Hiatus

So, this blog is taking another hiatus for a while. There are a few reasons for this.

One: Untwisting, the reason I started this blog in the first place, has come down. Maybe there's a new one somewhere, but if so, I'm not aware of it.

Two: I have a newborn, and she, even being the cutest baby ever, is taking a toll on my ability to keep up with normal necessities like getting the dishes run and the laundry clean.

Thus, taking a hiatus seems to be the logical choice. Happy blogging; I hope it won't be too long before I can get back to this.

Movement

Lalaith has posted a few things over on Untwisting again. I figured I should get them taken care of BEFORE I have a newborn. =) (Any day now!)

So first up: Wet and Wild (That's a nail polish brand and a joke.)

There's not really a whole lot here. It was an interesting bit about some of the odder claims of differing religions, but the argument is basically this: "Because all these religions have some seemingly ridiculous claims, they must all be equally ridiculous." Sure, it's an interesting thing to think about, but like that commercial is so fond of pointing out: "It's only weird if it doesn't work." In other words, it's only ridiculous to say that Balaam's donkey spoke to him if the donkey DIDN'T actually speak to him. It's only ridiculous to say that chickens can't fly if, in fact, chickens CAN fly.

So really, it's just kind of a think about it thing, which personally, I'm all for thinking things through. It really wouldn't be smart, if you're speaking to someone of a different religion to start bashing their beliefs or their mental capabilities in light of those beliefs. That's just not gracious and I'm pretty sure that EVERYONE has SOME belief that's ridiculous - check out those commercials some more and see how superstitious people get for the sake of their sports. So advice accepted - don't worry yourself over the weirder parts of someone else's religion. Everyone has weird beliefs.

Moving right along: Gay Rights in the Work Place

I was expecting a little bit more from the clip, but whatever. So here's the thing about this particular issue. Freedom for a company means freedom to discriminate - between whoever and whatever they want. They shouldn't be forced to buy equally from different suppliers/factories; and they shouldn't be forced to have a certain number of both genders, of different races, of different sexual orientations. That's not freedom. If I OWN something, that means I have control over it. So if the government says that I can't limit who I want to hire to these specific things, then really, it's the government who owns it - I'm just managing it.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that there is something morally wrong with that. My point is that, currently, that's not the way our country operates. It's slowly taking control of things more and more; but the fact that this issue is coming up is proof that right now, that's not how things are (at least in whichever state it was where that pastor spoke).

I'm not morally obligated to pay different people the same amount for the same job. I'm morally obligated to keep whatever deal I make with each person. I'm not morally obligated to treat people equally; I'm morally obligated to treat people lovingly. Fair does not mean equal; it means just. Equal treatment is often very unjust because people are not equal (if we were, we'd be clones).

Personally, I don't see this as a moral issue; this is a freedom issue. Giving up freedom is not morally wrong. Keeping freedom is not morally wrong. I like my freedom. If I had a vote there, I would vote against such a proposal - not because it's going to ruin the nation or something - because I think it's my right to hire or not hire people based on whatever I want. Age, race, height, gender, sexual orientation, etc. It's MY business; they work FOR ME. So I should get to decide. BUT, if the government says, "Uh uh. Now I get to decide." Then, that freedom isn't mine anymore, and I'm a law-breaker if I ignore that. And breaking the law IS a moral issue.

Freedom is not the problem; the problem is sin, and laws can't fix that problem.

A Few Notes

It's been kind of quiet lately, so I thought I would write a bit about what's been on my mind the past few weeks. My church is having a mini-series on the Trinity which has been just wonderful, and God keeps giving me these new and beautiful little insights. It's been thrilling. =D

During this mini-series, the topic of Creation was addressed - why did God create if He was sufficiently satisfied within Himself? The answer is because God was not just sufficiently happy, but overwhelmingly happy. God was so pleased amongst the other Persons of the Trinity that it overflowed into Creation. He was so immensely satisfied that it poured out of Him in creativity and action.

In two weeks, the topic of the sermon is going to be about how we as Christians are to imitate the relationship of the Trinity within our relationships, how we are to show the same kind of love and care for the people around us, how we are always supposed to put others first because we love them. The greatest example we have in our human relationships is marriage. It's the most intimate, the most open, the most complete.

And there's a parallel that only it has. Out of the love and joy of intimacy that God had within the Trinity came Creation. Out of the love and joy of intimacy that two people enjoy within marriage come children. It's the overflow of love, of fully giving one's self to another.

Isn't that incredible? God gave us a tangible example of why He created, and somehow we tend to miss it entirely. Sometimes we even go so far as to think that God was lonely or lacking in some way. God was so much the opposite of lacking and THAT is the entire reason that He created. The whole thing just kind of blows my mind.


Another thing: I was reading a book tonight by Matt Chandler called The Explicit Gospel, and that specific part was on a very familiar topic - the severity of God and how much we deserve it. There was a certain sentence that caught my attention though; he wrote, "And let's be honest: nobody has just a sliver of pride." My first reaction was to give a little laugh to myself in agreement. Pride - it seems to be the all-pervasive sin, the starting point of every other thing. We elevate ourselves above God; we put our desires first; we trust ourselves more.

The next thought was rather a happy one though, something that I've known for a long time, but somehow never thought of in quite this way before: There will be no pride in eternity. There have been many sins that I have struggled with, that I still struggle with, but none so formidable, so stubborn as pride. Pride sneaks in everywhere. Pride appears when all my actions are right, when my words are right. Pride can hide in the most pious of ways.

But one day, it will be gone, rooted out entirely, demolished by the completion of the salvific work that Christ began at Calvary. One day, there will be no more of the Romans 7 struggle. And that inspires all kinds of feeling of joy, longing, and awe.

"What a day that will be
When my Jesus I shall see,
I will look upon His face,
The One Who saved me by His grace
And when He takes me by the hand
And leads me to the Promised Land
What a day, glorious day, that will be!"

How Great IS Our God?

A few weeks ago, I saw this video linked on Facebook. I found the title intriguing, as I've often thought the same of a great many gods. For instance, a god who is not sovereign is not an all-powerful god, and certainly not the God of the Bible. A god who is only managing things is what I would consider a weak god. There's also the idea of the god who has created everything and then has, in great indifference, decided that, although he COULD do anything, he simply has no interest - that god also strikes me as too small because he has no larger vision.

However, the argument that this video makes has nothing on the triune God of the Bible. I find it rather humorous that the very foundational things that we must believe have so baffled the minds of everyone who tries to comprehend them, and yet this video makes the claim that OUR imaginations have outgrown God. Have we come up with something more complex than Three separate, divine Persons existing as ONE essence? And we've imagined something more mysterious and wonderful than the omnipresent One taking on humanity - somehow fully and completely containing both a human nature and a divine nature? No. We haven't and we never will.

The video takes the universe as evidence that God is small, but how does that make any sense if you take Genesis 1-2 into account? You know how much time the Bible gives to the creation of the universe? "He made the stars also." All the trillions upon trillions of stars out there and how much does the Bible say about their creation? They got a single sentence. Why? Why is this immense thing given such little time and thought? Because God didn't know about it? Or because the universe is not the epitome of God's creation? The narrator is missing one of the key points of Genesis - the universe was not made in the image of God; humanity was. We are not the center of the universe, it's true; but we are the most important things that God created.

Now I'm all for realizing just how small we are and I'm all for realizing just how vast and amazing the universe is. But not in light of the universe - in light of the God Who MADE the universe!

The narrator brings up a few points of interest about the Bible - things like "we now know that the blanket of stars above us is not placed upon a firmament as the writers of Genesis would have had us believe." I wonder if the narrator would think it dishonest to say, "There are so many stars in the sky tonight!" It isn't by the way. "The sky" doesn't just refer to the atmosphere. It refers to "above" us, to anything from the tops of trees to the galaxies and vast empty spaces in between it all. "The sky" is a not a scientific term and neither is "firmament."

He then compares the power of the greatest volcano to a super-nova, once again forgetting that the God of the Bible made BOTH. So how exactly does this make God small???? No, the whole argument is actually proving just how vast God really is. It's a matter of common sense that you cannot make something greater than yourself. Therefore, everything that shows the immensity of the universe is simply showing that God is even greater.

It's telling just how large of an impact that believing or not believing that God is THE Creator has on everything else throughout the Bible. You can see this easily when the narrator says that (paraphrasing here) "at God's most wrathful, the worst He could do is flood a world that was already covered in 2/3s water." Even if we KNEW that that was true (which we don't, by the way; there's this great big theory about the water canopy before the Great Flood), who put the water there to be used as a flood?? God did! Is that a picture of His lack of strength, or is that a picture of His sovereignty in Creation?

And then the narrator goes on to talk about the destruction of our galaxy. It puzzles me to think that this person who talks with such wonder about the universe can then sit there and practically say that our doom is secured because one day we're going to collide with another galaxy. I don't understand how that is not a depressing thought to him.

In case you couldn't tell it was coming, the narrator comes right out then and suggests that we should pay homage to the universe. How does that make any sense whatsoever? Even if you don't believe in a deity, how does it make sense to pay homage to a THING? Do you pay homage to a painting? Sure, you can admire it, but don't you usually praise the painter? You say something like, "I love Van Gough. His paintings are so beautiful." Do you pay homage to a home run, or to the player who hit the home run? Do you praise the football for landing in the receiver's arms or praise the receiver for catching it?

