here on his earth.
  • I believe that God is very displeased with the way we have trashed his kingdom on earth.

Why Red Letters??

Posted on by RJ

In many Bibles, some words are set apart with a red font. Why is this? It is to remind us that when God became Man and personally gave us words that those words are probably something we cannot afford to miss. So why don’t many churches today take the “red letters” to heart? Why aren’t we doing more to be Christ’s hands and feet to the poor, the disenfranchised, the weary, the ill, the fatherless, and the prisoners? It’s all there–in red letters. Why has the Church shirked its responsibilities, leaving the work to be done by governments, rock stars, and celebrities? We leave it up to our governments to do those tasks and then we complain when they take some of our tax dollars to accomplish it! Shame on us!!

It is quite troubling to me the number of Christian denominations that totally downplay those red letters. They instead deem all the words written by men and accumulated into what we know as the Bible to be of equal importance! I understand that the foundation for this misbelief goes back to the slippery slope idea that I have covered before. They want to believe that all the words were authored by God instead of just the red letters. This makes studying the Bible much easier for them as then they don’t have to discern what is currently relevant and what isn’t in that document. They just refuse to accept that some of those biblical words were written with a two thousand year old mentality and mindset and are no longer relevant to us today.

I choose not to take the easy way when it comes to following my Lord and savior. I will not just say the words and then lay back and let his grace flow over me. I choose not to solely depend on the “experts” to tell me what God’s message to me is. Instead I will take his grace and turn it into action as he commanded me to do. I will study the Bible and other similar documents from the early times to find what is relevant to me today and discount those things that come from pre-21st century knowledge and understanding. I will study the Bible and other such documents to find the messages in the underlying text but understand that that text could be just a story or myth passed down from the generations between when Christ roamed the earth and when the document was solidified four hundred years later.

It is quite refreshing to accept that I have a responsibility to actually do what Jesus commanded me to do and to study the words from the founding fathers to find those relevant to me and my daily life. I will not leave that important task up to others to do the work for me. It is not up to the theologians or even today’s clergy to push me into heaven or maybe more importantly to do God’s work here on earth. God gave me free choice and I choose to follow Him alone.

Affirming our Potential

Posted on by RJ

I believe that affirming our potential is more important than condemning our brokenness.

Many churches I have attended put a very strong I would even say an overwhelming emphasis on our brokenness. Their creeds which are chanted every Sunday point out that we are nothing but poor miserable sinners and are capable of absolutely nothing good. Besides causing inferiority complexes in those to buy into that thought it is also does very little to attract those not familiar with the true words of Jesus and the positive things he wants us to accomplish while on this earth.

Most of the “poor miserable sinner” thoughts come from Saint Paul in his many epistles. It seems that Paul, like Martin Luther that came many years later, had pitifully low self esteem that would lead naturally to this syndrome. Jesus on the other hand had different words to tell us. He constantly was affirming our potential with such words as “through the Father you can do anything”.

So, I will say again we should spend much more time knowing the positive things we can do with Christ on our side rather than fixating on the sins that we commit. Yes, we all do commit sins every day and that makes God sad but failing to recognize our potential to love God and to love our neighbors as Jesus commanded makes God even sadder.