Where Have You Gone??

Posted on by RJ

I have been getting more questions lately from some in our old church asking why we haven’t been there for such a long time. I got a very heartfelt note in the snail mail today from one of those friends.  She said that she really misses my wife and me on Sundays especially in the Bible classes. She mentioned that when I had a disagreement with the pastor on a biblical issue she and her husband tended to agree with me more than the pastor on that issue. She was wondering where we have gone and hoping that we would come back. It is nice to know that some from our old church still miss us six months later.

Since the pastor has evidently chosen not to reveal his actions that resulted in us leaving the congregation, this brings up a serious dilemma for me. I wish all the people there the best and that includes the pastor. Do I take a chance of causing disunity there by telling my friends the truth?  It is not my intent to cause dissent in any of the Body of Christ but I also would like them to know that my leaving was at least partially not of my own accord. I don’t harbor any ill will of the pastor who wanted to take away my membership privileges because of our disagreements on biblical interpretations. After all he was just taking a stand, albeit a strict one, on denominational issues. Since I publicly admitted I do not believe in a totally literal and inerrant Bible he felt strongly that I could no longer be one of his official flock. But, I am getting very uncomfortable avoiding telling some of them who ask why we no longer attend. What do I say?

As I have said many times before, it greatly saddens me to see us Christians split over such non-essential things. As long as we hold to the basic tenets of Christianity surely we can come to our own conclusions about some of the other things? Must we always toe the denominational line?

How do I answer my friend who sent the snail mail note today? I just don’t know right now.

Is God a Winner or a Loser??

Posted on by RJ

The title question came to me from a fellow blogger of the Quaker persuasion. The premise around the question is at the end time will there be more people in heaven or hell? If you answer hell then it appears like satan wins. From an evangelical Christian perspective I’m sure the answer is satan will win.  By their very nature evangelicals believe that if you are not a Christian you are going to hell. This, like many things is a very black and white issue for them. Since it is widely known that the majority of people are not  Christian then that makes God an instant loser in the battle for humanity.

If you believe in universal salvation as I am tending to these days then you know that God is never a loser at anything.  I know Jesus said the words “No one gets to the Father except through me”, but I don’t see where he put a condition of membership on that statement. Did Jesus die for all our sins or just for those who end up calling themselves Christians?

Will Jesus welcome our Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish brothers when they come to the gates of heaven? I personally will not take that power away from him just because others cannot conceive of the possibility. If Jesus wants to allow someone into heaven it is certainly not up to me to tell him otherwise and I do kind of feel he has something up his sleeve in that area. :)

Taking Ownership of Others Actions….

Posted on by RJ

We Christians seem to like to take ownership of others actions.  If a missionary is killed in South American we say that proves that we are suffering and dying for Jesus Christ. Somehow or another that death gets attached to our individual selves as if we were the ones who died.

We just can’t live vicariously through other. We are each responsible for our own actions. The only exception to that is Christ being a redeeming sacrifice for all of us before God that is memorialized today.  As I have mentioned in the past I don’t really understand that idea but Jesus made it clear that that was one of the reasons he came to earth. I will take him at his word on that and mourn his crucifixion in my place and, of course, I will celebrate his resurrection on Sunday.

Just because some die in a foreign country trying to promote Christianity does not mean that we are likewise sacrificing for Christ.  We must all take up our individual crosses in the name of Jesus. There is certainly an enormous amount of work that needs to be done in this word in His name. He certainly gave us a multitude of possibilities and almost all of them revolve around being our brother’s keeper and loving even our enemies.  If you sit back and do nothing you are diluting what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Those are strong words but I feel that must be said.

God gave us free will while we are on this earth and part of that means we are responsible for our actions or inactions.

Earth As A Proving Ground???

Posted on by RJ

Why did God go to all the trouble to create the universe? By any standards that was a massive undertaking. I am one who believes in the day age interpretation of the Bible.  In the last century or so God has given us the scientific understanding to know that the creation of the universe took millions if not billions of years to complete. Why did he go through all that trouble?