Last point: After he's just talked about how our galaxy is going to collide with the neighboring one which will result in total annihilation, he says something about how we will "never run out of opportunities to explore our own potential." I pretty much wanted to facepalm at that point. He's either assuming that we'll all be well out of our galaxy by that point (since we're colliding with the next nearest one), or that somehow we'll have developed a way to survive colliding galaxies.

Anyway. The video does have two things going for - the music and the narrator's voice. But overall, that's got to be one of the worst arguments ever for the God of the Bible being too small.

Prayer: Part Three

This will probably be the last post on prayer. I saw something else today that I may end up doing a post on perhaps next week. For today, I'll be writing on Prayer and Faith.

They are completely linked. If you do not believe that God can, you wouldn't bother asking. If you believe that God is able, only sin would keep you from asking.

Faith, however, seems to be a very slippery topic. Misunderstandings of faith lead to misrepresentations of prayer. Much of this is due to the idea of the "prosperity gospel" - the idea that if you believe it enough and ask for it, God WILL give it to you. This idea, once again, puts God in a box. If I believe the mountain will move, God must make it move, right? No.

How does this put God in a box? Well, it takes a great many variables about we fallen, sinful human beings, and simplifies them down to two things - Do I believe? and, Did I ask? Jeremiah 17:9 doesn't let us get away with that. Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked! We don't know them. And so many times what happens is people think they believe and people think they ask God and people think that they are doing it all according to the Bible, and then God does not give them what they asked for. And their faith crumbles.

Rather than questioning themselves, or simply realizing that what they were asking for must not have been in line with God's will, they often question God. They think that He didn't keep His side of the deal, that He broke a promise.

But that in itself shows how weak their faith really is. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." The very foundation of Christian faith is believing that God IS. That God is what? That God is Who He said. That God is GOD - perfect. If you can't believe that God is God because God didn't give you what you asked for, where is your faith really placed? It's not in God. Most likely, it's in your own understanding.

You reasoned it out; you believed that Bible said such and such; you came to this conclusion. Such a foundation is not faith in GOD - such a foundation is faith in YOUR abilities to reason, to understand, to discern spiritual things. But why are Christians able to understand spiritual things? Because the Holy Spirit is with them. We don't suddenly understand because Christians are suddenly smarter people. We understand because the Holy Spirit reveals it. But if you're trusting in your own abilities, not the leading of the Holy Spirit, you will be just as blind as you were before God saved you.

Oftentimes, we're so oblivious to our sins, our faults, our own deceitful purposes that the only way we ever realize that we're doing something wrong is when God DOESN'T do what we asked.

This is not to say necessarily that we shouldn't have asked - not at all. Rather, the point is that GOD is not unjust, unfair, or dishonest because He didn't give us what we asked for. FIRST, we must believe that God is. If God is not answering any of your prayers, the problem does not lie with Him - the problem lies with you and your prayers. God only gives His children what is best. Sometimes we think that God has said He will do things that He never actually said He would do. That problem is not with God; it's with us. A lot of people get angry about that. They get mad because they misunderstood, because in their minds it should have been made clearer, when really, it's their fault for assuming and presuming.

And in the end, such a response shows that their faith was NOT in God.

So where does this little series leave us with prayer? We are to pray to God the Father, Who is the Giver of all good things and Who answers our prayers on the basis of loving us. We are to pray as Jesus would pray, putting the glory of God always first. We are to pray in faith, not that we will receive what we ask for, but faith that God is God and can therefore be trusted to do all He has said, whether or not we understand what exactly that is.

Prayer: Part Two

"I pray it in the name of Jesus!"

It's a saddening thing to me (and one of those things that makes me sort of squint my eyes and think, "You've got to be kidding me") that there are people, claiming to be Christians, who seem to think that there are magical words. And what makes it worse is that so many of these ignorant ideas come from pastors who are supposed to be shepherding God's people. . . . But that's a different topic all together. Maybe that's something for after this little series.

Maybe you're wondering what exactly I'm talking about. Here's an example. Some time ago now there was a big storm (possibly a hurricane) that was going to hit land soon and someone I knew on Facebook asked people to remember that area of the country in their prayers. There was a comment on that status that was a prayer for safety and then after, it said something that meant basically this: "Because I prayed "in Jesus' name" God will keep everyone safe tomorrow and there will be no loss of life from this storm."

I was ticked when I read that for many reasons. Trying to put God in a box does not work, is a sign that you're putting your faith in the wrong thing, and has the potential of confusing a LOT of people. Trying to put God in a box is BAD. I really hope the person who wrote that rethought their position after at least eight people died the next day.

Maybe you're wondering about John 14:13-14 that say, whatever we ask in Jesus' name, He will do it. Well, think about it for a minute and answer this honestly: Do you really believe that what Jesus was saying is that if we use a special phrase, God has to give us what we asked for?

Two things to take note of from those verses: One, Jesus is talking about doing greater works than He did. He wasn't talking about just asking for anything. He certainly wasn't talking about asking for a new car; He was talking about us asking for divine help in doing greater works than Jesus had done on earth. Two, the last phrase of verse 13 makes it very clear what the purpose is - that the Father may be glorified.

Those verses and every other verse about God giving us what we ask for should be taken in conjunction with Psalm 37:4, "Delight thyself also in the LORD and He shall give thee the desire of thy heart."

I've heard a lot of good explanations of this verse; I've heard very few people explain what "in Jesus' name" means. But they are very connected in a way. See, in Psalm 37, we're given this wonderful promise of getting what we desire, IF we are delighting in the LORD. How can God make that promise? Because if we're delighting in the LORD, we won't be desiring anything we shouldn't be. What we desire for ourselves will be what God desires for us. What we desire for others will be what God desires for others. Delighting in the LORD could be also called walking with the LORD; it means we're in step with Him, going the same direction. Our wills line up with HIS! And that means, that above everything we could ask for, we desire His glory. So above all our requests - whether they be for physical or spiritual - what we desire MOST is that God be glorified. And suddenly, we can see that God is answering EVERY one of our prayers and He's being tremendously glorified.

When Jesus talked about praying in His name, He wasn't talking about saying the words. He was talking about actually praying IN HIS NAME, or in step with His will. Think of it this way - if a child goes to their father and says, "Would you come help me with my math?" they may or may not get a positive response, depending on what is best for the child at that time. If it's bed time, they're probably not going to get help with their math. If the same child goes to their dad and and says, "Mom told me to ask if you can help me with my math" - that is a totally different thing. One is just the child's will; one is in line with the will of their authority.

And that illustration follows through to people who just say the words. Because if the little kid says, "Mom asked you to get me three cookies" the dad is probably going to notice that something isn't quite in line with the established practice of his wife. It's not the WORDS that matter - it's whether or not the request is actually in line with the will.

Praying in Jesus' name means that we are praying as Jesus would pray, as if we were a herald sent by Jesus with such and such a message. It means that we ask what He would ask with the same attitude that He would have. And what did Jesus ask for over and over? That God be glorified. What did He pray in the garden when He was in agony over the coming cross, knowing that this thing was going to come, knowing already what the answer was, but asking the Father anyway? "Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine by done." Always, always, always Jesus put the glory of the Father first, even before His desire to escape the cross.

Prayer: Part One

I've been thinking about some things to keep this blog going even when I have nothing specific to respond to, so today I shall start a short series on Prayer. As of right now, I'm not sure how long it will be. That will probably depend on how much time I have and how many points I come up with.

Prayer is a topic of lots of debate and, in my opinion, a lot of wrong thinking. I've heard a great many people completely misunderstand a lot of things about prayer, and I'm going to try to hit on the ones that have stuck out most to me. Basically, it seems that people like to put God in a box with prayer, and that doesn't ever work out well - for the people.

I don't claim to have it all figured out, or to understand fully how prayer and God's sovereignty work together so beautifully, but there are some things of which I am convinced that they are Biblical and right.

One: We pray only to God; and specifically, we are to pray to the Father. (John 16:23-24)

This is an interesting thing, and a new thing for me, because for most of my formative years, I didn't distinguish between one Person of the Trinity and another. I knew that Jesus died, not the Holy Spirit, but I also thought that Jesus came to live within me (He doesn't; the Holy Spirit does). The roles of the different Persons of the Trinity were confused in my understanding, but God is gracious.

For about the past two years, my home church has been going through the gospel of John, and two weeks ago, we went over chapter 16 and the verses mentioned above jumped out at me. We pray in Jesus' name but we're supposed to be praying to the Father. I didn't realize when I was little and my mom taught me to begin my prayers addressing the Father that there was a good reason behind it. There is.

Something else about this struck me quite squarely. The reason we don't pray to Jesus (or anyone else) is because God the Father is the One Who answers (James 1:17). Jesus doesn't send every good and perfect gift; that's not His role. In fact, the ONLY good gift that I believe the Bible mentions Jesus sending to us, is the Holy Spirit. He's more than able, but that is something that the Father does. They each have their jobs and roles. It's God the Father Who answers prayer, and we don't pray to Jesus because the Father loves us enough to answer our prayers by virtue of us being His children. He answers us because He loves us!

The only reason that our prayers might not be answered the same way that God the Father answered Jesus' prayers is because we aren't praying like Jesus did - not because the Father doesn't love us enough to give it to us without someone else asking as well.

This flies in the face of Catholicism, which teaches it's practitioners to pray to Mary and other saints. Not only do they misunderstand that it's the Father Who gives all good gifts, and say that we should pray to Mary because Mary undoubtedly has the ear of Jesus (as if Jesus is the One answering our prayers); but they also misunderstand that the Father loves US enough to answer our prayers without anyone else praying for it, not even God the Son!

Part of the reason that Jesus died was so that we could have direct access to God the Father through prayer. There is no priest we need to go through now. Not only are we neglecting to make use of this great gift that we've been given if we pray to someone else, we are also distancing ourselves from God the Father by not speaking directly to Him! Think about always talking to your best friend through a messenger - that's a pretty blah relationship. If I could only talk to my husband or my mom (or anyone really) through someone else, that would be horrible! Good relationships are open; good relationships are communicative; good relationships are direct.

And we've been given the opportunity for a good relationship with GOD, if only we will make proper use of prayer.

Chick-fil-A

As you will notice, this post has no link. My friends over on Untwisting have been silent for a bit, so I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about something very recent and controversial.

First, let me be very clear. I don't think this is a Christian issue. "Family values" are not limited to Christianity. Mormons have lots of good family values - they're not Christians (don't even refer to themselves as such). I've heard/read things from Christians calling people to support CFA and I've heard that Christians shouldn't get involved. Honestly, I have a hard time saying that it's a "should" OR a "shouldn't" as far as Christianity is concerned. Do I support family values? Yes, but I don't go give my time, money, or vote to every person who says, "I support family values." So what's the difference? We'll get to that.

Second, I've been extremely (Extremely!!!) impressed and grateful for the responses I've read from multiple Christian sources regarding their take on this. There has not been name-calling, any kind of hate-speech (from the people I've read - I'm sure the bad stuff is out there), degrading of homosexuals, etc. It's been such a breath of fresh air to me, considering some of the things I've seen and blogged about recently. It really has been a wonderful source of encouragement.

On to the meat: Unfortunately, if you stand for "family values," you automatically get linked with Christianity, which is a highly dangerous thing for Christians. If you think that all those people who stood in line for so long the other day were ALL Christians, you have a VERY optimistic view of our country. They weren't. People who believe in "god" but don't do anything to try to follow in Christ's steps - those people don't know God. Those people showed up at CFA appreciation day, too.

Personally, if we'd had a CFA nearby (and not spent too much money this month already), I would have gone. But my reasons have much less to do with supporting family values, and much more to do with the fact that I don't like mayors of cities taking on more power than they have the right to. It's because the government started a boycott, and I would want to show my dissent with the GOVERNMENT - by supporting with my dollar what they have denounced with their words. I don't want to support CFA because I think their stance is right (although that's a danger, only supporting the ones that you agree with); I want to support CFA because I think they should be entitled to expressing their beliefs without it being called intolerant, without government officials declaring that they're going to try to shut them down or keep them out.

Honestly, CFA doesn't discriminate between the gay and the straight; they serve both alike. But government officials discriminated against people who support gay marriage and people who support traditional marriage. If you can't see who is really being intolerant here, you have a serious problem with logic.

THAT is why I would support CFA. And, I hope, that if such an issue comes up on the opposite side, if the government tries to shut someone down for their personal beliefs about something like, say abortion, I would again show my dissent with the government. So if the CEO of Nike (for example) said that he was pro-choice, the government absolutely should not try to shut them down, and I would want, again, to show my dissent with the government for such action.

People are allowed to believe what they want. God established that from the beginning. Our country has stood for the freedom to speak those beliefs, and I think that is a good and right freedom, and I will fight for it - when it means fighting for the rights of people who I agree with and for the rights of the people that I disagree with, even if they hate me.

For me, this is not about family values and my response is not dictated by my Christianity; this is about freedom and my response is dictated by my desire for our country to be the land of the free.

Fear-mongering vs. Warning

A link to the past! Also, to another blog. . . .

First things first. One, I totally agree that scare tactics and guilt-tripping are bad. They're usually mean, and overall, just harmful. Either it works and you've potentially damaged someone; or you just make people upset with you. Two, it's really, really, REALLY hard to get much context at all from a quote like that. I have no idea what the sermon was about, if the preacher even used strong/harsh words - honestly, we've got pretty much nothing but one person's take on one person's reaction.

And that take is worded very dramatically, which makes me question just how honest the whole thing is. Not that a boy didn't approach the writer with tears in his eyes and talking about his old school friends; more that I bet HE (and others who saw it) would relate it MUCH differently. I know people who are habitual exaggerators and this sounds a lot like that.

But putting all that aside, we'll get to the topic at hand. What is a warning? And what are scare tactics?

Is it using scare tactics to tell your child that if they put their fingers in the electrical socket that they will get hurt? Is it using scare tactics to tell them that if they touch the stove, they will get burnt? If they drink and drive they could kill someone and end up in prison for the next few decades? All those things, if they believe you, will scare them. But for what purpose?

There are things in the world that we ought to have a respectful fear of because it's healthy. The ocean is one. My uncle drowned in the ocean. The ocean can sweep you away. Fire is another. Having control of a vehicle. These are all things that are dangerous and require some kind of instruction. People aren't born knowing how to swim, how to handle fire, how to drive a car - they require teaching (or at least, experience).

So what's the difference? If fear is part of what keeps a child from touching the stove, how is it not classified as scare tactics? Well, parents usually don't tell their children not to touch the stove because they want the child to be afraid of the stove; it's because they don't want their child to get hurt. I don't want my daughter to burn herself, to drown, to kill someone with her car, etc. etc. I will warn her because there is danger, because I want her safe.

I think there are two major differences. One is the accuracy of the statement. Fire WILL hurt you. But a warning also has something else - a positive reason. People give warnings so that something bad doesn't happen. If you weren't worried about someone getting hurt, you probably wouldn't say anything about their dangerous activity.

Unless you had a more devious purpose in mind. Fear-mongering is exaggerated for the sadistic purpose of terrorizing people. For example, a warning about touching the stove might sound like this: "That's hot! Don't touch it. It will burn your hand and that will hurt a lot." Fear-mongering would sound like this (and I've heard things like this from parents): "If you touch the stove, your hand will start on fire and all your skin will melt right off! You'll be deformed for the rest of your life."

One is true; one is a gross exaggeration. (I know - I've touched a hot stove. I got a worse scar from my bunny.) One, the major purpose is protecting the child; the other, the major purpose is frightening the child. That fear-mongering goes on within Christianity is not something with which I would argue (although I've personally never heard it); but it's dangerous to assume because you don't believe in something (like Hell) that it can't hurt you.There are scores of people in prisons who didn't believe the warnings about driving drunk. They learned the hard way.

So did the pastor engage in fear-mongering? From that status, I think it's impossible to tell. Telling people that they are going to Hell can be a warning; it can also be scare tactics. THAT is why once Christians give the warning (all have sinned; sin requires Hell), we ought always to follow it up quickly with an offer of the Answer - Jesus saves. Fear-mongering would be preaching on an exaggerated description of Hell - or saying that everyone is going there and leaving it at that. There is no good that comes from either of those; the purpose is to simply frighten people. Everyone who believed it would live in terror and despair.

Quick aside: Some people are very sensitive and they will get very afraid from just a warning. That does not mean that warnings are bad. I had an irrational fear of lighting a match for a long time because my parents warned me not to play with fire; that doesn't mean that they were wrong for warning me.

The message of the Gospel is not one of fear or guilt. It's one of hope and the joy of reconciliation. But in order to be reconciled to someone, you have to be aware that there is a break in the relationship. In closing, why do you think that God tells us that we have sinned (Rm. 3:23) and that the wages of sin is death (Rm. 6:23)? It's a warning. He's not trying to just strike fear into us (there's a faster, easily way than using words); He's telling us what's coming if we don't change, if we don't trust Him. The Gospel is not that everyone is a sinner and on their way to Hell; the Good News is that Jesus SAVES us from our sin so we don't have to go to Hell.

Christianity

This is sort of a part two, so please check here for the "part one" along with the other links. :)

This one is going to focus on the quote in the third link. "I find it hard to believe that God created 7 billion humans if he intended to condemn 5 billion of them to hell."

I don't know who said it, if they claim to be a Christian, or anything else about it. But let's assume, since it appeared on a post about Christianity that it was, in fact, a professing Christian who said it. Within this post we see some very dangerous, non-Biblical thinking.

The first problem is this, "I find it hard to believe...." Don't get me wrong, you have to be able to actually believe the Bible for it to have any impact on you. However, if you DO believe the Bible, you can't go about putting restraints on it, and how you FEEL about something is not the test. The test is, does the Bible teach it? Either you believe it, all of it, or you don't. So if God SAYS that that's what He did, it doesn't matter if it's "hard to believe." Either you choose to believe it, or you choose to say, "Eh, that's too hard. That's too far." If you take that to the logical end, you will find you have a god that is partly like the God of the Bible and partly reflects your own take on things.

This kind of thinking (though I don't think most people take it to the logical end) is a major problem behind the disagreements about the doctrines of grace (also known as Calvinism). People don't LIKE certain things, and they think that because THEY are uncomfortable with it that GOD is uncomfortable with it. That's a silly assumption.

The second problem is that the author of this quote doesn't seem to take Biblical history into account. I kind of wonder if they've read Exodus. Why did Pharaoh not let the people of Israel go sooner? Because God wanted to show His power. It's also because Pharaoh was wicked and didn't want to lose his slave force and was too proud to yield; but the Bible says that Pharaoh didn't let them go so that God could exercise His might and show wonders in the land of Egypt.