One explanation for God creating the universe and an infinitely small corner of it called the Earth was that he intends it to be a proving ground for what kind of person we choose to be. We all start out on this earth in basically the same conditions; that is we come naked from our mother’s womb. Some of us are fortunate enough to have a caring family and someone who can give us a life that will allow us to live up to our full potential. Many unfortunately are also given a life of day-to-day desperation.  But it is up to each of us to decide via our actions just what type of human being we want to be.

One story in the Bible is that some of us become sheep and some of us become goats and in the end times Jesus will come back and separate us into those two categories. I don’t really understand the difference between sheep and goats; I kind of like them both but that is another story. :)  Anyway there are several other stories about how God will come in the end times for the “final” judgment.  How many of these stories are just allegory I don’t know but I know when I leave this earth, as all of us must, I will meet my Maker. When he judges me I am absolutely sure he will bring up the words of Jesus to compare what Jesus told me to do verses what I eventually did. Will that judgement make me a sheep or a goat? That seems to be totally up to me.  Will the judgment have an effect on whether I am with God or not from that time forward?  There are numerous places in the Bible where God seems to put conditions on that happening. There are also a few where St. Paul seems to say otherwise.  But in some ways it really doesn’t matter to me. I will spend my life studying Jesus’ words and trying to live my life by them. Whether that gets me in heaven or not is totally up to God; I will not spend much time fretting over that. I will spend the time I have on earth enjoying his creation and living my life by the words of Jesus. I do this because I must; I do this because he is my creator and told me what he expects of me and that is to be my brother’s keeper.

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.

The Words We Choose….

Posted on by RJ

It is strange how we choose different words from the Bible to latch on to.  Yvonne and I just returned from a two-week vacation through West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia.  We visited some historical sites there and some mentioned the Appalachian Baptist who made the foundation of their faith handling poisonous snakes.  They centered their religious experiences on the Bible verse that goes “and they shall take up snakes and they will not be harmed” (or something like that).  The stories told of some who were bitten dozens of times and lived to tell about it. But there were also stories of those who were bitten and then died.  I guess to them that was an indication that their faith was not strong enough.

But in my mind this practice is not really that unusual. That is the practice of latching on to a particular verse, not the snake handling choice. :) Many of the current day denominations give extra special meaning to their “favorite” verse.  The one that I am most familiar with are Lutherans. They latch onto the verse “your salvation is a gift from God… so that no one can boast”.  They take these words to mean that nothing is required of them to call themselves Christians except to “live by faith”. And to them living by faith means waiting for the next life. Nothing is required during this one.

I am not a person to latch on to one favorite verse and then leave the others orphaned. I believe that Jesus had numerous very strong messages through his ministry about living on this earth. It is too bad that many today seem to find it necessary to find one thing and almost  forget the rest. That is not what being a Christian means to me. Latching one to only once thing does make practicing their religion much easier but Jesus also made it clear that being his disciples was not intended to be an easy thing.

Should this be harder? – Thoughts from a Convinced Quaker

Posted on by RJ

At the bottom of this post is a link to a heartfelt post by a convinced Quaker. A convinced Quaker is one who has come from outside the sect. In this person’s case it evidently was from Catholicism. This post struck me deeply as I saw myself in much of Laura’s writing. For those not going to the original post here are a couple of quotes that I want to comment on:

“Hard” was life before I learned about Quakerism. “Hard” was wondering how to handle a violent situation in a compassionate manner and thinking I was the only person in the world who had grappled with such an issue. “Hard” was feeling completely alone amongst friends, unable to shake the conviction that something was wrong with spending hundreds of dollars on entertainment and thinking I was doomed to be a social outcast forever because I felt that way. “Hard” was taking every word that came out of my mouth seriously,  really thinking about speaking the truth and speaking kindness, and believing that I was peculiar and alone for being so serious about everything.

“Hard” was trying to live up to the light in me without even knowing that the light was there.  Without knowing that others were on the same path as me, that there was a meeting of people who sought the same things I sought, who could comfort and support me in my time of need. Without knowing there was a long, rich tradition of writing about the very questions I had. Without a weekly meeting to be enveloped and nourished in corporate worship. Those days were very hard indeed, and I don’t want to go back to them.

I, like this convinced Quaker, have struggled with some of my feelings about violence in all its forms, extravagant spending on “entertainment” , Christian organizations that spend almost all their resources on themselves, and other such things.  It seemed like the Christian organizations I was in for some time were more focused on a future life in heaven than one here or earth. So, to my total disappointment these types of matters did not come up very frequently.

One of the foundational concept of Quakerism is “living up to the light” this comes from the words of Jesus at Matt 5:14-16

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Quakers believe that everyone has light from God shining in their lives. Some never allow it to even get to the surface but it is there none the less. I have come to be very much aligned with the concept of the light within each of us. It should be our task everyday of our lives to let the Lord’s light shine in our lives so that others can realize what being a Christian is really all about. It is not about hunkering down in our churches waiting for the end.  It is about living day-to-day. Living my life in a Christian organization that did not follow through on that very basic concept was indeed a very hard thing.

Should this be harder? – QuakerQuaker.

Are We All Praying to the Same God???

Posted on by RJ

canstockphoto2614821A question came up during a Bible class I attended some time ago about the differences between the different main religions of the world. Those include Christianity, Judaism, Muslim, Hindu,and Buddhism. Looking at Wikipedia there seems to be about a dozen other large ones but let’s concentrate on the five largest. The question was:

“Are we all praying to the same God?”

I mentioned that I thought we were and was very surprised to learn that the clergyman who was leading the study had a very different answer. His answer was he definitely knows that all the other religions besides Christianity are praying to pagan gods! But he did hedge on Judaism. I guess I should not have been surprised by this statement but I was.  I personally think we are all looking for the same creator. Some of us lean toward one version of Him and some to another but in the end we are all at least trying to find the “true” God.

I really don’t know if all Christian denominations feel the same as this clergyman let alone if other religions also believe that Christians are praying to a pagan god. But I guess I would not be surprise to learn even that. It saddens me that we so disrespect others who don’t toe the same line as we do. I guess this same certainty also applies to the question of who gets into heaven. Everyone wants to believe their version of God is the ONLY true one. I know that when I was a child in Catholic grade school I was taught that only us Catholics would be in heaven. Although I have not been a Catholic for many years that message still clings to me.  With these types of beliefs it is no wonder that the world’s history is literally filled with different religious wars. I think this truly saddens God!!

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.

Quran burned at Rev. Terry Jones’ tiny church – Faith & Reason

Posted on by RJ

What a sad day when one religious organization burns a copy of another’s holy documents. This supposedly Christian Reverend did a huge disservice to all of Christiandom. Where is the outrage among the mainline Christian denominations?

Do we really want to start a round of totally “dissing” each others views of God?  Sad, sad, sad.

Quran burned at Rev. Terry Jones’ tiny church – Faith & Reason.

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.

You are WRONG!!!

Posted on by RJ

Many if not most Christian evangelical denominations insist that they are the only ones who 100% understand the nature of God.  They each believe everyone else is wrong to one degree or another. There sometimes seems to be more arguing with fellow Christians among themselves than there is any sharing of the Word with those outside their current brand of beliefs. In that regard it is nice to see at least one Christian organization that is not out to prove everyone else is wrong. click the following link to see an article by a Quaker author about being peacemakers.  http://www.friendsjournal.org/personal-peacemaking

The above article is from an August 2008 Friends Journal but is timeless in its advice. It covers 21 tips on personal peacemaking but could also be applied at the denominational level. To tweak your curiosity I will include a few of the tips here along with a brief personal perspective on what they might mean in regards to inter-denominational squabbles that occur regularly today.

  • Making fun of the person you are in conflict with, or engaging in sarcasm or ridicule, is poison.

Ridicule of our opponents on Christian issues seems to be almost the norm today as it is in our current political environments. Of course when we are ridiculed we immediately know that it is a poison to any rational debate. Even various theologians seem to use this vehicle against those who disagree with them.

  • Judging a person or deciding “who is wrong and who is right” is just another form of blaming.

Jesus had a lot to say about judgment and this is just another way to say what he said.

  • We are responsible at all times for choosing behavior that meets our highest moral/ethical standards

The Golden Rule should be how we treat everyone; even those who we disagree with.

  • Blame is not a helpful concept.