It isn't God's wrath or lack of goodness that causes there to be so many people going to Hell; it's God's attribute of long-suffering, of patience. You can look and say, "Wow, God is mean to send all those people to Hell" or you can look at it from the other side and say, "Wow, God is so good to let those people live on His Earth for so long, even though they're ruining pretty much everything." Why were there so many people who died in the Flood? Because God gave them sooooo long to turn around and worship Him; but they didn't. They just kept getting worse.

Over and over we see this in the Bible. With the Flood, there was just Noah. With Sodom, there was just Lot. God doesn't deal out His judgment prematurely. He waits, He gives LOTS of "second chances." It's one thing to be patient with someone you know is going to come around; it's quite another to be patient with someone you know is never going to change. God is patient with the wicked every day; God is good to them every day by means of the natural order of the world He made. He sends HIS rain on the just and the unjust. Every day, God gives people a reason to turn and seek Him; and every day, they ignore Him. It's not cruel of God to eventually STOP exercising patience with them.

Christianity vs. The Bible

A One
A Two
And a Three

It's easy to see the common thread, I think. I put them all together because, the second one kind of explains the first one a little. And the third one just went with it. Rather than do them one at a time, I'm going to touch on certain things from the whole of it in a few different posts.

There's one thing that I don't really like about a lot of Christian jargon - and it's our usage of the words "true" and "real." It's not that they're used improperly or something - often they fit perfectly well. It's just that it seems there should be some better way of distinguishing between nominal Christianity and CHRISTianity. Sadly, I'm not sure what that way is.

Nominal Christians belong to a religion that is just like any other. It's works-based. It's man-centered. It's not Biblical. Christianity is supposed to be God-centered, grace-based, and Biblical. But the label of Christianity gets applied to a lot. And part of the problem is that even the real Christians aren't and won't be perfect (so long as this world continues). So, the active religion - the practiced part of it - can't be perfectly God-centered.

I suppose it's like music. You can get all the theory right, you can be able to name every note; that doesn't mean you're not going to make a mistake when it comes time to play the piece. So with Christianity - even if we KNOW everything correctly (which we don't), we still fail. We still mess up.

And this leads to trouble distinguishing between sincere Christianity and nominal Christianity, between the people who love God who slipped up this time and that time and the people who are just making use of a label. So we have an enormous umbrella known as Christianity that houses everything from Catholics to Amish, from Charismatics to Quakers. And then there's just that group who identify as being "Christian" simply because they believe in a god and were taught to respect the Bible. They don't go to church, don't partake in the foundational things like Baptism and Communion, know practically nothing about Jesus - but they somehow fall in the same category as David Brainerd and Jonathon Edwards.

Christianity as only a religion is just as harmful as any other, as Buddhism, Islam, cults, and that crazy thing about the lizard-people that was linked to a few posts back. The Pharisees had religion. But followers of Christ have Christ Himself.

In the end, what I really wanted to say on this part is that while Threnody is absolutely right that "Christianity" and the Bible are not the same thing - they should be. REAL Christianity follows Christ and the Bible is the greatest tool we have to help us do that.

And, of course, I disagree about the Bible being a flawed, human institution. Since I don't think you can prove (or disprove) the Bible though, that wraps this up for today.

The post.

There's not a lot to say about this. It's sad. It's angering. It's wrong. But it's not unexpected. It's not surprising. It's not special.

Every day, the world steps on the gift that God offered them. Every day, the world takes this view. Every day, they cheer because they proverbially threw away the Bible, because they got through another day of ignoring it. It's always sad; it's always upsetting; it's always wrong. It's also the way that it is, and Christians can't get stuck on it. It has to spur us forward, not debilitate us.

Not just in activity - I don't mean that we have to spend an extra hour every week handing out tracts or something. I mean internally. Because that's what love does. When love meets an obstacle, it doesn't shrink back; it works harder to move forward, to find a way through or around. Love feels the negative, but doesn't give up because of it. Love enjoys the positive, but doesn't get lazy from it.


A few side thoughts:
You know what's sad and somewhat weird to think about? People like Lalaith and Threnody - if God never saves them - who know so much in their heads about God, have condemned themselves by denying Him. And in being made to suffer for that decision when they die, they're going to be blaming Him the entire time for not doing more, and they still won't ever believe that God is Who He says. They will never call Him good; they will never acknowledge that they were wrong, that He is just, that they didn't know Him.

They'll call Him a liar, say that He didn't keep His Word. They'll make the same arguments to themselves that they've made here to us and it will just fuel them on to hate Him. And being in God's Hell, like He told them they would be, like He warned them so many times, they will STILL not see it. All the people in Hell? They're still evil and so they still curse Him, and the only one that it hurts is them.

That knowledge alone should give Christians all the energy they need to pray and witness. If we love God like we ought, it should be the most horrible thought that those people are cursing our God, our wonderful, glorious, matchless Savior, for eternity. If we love others as we ought, it should be the second most horrible thought that those people are condemned forever never to know God's love and goodness.

Perspective

The Link.

Every response to people, to circumstances, to ideas - you name it - EVERY response we make is determined by our perspective. If you believe the Bible is false or has errors, there's no reason for you to believe it over anyone or anything.

But if you believe that the Bible is perfect and true, then rather than seeing it as at odds with reality, you see how it and reality are bound together. If God is Creator and Sustainer of all, then God is the foundation of reality. Reality is whatever God wants it to be, and whatever God makes it to be.

Your perspective will determine what happens when you observe something that seems at odds with what God has said. If you really do believe that God is and that He said it, you'll either not worry about it because it's too small a thing to be bothered about, or you'll realize that you NEVER have a complete picture. If you don't believe that God is or that He said it, you'll come to the conclusion that the Bible is erroneous, that God is a liar, or that God doesn't exist at all.

In short, you can't be blinded by the Bible if you're actually going BY THE BIBLE. Observation and experience aren't enough because we're limited; only God is not bound by those confines.

And a funny ending note: My husband read that blog from Untwisting and said something like, "You'll be blinded? Then why are their eyes are sticking out?" It gave me many giggles; hope you get some, too. =D

One, Two, Three and We're Done!

This post I don't have anything to say about, but "Do your homework!!!" Hey, Lalaith is right. Even if you're looking into Christianity - do your homework. Always count the cost.

This post. . . . There is a lot I could say about this post. . . . Mormonism is freaky stuff. Really, devoted Mormonism is downright cultish. I found a book in an airplane on one of my trips back home called "The God-Makers" about Mormonism, written by two guys who had been in it and talked to a lot of people who had been in it. It was pretty nuts. I knew Mormonism was freaky - I didn't know it was THAT freaky. The super-undies are funny and ridiculous, but a lot of what Mormons believe and practice is not funny - it's harmful.

It's extremely controlling and demeaning, especially to women. The depression amongst Mormon females is horrible and rampant and covered up. It's a terribly repressive, hurtful thing, and in Utah, they don't even bother hiding some of the stuff, like polygamy. (Had a very recent report of this. One of my husband's co-workers went to Utah because the company was opening a store there. There was a guy who came in who talked about doing all the grocery shopping for his wives and then two sisters who came in talking about their ONE husband.) Why are they so open there? Because the Mormon Church has SO MUCH MONEY, that it basically runs the state.

And then there's this post. To be honest, none of these are much about Christianity or what Christians believe. These are social/political issues that Christians ought to compare to Biblical principles, spend a lot of time studying and praying (and discussing with a wide variety of folks) and then come a conclusion.

First, there's a problem with the way people understand the phrase "Separation of Church and State." It doesn't mean that religion is to have no place in politics. That's way off. What it means is that the STATE is not to interfere with the internal working of the Church (so long as it's not harming people), and the Church is not to try to run the government (like in Utah). It means that there isn't supposed to be a national church - like there was (is?) in England. We have freedom to believe what we want to believe. It doesn't mean that the morality of the Church isn't supposed to effect the government. The Church is not supposed to pass laws for the country and the government is not supposed to pass laws for the Church. We're not ancient Egypt where Pharaoh is god.

As for the equality thing, there seems to be something that most people skip over. And that is that the government has been pushing Christianity out for a long time. Yes, I would be against posting passages of the Koran up in our official buildings and I wouldn't be upset about the 10 Commandments - but please understand that what you're talking about is not putting up both or not allowing both. What's happened is they've taken the Christian ones down and people want to put something else up. It's not equality. It's replacement. That's far more offensive. Like when someone just breaks up with you because it's not working and when someone breaks up with you because there's someone else. You're being replaced. Emotionally, it's more upsetting.

Logistically, it's just not possible to equally represent every religion. Because every religion is not equal in size and voice. There's not a lot of Hinduism here in the States. Do we need to put up something about cows being holy if we have the 10 Commandments up? What about Toaism? What about Jedi-ism (it's a real thing, folks; probably has a different name, but I didn't feel like looking it up)?

Or do we display things based on popularity? Top three get a place on the wall of City Hall? You know what, I think most Christians would prefer no showing of the 10 Commandments to having that AND something from a different religion up. But don't be unfeeling enough to ask that we joyfully hold our tongues when something we hold dear is being removed from a place of prominence and honor or being banned from schools. We were there already. We had it for over 200 years; it was simply the way it was. It's not an excuse for bad behavior on our part, but it should be understandable and expected that such a loss would be upsetting.