We should quit trying to prove everyone else is wrong and just go about our lives as Jesus taught us by treating each of our brothers, both Christian and non-Christian with respect.  Creating over 35,000 different versions of Christ is harmful to each of us and to the Body of Christ in general. These conflicts are definitely not in the instructions Jesus gave us.

Divorce–A Christian Perspective

Posted on by RJ

Divorce is one of those things that gets very different treatment in different Christian denominations. The red letters are pretty clear as to what Jesus thought of it.

Matt 5:31-32

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matt 19:8-9

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Most Protestant denominations don’t put much weight behind these words of Jesus. Many seem to be almost flippant about this sin. Statistics show us that the rate of divorce among Christians is actually a little higher than the non-religious population so maybe there is a reason for minimizing these particular red letters.  Jesus made it pretty clear that for the most part once you are married you are married until death do you part. What Jesus said doesn’t mean you have to stay in a marriage no matter the conditions. But if you leave a marriage you can’t then go on to another one without committing the grievous sin of adultery.

Many say that Homosexuality is a grievous sin and if you stay in a homosexual relationship you are non-repentant and therefore your sin is not forgiven.  I question whether by those same standards remarrying after a divorce should also be  treated as a non-repentant and therefore a sin that is also not forgiven!  Is it up to us to pick and choose which sins are not forgiven?  But let’s stay on topic here.  I think only Catholics and maybe some of the Anabaptist denominations actually treat divorce in a serious manner.

But even Catholics “sneak” around this rule when it is convenient. I am very personally a witness to this fact. My mother’s eleven year marriage in a Catholic church to my father which resulted in the births of me and my younger brother was later voided by the the Catholic Church when she wanted to marry another Catholic twenty years later!  Declaring me and my brother bastards because the marriage “officially” didn’t happen was one of the reasons I left the Catholic church so many years ago. So in some ways the Catholic church is worse than its Protestant brothers in that they only appear to take Jesus’ word to heart.

It grieves me that this is by no means the only place where the current day Christians organizations don’t treat Jesus’ words  as “gospel” (pun intended). We seem to pick and choose where sins are forgiven or where they are not. I have more personal thoughts about that but will hold them for another post.

When the Bible becomes a weapon….

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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

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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.

Waiting For God…

Posted on by RJ

(Here is a post from the past and on another of my blogs. Find the original here http://waiting4god.net/2010/10/04/10410/ )

I heard an interesting sermon this Sunday. It was about waiting for God. As you know this is a topic dear to my heart. Some examples given in the sermon were all the prayers to stop the BP oil leak and the many amber alerts that take place in the U.S. nowadays. The sermon thread seemed to be that we are always disappointed in the silence of God when it comes to our prayers. Why didn’t God stop the leak earlier? How can he allow children to be molested and murdered when there are so many prayers coming to him for a better outcome. Why doesn’t God answer our prayers?

The seeming answer to this dilemma at least as this sermon went was that Jesus’ resurrection was the answer to all our prayers. It should give us hope that all our pain and suffering will go away once we are called to heaven. So, we are to endure all our present suffering because of the future glory Jesus’ resurrection promises. Unfortunately, or maybe sadly, this type of conclusion is all too familiar in many of today’s churches. “Just hold on until the next life and everything will be wonderful”.

To me this is not what Jesus taught. He taught us that we as faithful Christians are God’s representatives here on earth and we are to take action in his name. When a child goes missing we are to do everything in our power to help assure a good outcome. We are also to support those who are activated by these alerts with both our time and our tax dollars. We should not be stingy with our tax dollars when it comes to our neighbor’s health or well being; especially the least fortunate among us. If a good result doesn’t come in these situations then it is our duty to console those who grieve. In other words we are to be our brother’s keeper. Christ did not intend us to passively wait until our death so we can see God’s glory. He meant for us to show His glory through our every day actions.

I do believe that God does from time to time give us miracles but those times are rightly very rare indeed. If he was constantly fixing our society’s and our personal screw-ups would we indeed have free will that he promises us? Instead of bailing us out every time adversity strikes us he intends for us to rally around our neighbors to assure good results or to at least ameliorate their pain and suffering. That is how people know we are Christians and that is how we show God’s true love in this world. We should be doing the work that God gave us to do and not be fixated on sitting around and waiting for the next life because it will be better than this one. Christianity is not a sit back and wait religion; it is a call to action. At least in my mind.