The Purposes of Sex

Here's the post.

First, gotta say - I grew up in church, with a Christian family and the views I got from THAT matched up very well with reality. The views I got from TV, from the internet, from working with some very vulgar people - those views absolutely did not. I was not taught that men are the only ones with a sex drive, that sex was not going to be enjoyable for me, or any of that other junk. But, here's the thing - again, that's not a "Christian" teaching. Do Christians teach it? Yes. So do other women who've had bad experiences with sex, and people who don't want their daughters to sleep around. If you got married to a guy who wasn't intent on GIVING pleasure as well as getting it, you'd probably start to hate sex to. And when your daughter grew up, you'd warn her about how awful it can be, because you wouldn't know how great it can be.

So, if you were to base things on experience, it's now a draw and it has nothing to do with Christian teaching or non-Christian teaching. The Bible does not teach that women have no sex drive or that men are the only ones who enjoy sex. The Bible doesn't tell me that my duty is to physically satisfy my husband every time he wants it. Nowhere to be found. My duty and my joy is to meet his needs. I was told by a Christian woman that sex is great and, if done right, I would really like it. I was also told that it can be harder for women to enjoy it and that some women ended up with five kids and no orgasm, and I understood where some of that ridiculousness about sex came from. It DIDN'T come from the Bible - therefore, not a Christian teaching.

Threnody gets SO CLOSE to the real answer. It's like when you're watching Wheel of Fortune and the person you're cheering for is on the right track and guessing all the right letters, but you can tell they have no idea what the phrase (or whatever) is. She gives three choices: pleasure, reproduction, an aspect of marriage. I don't know why there was no "D: All of the above."

For one thing, God is an infinite being. If I, in my limited capacity, can do something like load the dishwasher with more than one purpose in mind, I'm quite sure that three reasons is not too much for God when designing a species.

So, pleasure. Is sex about pleasure? Absolutely. This is an incredibly interesting thing that I read about - so many women in previous generations did not know what an orgasm felt like. But they still liked sex. Why is that? Well, when you love someone, you love it when they're happy. So even if you're not getting high on endorphins, you still have a massively happy time giving them to your spouse. Therefore, no matter what your sexual status is (say, if you couldn't feel anything below your waist), it's still fun.

Reproduction: This is hilarious that people might think reproduction isn't a major part of sex, since for how many generations, sex was the ONLY way to reproduce. Is it ONLY about reproduction? Of course not. Some people can't reproduce, but they still get to enjoy sex. But some people don't like sex (look it up; men and women); what if they want to have kids? For them, sex would be ALL about reproduction. Even on birth control, people have babies. I worked with a guy who said he and his girlfriend used three kinds of birth control because they were scared that she'd get pregnant. Why? Because sex produces babies! When God said, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28, for example), He was telling (not in a mean way; it's a blessing) people to get married, have sex, and make babies! Have a family! Fill the earth with people! He made the Earth for people, and He made sex to make more people. He didn't have to. He could have made us all like He formed Adam and Eve. Could have made a bunch of dirt statues and given them life, or made all the women out of ribs. Sex is for reproduction.

An aspect of marriage: I'm not sure what exactly Threnody is talking about here, and she didn't really explain it. Yes, sex is an aspect of marriage. It's to be enjoyed ONLY within marriage. Sex is part of what makes marriage special. If people could physically only have sex if they were married and to the person they were married to, you wouldn't need any other "marriage incentives" and marriages would not fall apart nearly so easily. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way most people used to look at it, back when marriage was the norm, not living together; when unfaithfulness was a disgrace; when children were wanted, not an inconvenience. Sex is beautiful, an amazing thing, and part of it's purpose is to hold two people together. Once you've enjoyed that intimacy with the person you love, you want it again - not just for the physical pleasure, but for the sake of the intimacy. For being alone with them, for the opportunity to physically love and be physically loved.

So, really. Sex? There's a lot of reasons for it. There's no reason to limit it to just one.

Biblical Principles

Issue posts. There are a lot of issues that the Bible just doesn't address very much. Like dating - there's no sermon on the mount about how to pick your spouse. There are a few rules - if you're a Christian, they need to be; no sex pre-marriage - but really? There's just not a lot said about it. Personally, I think that's because for the most part, it doesn't matter. Dating, courting, arranged marriages - none of them are of themselves right or wrong.

Here are two links to two posts. These are those kinds of topics. Topics about which you rely on Biblical principles, rather than Biblical commands.

Link One
Link Two

The first one is about dating relationships. There's a lot of stuff that is taught about dating - and it seems like every different faction of family, religion, and culture has a dozen things that they think are best. Really, the only thing that seems to be stretched is saying that because SOME Christians use that, that therefore it's a Christian teaching. I wasn't taught what the author was. Does that mean I missed out on CHRISTIAN teaching? Or that I missed out on someone's VERSION of Biblical principles?

Principles are a lot harder to use properly. They require a lot more than commands. Commands are simple and straightforward. You pretty much just have to be able to read the instructions - like on a recipe card. Principles are when you call your grandma and ask her how she made her famous, delicious bread and she gives you measurements like "a dash of salt" and tells you to "knead it until it looks right." Principles require more understanding of what you're doing on the whole. If you're an experienced baker, you can probably make due with those instructions; if you're not, you're not going to have any idea. You might guess right, or you might ruin the dough - either way, you're guessing and experimenting.

Because a Christian taught something - because MANY Christians taught something - that doesn't mean that something is a CHRISTIAN teaching. It might be; it might not be. I know a lot of Christians who don't believe that God uses dreams or visions today. And I know a lot of Christians who believe that He does. Which one is the "Christian teaching"? The Bible doesn't say one way or another - it doesn't say that God will always use direct methods or that once the Bible is finished, that's all He will use. So people draw on Biblical principles.

I have found that making definite statements about those kinds of things doesn't turn out well. God didn't make a definite statement for a reason. Maybe we should try to refrain from making them for Him.

The point is, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Christians are people; we are not infallible. We get it wrong. But because Christians aren't perfect, don't dismiss Christianity, and don't think that because the Christians in such and such a culture and place believe one thing that therefore ALL the Christians in the world believe it, or that that teaching is a tenant of Christianity. I mean really, in the broad, widely-used meaning of the word, Christianity includes everything from Catholicism, to Quakers, to Pentacostol. That is quite enveloping and there's a LOT of differing opinions about stuff.

One last point about this one and then we'll move on. I've been on both sides of this. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship where all he really wanted was sex and all I wanted was a friend, and I've been in a very balanced relationship where we both wanted each other - not just bodily. I honestly don't know what anyone could have told me that would have helped me either not get into that abusive relationship in the first place, or would have gotten me out of it earlier. I didn't want to be alone and I did not realize for a very long time how emotionally damaged I was getting. I picked up a LOT of bad things from that - some have gone, some have remained. But having been there, I don't know what you can possibly teach someone that's going to keep them out of that. Because most of the time, I think we walk into it, our eyes wide open because we think we know.


The second link really has no bearing whatsoever on Christianity. The point is basically that using ad hominem is bad. Not much to say about that one.

Ex-Christiaity Doesn't Exist

An interesting thing happened to me today which is why I'm writing again on this topic. This is going to be a little different than the norm because this is experiential. Because part of being a Christian is experiencing God and all that entails.

This afternoon, I talked for two hours with a lady who, in that short time, I came to love. I was thinking about the afternoon over and over in my mind after I got home, connecting all the dots that brought the two of us to that place at that time, and something occurred to me. This overwhelming, overflowing joy that I had just shared with someone I had hardly spoken to before, that which I was and am still experiencing - this awe of God, this love, this peace, this sense of right and belonging - is not something you can walk away from.

You can cut your leg off. You can leave your beloved spouse. You can take your life. But you CANNOT walk away from God. If you know Him, you cannot leave Him because He's just TOO incredible. You cannot NOT want this feeling again and again. You think sex feels good? You think drugs are addictive? You think smoking is relaxing? You think alcohol is freeing?

Pick anything! It cannot compare. People are drawn to feeling good. And you know what? NOTHING feels as good as being in communion with God, as worshiping Him, as delighting in Him, as LOVING Him and being so enormously loved BY Him. And anyone who has actually felt that, who has lived without Him and then experienced life with Him, cannot WANT to leave it again. There's not a person who is wired that way.

Therefore, by virtue of God being so delightful, so pleasing, and so fulfilling, ex-Christianity cannot exist.

People First, But Also Sinners

So this next post is a sort-of argument that Lalaith was once a Christian. Since I've gone over this topic pretty heavily in the past, I'm going to skip a lot and focus on a few main points instead of (again) proving from the Bible that that isn't possible.

First, I have to say, it's kind of funny. Because, the only people that are claiming that she wasn't a Christian are the people who claim to be Christians. So, the only people she's arguing with are the people who are NOT going to take her word for something over what the Bible says. I can't fault her for making her case. It just seems a bit pointless, logically.

Second, Lalaith cannot POSSIBLY KNOW that no one ever doubted her sincerity. She can know that no one told her, that multiple people have said that they didn't, etc. But to say, of a certainty, that NO ONE who came in contact with her EVER doubted her Christianity is just not quite possible. Also, what people think has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the state of someone else's soul. People said that Jesus did miracles through the power the Devil. . . .

Third, the article she linked has a good main point: Don't make assumptions. However, the article also seems to assume that MOST Christians haven't come in contact with atheists or homosexuals or whatever they are teaching against. I'm from an itty-bitty town in MI, not a very social person, home-schooled, but even I worked with a wide smattering of folks before I was 18. So, if someone like ME has come in personal contact with atheists and such, I would imagine that a lot more of them than the author would guess have also come in contact with a variety of people.

Fourth, you don't have to know someone to know that if they are "X" and "X" is sinful, that they are sinning and God condemns them. You might have to know them to know why they're okay with X, to know how they got into it, to know a lot of other stuff. But basically, when the Bible says that liars are going to Hell (Rev. 21:8), you don't need to know anything else about a person - if you know they're a habitual liar - to know that they're on their way to Hell. So you don't need to know one personally in order to say that they are condemned as a whole. The Bible condemns liars. I don't need to know any liars in order to say, "Liars go to Hell." That's just not the way it works.

[Side note interjection: Saying that the Bible condemns something/preaching that something is sin is a far cry from verbally abusing someone (unless they take being called a sinner as verbal abuse; some do). It's not slander or running someone down or anything like that. It's the truth and the truth is often uncomfortable. That doesn't make it malicious or mean. However, people like that pastor that I blogged about a few weeks ago - the guy who wanted to stick all the homosexuals in a fenced off area and drop food in to them - those kinds people are going to have issues. They are going to have a hard time not saying nasty things about people. Because they stop thinking of people as PEOPLE and start thinking of them ONLY as X. When that happens, there's a problem. People are PEOPLE; they are created in the image of God. That has to be what they are FIRST, otherwise you won't be able to treat them with the love that we're to have. People first; sinners second.]

This is what I think is behind that kind of thinking. People believe that if you get to know them, you will see that they are actually good people and therefore, you won't be able to condemn them based on something like them not believing that God exists. But for a true Christian, it doesn't work that way. I believed that atheists were going to Hell when I was ten (random age); I still believed it after I met and worked with an atheist when I was 16. Of the four people that I normally worked with at that job, she was the nicest, the least vulgar, and the most respectful. I liked her the best. The thing is, none of that matters to her soul. She didn't believe that GOD exists. You can't not believe in God and yet put your faith and trust in Jesus.

Same thing happened with a homosexual, with Mormons, etc. etc. People are NOT good. Not, non-Christians are not good; PEOPLE are not good. There is nothing anyone can do that makes up for not believing in God, for not following His Word.

In closing, I'm all for getting to know people. I'm all for doing your research and I'm all for asking people questions about what they believe. It's important not to make assumptions. However, we absolutely cannot substitute how we feel about people for the truth. I love Lalaith; she is my friend. She's a nice person, a very sweet girl; she's smart and funny. None of that makes her any more God's child.

It doesn't matter how much money you give to the poor; it doesn't matter how many species of animals you save, how much you take care of the environment, how kind you are to people around you - those are all "good" things. But like in I Corinthians 13, if you do it all without love (love of God) it profits NOTHING. God doesn't just look at actions; God looks at motive.

Two for One AGAIN!

Warning: The first link below contains a link that leads to a rather hilarious blog. I spent probably a couple hours reading it and laughing. So if you don't have time or if you are bound to take things seriously, don't bother.

We're skipping this one!
We're not skipping this one!

Note: I can't go over everything that Lalaith brings up otherwise this will take forever. So I'm going to hit a few, and you can either send an email and ask about something specific or just research it yourself. :)

Patriarchy. It's an annoying word if nothing else - there is no smooth way of saying it as far as I'm concerned. We're going to take a moment and look at the way that God made things (Creation) and then the way things went in the OT, and then some of the points Christ made in the NT. Hopefully, you'll see that the Bible does not teach or excuse a lot of what Lalaith is talking about.

Creation: God made Adam. Adam came first; Adam was the representative of the people - not Eve. Eve was created FOR Adam - not as a toy or a thing of pleasure - as a companion, as a friend, as a helper, as a coworker, as his wife (Genesis 2:18).

After the Fall, when God is pronouncing judgment, there is an interesting and debated phrase that is used in verse 16 of chapter 3. There seem to be two basic ideas of what the phrase "thy desire shall be to thy husband" means. One is that God is saying that women will no longer be satisfied with their role as helper and they will want to rule over men. The other is that women will basically worship men. They will so strongly desire to please their guy that everything else is secondary.

Personally, I see no reason to think that God couldn't have meant both. Because I look around and I see both. They are both extremes; they are both wrong; they both make sense (at least to me) with the wording. I see women who HATE the idea of a man being in any way above them. And I see other women who can't imagine disagreeing with their husbands. And it seems to me, with my limited experience, that EVERY woman struggles with one of those two things - which would go along with it being a universal curse upon the female gender, rather than it affecting some and not others.

Either way you look at it, this - sin - is the beginning of the entire problem. Because whether women WANT to rule men or whether women WANT to worship men, the end result is that MAN rules over them. And being in his sinful state, that means that man is not going to rule well. So either you end up with huge conflicts - the war of the sexes - or you end up with women being utterly trampled. Being smaller and weaker physically, it's rather easy in less civilized cultures for the women to be trampled no matter which tendency they have.

The OT: From Able to Joseph (which, by the way, is quite a long time), there's not a whole lot said about women or their role. So we'll get into the big stuff of the Law. Like women not inheriting. How horrible. Or, you know, it's just the order of things. What was it that they inherited? Mostly, it was the land. If you had both sons and daughters inheriting land, then the tribes would get all mixed up - which they weren't supposed to. God gave specific land to specific tribes and specific families. It wasn't gypping the women; in marriage they "inherited" their husband's land. And if there was no son, the daughters DID get the land (Numbers 27:1-7). Why? So that the land would remain with the tribe that it was given to.

Giving and receiving women as property: Every time you read in the Bible that a girl was given to be a wife, remember that the Bible is very practical. Since the sons inherited the land, you TOOK a wife for your son - because she was going to be around - and you GAVE your daughter to that guy because she was probably leaving to live somewhere else. At the very least, she wasn't going to be in your house anymore.

Also, seriously, the "Giving of the Bride" in wedding ceremonies? My dad "gave" me, not 'cause he owned me, because it was a sign of his blessing. Rebecca is a GREAT example of this. Rebecca was ASKED if she would go with the servant; she wasn't told or sold. She agreed and they GAVE her away because Isaac lived somewhere else.

Now, I don't mean to say that the property thing didn't/doesn't happen. It did; it does. My point is just that you have to be careful how you take things, especially when dealing with stuff that's quite old and uses words very differently than we do now. Reading into stuff RARELY gives you the truth.

Breeding massive families - there's quite a large family that's the basis of Israel and you know whose idea it was? Not Jacob's. Leah and Rachel were having child-wars. They actually HIRED Jacob to have with sex with them (Genesis 30:16). Doesn't sound terribly oppressed. Breeding for massive families really doesn't seem to appear in the Bible. Yes, there were massive families, but that's not usually because that was the purpose of the women - it's because people like Solomon couldn't stick with one lady. It wasn't to have tons of kids - it was to have tons of sex.

Does the breeding thing happen today though? Yes. Check out Mormonism for a great example of the way women SHOULDN'T be treated. Oh and a note on that, Mormons don't claim to be Christian, so they shouldn't really be placed under the umbrella of "Abrahamic faith." Abuse of the poor and the weak is not bound by any type of anything. It's just plain, old, universal to humanity, Sin.

Moving on 'cause this is already getting REALLY long, the NT: Something to take note of in the NT is the specific people that Jesus made a point of talking to and how PROMINENT a role He gave to the cast-outs of society in general and to women in specific. First off, there's the woman at the well. The woman who went into the city and told them all about Jesus. He picked HER for that. Not just a woman, but a woman married five times and currently living in adultery.

He raised a little girl from the dead. He healed the woman who was sick for 12 years, He healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman and gave the mother the honor of telling her that her faith was great. As opposed to those 12 guys of "little faith." There were the women who were a normal part of His following - the ones who were there at the cross with His mother, the ones who went to the tomb, the ones to whom He entrusted the message of His resurrection. The Bible is FULL of stories of godly women in both the OT and NT.

The fact that God included books like Ruth and Esther, the fact that God recorded the story of the Shunamite woman and her dealings with Elisha, the examples of Abigail, of Deborah, of Samson's mother who never gets named, but who trusted the angel of the LORD before her husband did, of Lydia, of Lois and Eunice, of Pheobe - these are not things that a god who dislikes women or who doesn't use women, or who thinks women are worth less than men would talk about. And that's why God, the Lord Jesus Who, while He was hanging on the cross, made sure that His mother would be cared for, can be shown beyond doubt to love men and women the same amount.

God does not view women as worth less than men. And you cannot find anywhere in the Bible to HINT at that. God's order and God's desire is not about the worth of someone. When a soldier follows orders, it doesn't make him worth less as a person than his captain. It makes him a good soldier. Jesus OBEYED the Father's will. He SUBMITTED to death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). Why? Because He was less God? Because Jesus is not worth as much as the Father? Absolutely not! Because there is an order. Because submission is godly. Because meekness is beautiful. Because obedience is good.

If you make the argument that submission makes you less of a person, you are inevitably making the argument than Jesus is less than %100 God. Women are worth just as much as men. Christ did not pay a greater price for a man than for a woman. We simply were not created to fill the same capacity.