Is the Church Christian?

Posted on by RJ

Here is an excerpt from a book entitled “If the Church were2-13-2011 10-08-10 AM Christian” by Philip Gulley.

Several years ago I visited a museum and saw the skeleton of a dinosaur. As I read the plaque, I learned only a handful of the bones were original, that the remainder had been fabricated based on a paleontologist’s extrapolation from the authentic bones. In many ways, this is similar to what the church has done. There are only two passages in one gospel (Matthew 16:18 and 18:17) where Jesus mentions the church, and even those references are dubious. Many scholars suspect the Matthean verses were not original to Jesus but were written back into the text by persons hoping to bolster their theological and ecclesial positions by placing them in the mouth of Jesus. From those two verses, we have built a vast institution based on these “hints” Jesus gave us. But we should never delude ourselves into thinking that today’s church sprang directly from the mind and witness of Jesus. All we have is extrapolation, a few bones upon which have been erected a larger organism. If Jesus intended to create the church, he did a questionable job. He left no clear directions about its structure or purpose.

Mr. Gulley seems to come down in the camp that today’s Christian church was fabricated by Jesus’ followers (ie. Paul and a few others) and not Jesus himself. By his actions and not his words, Jesus set in place the cornerstone and left it up to us to build the structure.  I’m not sure I really buy into this entirely but it is interesting speculation.

Jesus and Paul Comparisons – Harder than it looks..

Posted on by RJ

I am having trouble with my project of comparing what Jesus said to what Paul said.  There are several reasons for this difficulty.

  • They, for the most part, didn’t appear to address very many of the same issues.
  • There is so much baggage associated with this topic it is hard to not be prejudged by it all
  • It seems I must extrapolate the two men’s actions as well as words to make any comparison.

This leaves me with some basic questions.

  • Did Jesus leave it up to Paul to fill in his blanks?
  • Did Paul take it upon himself to create a religion around the person of Jesus?
  • Just how much did Paul really know about Jesus’ life and teachings?

In scanning the current theological thoughts about this topic there seems to be two completely opposite camps. I am trying to come to my own conclusions about this matter but it is hard to not get dragged into one of them. I’m not sure I am really ready to objectively even do this. It seems hard to compare Jesus’ “oranges” to Paul’s “apples”.  It seems to me that Paul has latched on to some of the parts of Jesus’ message and totally ignored others.  It find it strange that Jesus mentioned “the kingdom of heaven” hundreds of times in the Gospel accounts but that thought never occured once in Paul’s many letters?

Paul seems to be more locked onto the “poor miserable sinner” side of Christ than his side of love for even our enemies.  But maybe I am missing some of that? It seems where Paul is a rule maker where Jesus is about love. I can certainly understand Thomas Jefferson’s belief that Paul took Jesus’ simple message and complicated it.

Is the Christian church as it developed with Paul as a primary source really about Jesus Christ? What would Jesus say if he came back today and saw it’s current state? Would he recognize it as following his words or has it become fixated on man’s rules and traditions? I just don’t know.

Jesus Christ – Lord and Savior

Posted on by RJ

To me the title of this post is the perfect blend of words.  We must acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord and we must also acknowledge that he is our Savior. Those two conditions are very different so lets study them some here.

  • Jesus Christ is my Savior — Jesus was very clear that one of the reasons he came was to die for our sins. That is something that I have trouble really understanding but I take him at his words. Accepting Jesus as our savior is a leap of faith that requires not much else. It is big admission but after that it is more or less a passive thing.
  • Jesus Christ is my Lord — This is something entirely different. Jesus is my ultimate mentor. He is my master; I will obey him and seek to emulate him. I seek to learn as much from him as I can.  This is anything but a passive event. It requires a life long commitment to carry out.

Many today seem to latch onto the Savior side of Jesus but then totally fail to understand his lordship. To me these two sides to Jesus are intrinsically linked. It is impossible to separate them. Let’s everyday show the Lord’s love in our lives. We are his ambassadors while we are on earth. What we do, or maybe even more importantly don’t do, reflect on him.