Men were made to fill the capacity of leading the home and the church. Women were created to fill the capacity of helpers. Those are the roles that the Bible has made clear. And that is not a demeaning thing or a sad thing. It's not sad when Autumn follows Summer. It's just the order of it. It would be rather bad if all our soldiers overseas decided that being obedient meant that they were not worth as much, and therefore, they weren't going to follow the orders anymore. I would not feel very confident in our military if that happened.

Why Love and Hate Must Coexist

Skipping the political post, that brings us to this one - about love and hate.

First, let me be clear that I don't really care if you do or don't like using the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner." I don't mean that in a jerk-ish way; I just mean that it really doesn't make much impact on things if you use the phrase or don't use the phrase. The phrase is not the important thing here; what's important is what it means. What's important is one's attitude toward sin and one's attitude toward people.

Now on to the post itself. First, there is a problem when people start deciding what is and isn't okay based on how they feel about it. Jeremiah 17:9 makes that REALLY clear. Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. They shouldn't be listened to. There's also your conscience, which can be tricked into thinking backwards about things as we see in I Corinthians 8. Like I said back Here, the only source worthy of our trust is the Bible because that comes from God Himself.

Therefore, the premise of the entire post is unacceptable. It doesn't hold weight. What matters is what the Bible says. Here are a few verses that describe how God feels about sin.

Proverbs 6:16-19
Psalm 45:7 - Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness...
Hebrews 1:9 - Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity...

Righteousness is the opposite of sin and God loves righteousness and hates sin. Again and again, God is described as holy (Revelation 4:8), righteous (Psalm 11:7), and pure (I John 3:3) - all things that relate to Him being separated from sin, completely and utterly free of it. God doesn't hate sin just because; God hates sin because sin is the opposite of WHO He Is. And since He is everything that is to be admired, sin must be everything that is to be deplored.

God is holy; God's holiness requires that He hate sin. We are called to be holy as God is holy - I Peter 1:15-16. Therefore, the Hating of sin is not negotiable for a Christian. If we are becoming like Christ, we will be hating sin more and more. Now, just as we aren't perfect and just as we don't love God as wholly as we ought, we also don't hate sin as much as we ought. But the fact remains that we are to be striving to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, etc. And in doing so, we will automatically be HATING sin. (Romans 8 says we're to be "mortifying" or "killing" it. Pretty strong terms.)

By virtue of loving God, we hate sin. You cannot have one without the other. That's why John can state so adamantly in I John 3:6 that if we are abiding in Christ, we AREN'T abiding in sin. This is actually a GREAT tell-tale sign of whether or not you're saved. If you don't hate sin, you don't love God.

How does this work with people? Well, as love for God is what produces hate of sin in us, so love of God is what produces love for people in us. I had a friend when I was working at McDonald's who was a habitual liar. If I hated HER instead of her sin, then I wouldn't have hung out with her; I would have deplored HER and not been able to stand being around her. But that's just silly. If I were to hate HER, I would have to break the second greatest commandment to love my neighbor as myself. I would never witness to her. I wouldn't want her to get saved; I wouldn't want anything good to happen to her ever. If I hated her, it would be the same as killing her.

You know who is a good example of hating the sinner? Jonah. Jonah HATED the people of Nineveh. He disobeyed God because he didn't want the people of Nineveh to receive God's mercy; he didn't want them to repent; he didn't want them to be saved. He wanted them to BURN. He cared more about the plant that gave him some shade then he did about all the people in that city.

We are called to do the most loving thing for people that we can. God did the most loving thing that He could for us in sending Christ to die for us. The most loving thing that we can do is take that message to the world.

In closing, the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner" is Biblical. Although, personally I prefer to reverse it to change the emphasis. "Love the sinner; hate the sin." Said that way, I think it makes more sense. Rather than perhaps seeming contradictory to itself, hating the sin can be seen as the natural outcome of loving the sinner whose life is in havoc because of sin. Just a thought.

Skip and a Hop

It's a poem - you should know how I feel about those. On the one hand, yes, faith is something that everyone has in common. On the other hand, I don't think I could claim that it is our strongest link. It certainly is not our most unifying, since there's a lot of faith that is misplaced. No, I think our strongest link is the fact that we are all created in the image of God; we have souls. That's just my opinion.

And now we hop over to Bubbles. (I like bubbles, by the way; they're fun, if sticky. But that's a different kind of bubble.) This isn't so much a religious post, so I'm just going to give my two cents on it.

Once and again, I read Lalaith's posts and I just get. . . irked. Not at her. And at the same time, I feel sad. I grew up under some similar teachings, things like rock music being evil. It irks me because Christians ought to know better. They OUGHT to be able to see beyond what they grew up hearing; they OUGHT to be able to say, "This isn't in the Bible; it doesn't matter how many pastors have said it; it doesn't matter if my parents believe it; I'm going to believe what's in the BIBLE." We claim to live by that one Book - God's Word - and then we go and add stuff to it that is nowhere to be found in it. It's sad and irksome. We all know that we're supposed to be like the Berean Christians - the ones who took what they heard and compared it with Scripture. But we've gotten lazy. And if a few people say it and it sounds good, if it sounds pious, well then it MUST be in there, right? No.

In order to know what you believe, you have to be able to hold it up to other things. Which means you have to know about other things. I don't think all bubbles are bad. I think small children should be in bubbles that limit the swearing that they hear. But you can't keep that bubble forever. If you do, they'll never hold a normal job. They wouldn't be able to live in the apartment complex that I currently life in. Bubbles are useful, but they have to be grown out of. Lalaith is perfectly right that you cannot live indefinitely in bubble without growing ill. You also don't take the newborn calf and hitch it to the plow. You stick it in a field with its mother until it grows.

Bubbles have uses; they're not meant to last indefinitely.

Just a Short One

I don't feel like doing two at once tonight, so I won't have much to say. I miss my husband. That has nothing to do with the blog.

It's a link to a post with two links!

I agree with pretty much everything that Lalaith said, expect the very last bit and that's only a kinda/sorta disagreement. The root problem of war is not that people allow their disagreements to spiral out of control; the root of the problem is sin. Just like there would be no war if people didn't let it get that far, people would never let it get that far if they weren't sinners.

And that is that. Happy blog-hunting. :)

Arrogance and Selfishness

Something to keep in mind while reading: Since Threnody's post is her opinion of Christians, based on her experience with them, the Bible has very little to say on the subject. Thus my post will contain very few Bible verses (if any) and take a different route in our defense.

Today's post is about arrogance and it takes an interesting view of the word. I say interesting because arrogance is generally about being SELF-centered, while everything that Threnody states as being a problem is not necessarily centered on God or others or self.

Arrogance is defined this way:

offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride

The adjective form of the word is defined as follows:
having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance, merit, ability, etc; conceited; overbearingly proud

Both of these definitions make it quite clear that there are two very important factors to go into arrogance. One, it must be about yourself. And two, it cannot be deserved. It MUST be an exaggeration. Not just pride, OVERBEARING pride.

Obviously, Threnody is of the opinion that Christians are wrong and that the Bible is not true. Therefore, her opinion about them being arrogant is logical. But if she is wrong and Christians DO possess the truth, it is NOT arrogant to say such. This puts her position at odds with itself. In deploring Christians for such "arrogance" in assuming that they are right, she is displaying the same kind of "arrogance" in assuming that they cannot be right.

Now, to be fair, as if Christians possessed the truth and did not share it, it would be selfish, so if Threnody is right and says nothing, that too would not be kind. It would be the witness in a murder case not saying that he knew who the murderer was because he feared or disliked the consequences. To keep silence when you cannot be assured of anyone else ever speaking up is not a kindness.

Moving along, I don't know ANY Christians who say that THEY know what is best for everyone on the planet. They say the BIBLE has the answers. Do we know some things? Yes, but only because it's in the Bible. Normally, our statements begin with a "God says" or "The Bible says." I've yet to meet a Christian who claims something is true because THEY said it. Therefore, a Christian's authority is not connected with his good opinion of himself, but rather on his good opinion of the Bible and God.

I also don't know a Christian who says that they cannot be wrong. I've been wrong many times, and will be wrong many more times. What isn't wrong is the Bible. When the Bible says something is evil, it's evil. And like a child who says to their sibling, "Dad told us not to do that" the authority does not come from the child. And it doesn't require arrogance for the child to say, "Don't do that; Dad said not to." Even if the child is WRONG about what they thought dad said; it STILL doesn't necessitate arrogance.


Now the opposite side of things. Are Christians arrogant? Sadly yes, many of us are. Usually, it has nothing to do with WHAT we are doing/saying, but rather HOW we are doing/saying it. Should Christians be arrogant? Superior? Elitist? Absolutely not. There is no justification of it whatsoever. We are called to be humble, meek, gentle, kind, loving, etc. Those are not words that coincide with arrogance. We are not Christians because we were elite or special. We are special because we are Christians. The difference there is that one is ME and one is GIVEN to me. I am not loved because of who I am; I am loved IN SPITE of who I am.

So all Christians would do well to remember that they were on the same path, in the same boat, and it was of none of their own doing that they are not anymore. An old friend of mine just got shipped over to, I think, Afghanistan. He hadn't been there long, a few days at most. He got out of one of the military vehicles, which a very short time later, exploded, killing some soldiers.

That was the state of every single Christian. We were going along, thinking that we weren't in a bad place, trusting in our training and our abilities. We never saw it coming, but if God hadn't pulled us out, we'd be dead. There is very little so humbling as knowing that you were just saved from certain doom, a doom that you were entirely unaware of or too stubborn to acknowledge.

Arrogance is best counter-acted by remembering what we are, and realizing that we could not change it then and cannot be rid of it now on our own. When we see that, rather than feeling superior to everyone else, we ought to feel an overwhelming sense of sympathy and love for everyone, like an orphan who has been adopted and given the best home imaginable and then goes back to visit all the other orphans. It isn't arrogance to be aware of what you have; it's arrogance to believe that you deserved it and it's selfishness to not want to share it.

Up and Running

Okay, that's enough of a break. I didn't even get any of my random thought stuff down. Oh, well. Found out today we're having a baby girl - you can't get close to my cloud. Hehe.

So here's the post for the day - a poem.

I don't know what led that author to believe that the voice inside them was God. It certainly wasn't the Bible. Does the Holy Spirit indwell Christians? Absolutely. But God speaks through His Word, not through that little voice in your head. That voice is 1) heavily influenced by society and experience and 2) subject to the sinful nature that infected us all through the Fall. So, yeah. That little voice? Not to be trusted on it's own.

That's not to say that God can't use that voice, that conscience, your logical thought process, or the sometimes intact innate feeling that a thing is wrong. But God is not your conscience and your conscience is not God. This is clearly seen in I Corinthians 8. The truth is that eating the meat isn't wrong, but he FEELS like it is. So if he eats it, thinking that what he's doing is wrong, he's sinning because he's choosing to go against what he believes God desires. Conscience is NOT a substitute for the Bible. Conscience is why so many people - Christians are sometimes the worst it seems - have such sharp disagreements over what is "right and wrong." Conscience varies from person to person; the Bible does not. If it's not of faith - don't do it! In other words, if you can't do it assured that it's right, Don't! (This does not mean that everything you're sure is right, actually is.)

This is something that I think needs to be brought out more from the pulpits. Because I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "Be careful of your conscience! It can trick you into causing problems in the church, and into teaching as God's Word the commandments of men!" I've heard warnings against legalism - lots of those - but never anything that says, "And just because you FEEL that something is wrong, doesn't make it wrong." They'll tell you that your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, but most people don't bring up, "And your conscience will tell you that things are wrong that really aren't and cause trouble that way."

That was a large issue when I was dating my husband. I grew up in churches where things were "wrong" that weren't really wrong. It's because someone FELT like it was wrong and used the Bible to try to prove it. And I grew up wondering why I heard that it was wrong, but never heard HOW or WHY it was wrong. I didn't really question what made it wrong though, because I also felt like it was wrong. My conscience was heavily influenced by environment and superstitious, nebulous feeling, rather than what the Bible actually said.

Bottom line of the whole thing - if it comes from inside you, don't trust it. Not if it's what you feel, what you think, what you've heard, or what you've experienced. Compare EVERYTHING to Scripture before you call it good or evil.

Half a Hiatus

So I was feeling bad last night that I hadn't written anything here this week, and I had resolved to write a new blog today when I had a conversation with Lalaith. She was kind enough to tell me that Untwisting will be (as far as I'm aware) temporarily private due to some personal happenings. Therefore, Freedom will be taking a sort-of hiatus.

I hope to continue posting regularly on various topics, but until Untwisting reappears, I highly doubt I'll be getting anywhere close to three per week. I have some ideas for the next few, so hopefully tomorrow, you'll get something more substantial.

Thanks for your patience.

The Need for Proper Prioritizing

It is an amazing thing to me, sometimes, to read Untwisting. It is a marvel - not because of how wrong or right it is; but rather how convoluted the understanding of Scripture and Biblical teaching is. And I don't place this misunderstanding on Lalaith or Threnody or the unsaved in general alone. There is an overall tendency in the conservative Church to misunderstand the priorities things are to have and to take good things to extremes. This brings about so much confusion and it's being taught throughout the Church.

Lalaith wrote this post, which basically boils down to her story of rearranging priorities.

Priorities are difficult things; they're slippery and they don't like to stay. Reorganizing them is one of those things that seems to always be necessary. At the very least, checking up on them is, making sure that they are in the proper order. As with everything though, we have a perfect example in our Lord Jesus and we are told to follow in His steps (I Peter 2:21).

For the sake of clarity, I want to make a distinct separation between the priority itself and the action that flows out of it. Christ's purpose, His first priority, was always to bring glory to the Father; but this highest of priorities showed itself in a myriad of ways. It came out through mercy (John 8:1-11), anger (Matt. 21:12), judgment (Matt. 21:18-19), love (Matt. 20:32-34), etc. etc. Jesus never once lost His focus on doing the Father's will and bringing glory to God.

Christ also had the purpose of bringing sinners to Himself. This was another priority, but lesser. Because it was in line with God's will though, the actions that Christ took to save sinners were the same actions that He took to glorify the Father. This is the beauty of proper priorities: they work together seamlessly.

So when we look at that children's lesson of JOY - Jesus, Others, You - we have to keep in mind the end result. Putting others first doesn't mean that you send all your money to the poor, so much that you die of starvation. Because Jesus comes before Others, you seek the will of God first. And sometimes, the will of God is that you get away for an evening and spend it in prayer (Matt. 14:22-23). Jesus took time to sleep, even though He knew that the disciples were going to need His help in the middle of it (Mark 4:38).

Taking care of yourself is not necessarily putting yourself before others. It can be, but it doesn't HAVE to be. There are times when it is better for us NOT to do everything that we can.

I have never heard that the reason we are to put others first is because we're so selfish that we'll take care of ourselves anyway. I don't know anyone who would say that. The reason we're to put others first is that because even when I make sure that I get enough sleep at night, it's to be so that I can glorify God better tomorrow, so that I'll be more useful to people in the morning, so that I'm not exhausting myself to the detriment of my baby. It's because it's not to be FOR ME that I take care of myself, but so that I have more to give for others.

We are definitely supposed to care for ourselves - but only for the sake of optimizing how much we can give back. That is the priority, the focus. When God's glory comes first, helping others will automatically come second, and taking care of ourselves will often be the wisest choice, lest we lose our usefulness.

An Opinion Post

I'm doing something different for this one; I'm going to write about my opinion on something. Specifically, my opinion on feminists and leadership.

Here's a link to the interview that sparked my post.

I had to laugh because the way this lady defines feminism is not anything CLOSE to any other definition I've heard of. By her definition, pretty much everyone I know is a feminist. But I don't know anyone who would refer to me or my circle as feminists; and I highly doubt that anyone in the circle would call themselves a feminist.

Why? Because, in my opinion, feminism is about leadership, and being required to be subordinate to something/someone irks them. What they miss though, is that following something does not make you less dignified or less respectable. In fact, EVERYONE follows SOMETHING. MOST people follow another person. Dianna Anderson defined them like this: "feminists believe that women are human beings and deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as men do." But I have to wonder if that's what she really meant, due to some things she says later.

It would be disrespectful for me to shout at my mother; it is not disrespectful for me to shout at my aging friend who is hard of hearing. Respect and dignity are not found in specific positions/actions of life, but rather in fulfilling the roles that God made for us. God made men, not women, the head of the home. This does not mean that women can't drive the car if the man is there; it doesn't mean that the woman can't earn more; it doesn't mean that she has to stay home and take care of the kids. The Bible says very nearly the same amount on men raising children as it does on women raising children -  BOTH parents are supposed to be involved with the rearing of the children, just like they were with the making of the children.

None of that is bound to leadership. Leading is the last word in making decisions; leading is being the one to set the tone in a discussion; leading is being able to say "STOP" when things get out of hand. Leading is also listening and weighing options. The President doesn't have the time or the know-how to possibly figure out everything that he needs to before making huge decisions. The man would be forever studying if he had to do it all himself. He has TONS of advisers; and could probably have as many as he wanted. . . . If you ever watched the West Wing, you get a sense for how much the leader is really reliant on his help.

There are laid-back leaders and detailed leaders. My husband is very much laid-back; he gives me a lot of space. It's also a HUGE priority to him that we are on the same page about things and we talk about things a lot. Why? Because he respects me. He wants to know my opinion on things and he wants us to BOTH be happy with the direction we are going. That's leading. Good leaders know how to motivate, how to compromise, how to get to the bottom of issues, and how to bring about resolve. Or, at least, it's their job to do their best at bringing those things about. Men who are tyrannical in leading their homes are failing at their job and they often have no respect from those around them. If they have anything, it's usually fear.

Back to feminism. If feminism is really about equal treatment and NOT about equal roles, I have no problem with it. But if feminism is about equal roles, it's wrong and it will not be good for anyone - not men, not children, and especially not women. Because anyone who leaves the role God made for them or refuses to fulfill it will never have respect or dignity.

Since God never said anything about women in the work place, I, currently, have no problem with female bosses. Since God has commented on women leading the nation, women preaching/leading the church, and women taking the leadership of the home (when there is a man there) - those I take issue with on differing levels.

One last side note. The one reason I've wondered if I'm not more feminist than a lot of feminists is that when people call me, "Woman!" I get a warm, happy feeling. I don't think it has ever failed to make me smile. I do wonder, occasionally, how many strong-willed, activist, feminist women are actually HAPPY with the title of "woman." And if they all liked it, why is it that so many people still respond to that as a slight? If people meant is as a bad thing, don't you think they'd stop using it that way if all the women started responding to it like it was the greatest compliment that could be given them? Being a woman.

Just a thought.