Government Shutdown

American government’s mandate is the good of its citizens. The preamble to our constitution outlines the purposes of our government, among them "to promote the general Welfare.” For Christians, this is also the scriptural mandate of government: to be "a minister of God to you for good" (Romans 13:4). (Which operative idea is much more a "Christian heritage" of America than the lying "history" of David Barton and others who claim our deist "founding fathers" were devout Christians.)

So when our government ceases to function as intended, it harms us all. And each political faction blames the other.

But it couldn't be clearer where the blame truly lies. The faction whose guiding principle is that "government IS the problem," is not invested in the constitutional (and scriptural) purpose of government, doing good toward its citizens. That faction's “good” is rather that government cease functioning: as we now have.

All of Kansas' Congressional delegation (and most of our state government) is of that faction. My own Congresswoman, Lynn Jenkins, approvingly quoted the Reaganite anti-government principle in last year’s campaign; but all her factions espouses it. And it becomes clearer every day that their philosophy of anti-government governance is unworkable, and harms our country.

During Vietnam, I held that view for a few years. It made a lot of sense to me at the time that our government was the source of all America's problems. But my thinking reached a point where I couldn't deceive myself that it was a viable philosophy. I had to admit anarchism was a dead-end principle, and give it up.

When I became a follower of Christ, I also came to understand anarchism as a great spiritual evil, in flat contradiction of scripture's teaching. Accepting scripture's characterization of government as a "minister of God...for good," I could see many examples of human government failing in that God-given mandate: but I could not regard government as essentially evil. Nor could I deceive myself that anarchism's spirit of extreme rebelliousness has any other source than satan, the father of spiritual rebellion.

I'd hope for our country's "general Welfare" that the current anarchist faction disavows its principles. Politicians often do.

But in the meantime, blaming the other faction for government shutdown is de facto acknowledgement that Reaganism's bad principles cause harm...for which Reaganites don’t want the blame. Congresswoman Jenkin’s website, for example, recently claimed she is "fight[ing] to keep the government open:” contrary the evidence of her votes in Congress. But again, she’s hardly alone in that hypocrisy.

William Penn on Economic Inequality

"It is a reproach to religion and government to suffer so much poverty and excess"

-- William Penn, 1693

Christian Slavery

“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”

-- Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass


Douglass' truth probably goes to the heart of the Church' problem in its "Christian p.c." thinking. Group-think takes over when individuals fail to think. And group-think enslaves its followers, incapacitating them for any but programmatic thought, and conditioned response.

But independent thought in itself doesn't make us free (indeed, it can be its own snare). Everything depends on the end to which we set the thoughts of our hearts. Only Truth (Who Jesus said He IS) makes people free.

Prize Pumpkin

Competitions for the "largest pumpkin" produce some amazing results. Last year, for the first time, the winning pumpkin weighed over a ton. It broke the record not only for largest pumpkin, but also for the largest fruit humans have ever grown.

It goes without saying that prize pumpkins are tasteless and inedible. They're only grown for their size; every other quality (including all those for which pumpkins are normally grown) is sacrificed to that single purpose.

The "evangelical" distortion of Christianity puts the Church in the same game. A Church whose goal is "saving souls" easily adapts a fleshly criteria of success: how many souls ?

There can only be one "world's largest church" but thousands of others share that criteria. Every city has its big church trying to be a bigger church, and maybe even a mega-church. To the extent they buy into the "evangelical" delusion that success is a matter of size, these might be called "Prize Pumpkin" churches.

Jesus' has a different criteria: whether His church has "lost its savor," become tasteless. If so, He says, "...it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5:13b)

Thoughts of the Heart

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7) So we have to zealously guard our hearts, for from it flows the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Simply: our thoughts guide what we do, which defines who we are. And our attitude toward life determines how we understand it, and live it.

The Puritans had it right, and practiced it daily. We examine ourselves rigorously "...to see if [we are] in the faith...that Christ Jesus is in [us]." (II Corinthians 13:5)

That means looking over our deeds, certainly, to see if we have done what is right. I consider it means even more examining our operative thinking rigorously, since it is the parent of our deeds. As Jesus said, a bad tree can't produce good fruit.

On trial are our "thoughts of the heart:" the attitudes, assumptions, and purposes by which we operate.

Christians obsess about their minuscule deeds: "Can I have a beer with this man without damaging my Christian witness...?" Christians seem to pay no attention whatever to the operative thoughts they let into their hearts. How else could they have drunken so deeply of the "spirit of this world" ?

Here, as in all other considerations, foolishness is a moral quality. Christians have been profoundly foolish, especially in their politics...tithing their mint, and dill, and cummin, they have neglected the "weightier" demands of the gospel for justice, truth, and mercy.

May God open the blind eyes of the self-satisfied, hypocritical American Church !!

Transformed

Sunday School recently was reading Romans 12.

Its context is the great choice every Christian must make: to be "transformed," and not "conformed" (v. 2)

To be "transformed" is to be changed: in this verse, away from going along with ("conformed to") the world. More important is the question of what we are changed to. Here, we're told it's to a mind "renewed" to prove (test, examine, approve) the perfect will of God.

The change is to what is called in Phillipians 2:5 "the mind (or "attitude") which was also in Christ Jesus." And we know what that attitude was. The mind that was in Jesus was to do the will of the Father. (John 5:30)

As a man, Jesus had a choice to make. Every man has the same choice. With Frank Sinatra, some choose to do it "My Way." Scripture tells us instead to choose as Jesus chose: to do it God's way.

God's very clear about the choice. In Isaiah 53, He says that "going astray" is exactly "turning to our own way. He says that that is how He defines "iniquity," sin. Do you want to agree with God, and not go along with the world ? Start by using God's definitions. Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus: what God says a thing is, is what it is.

Have this attitude too. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our way: He says so in Isaiah 55. Human thoughts and human ways are never going to get it right, for one unchangeable reason: no human thought is God's thought, and no human way is God's way. The only way to ever get it right, is to view things as God Himself views them. That starts with making God's definitions our own: and it becomes our operative mindset as we do what God Himself does ("My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working," said Jesus), the way God Himself does them.

That's the choice Jesus made. It's the choice every human being has, to make.

But at least Frank Sinatra was honest about it. The world never is. The enemy cloaks his thoughts and ways in humanly-attractive forms. Going our own way is "independent-mindedness." Seeking our own good is "self-responsibility." Greed (to quote a movie-character) is good !

None of those were Jesus' attitudes. Yet many Christians operate by the world's thoughts and do things the world's way...and claim they follow Jesus.

Many Christians need to repent deeply, and seek the mercy of the King they continually offend !

Evangelicals' Anti-Christ Deception

The prevailing view of most American evangelicals: the "Christian p.c." of the American Church: is that Anti-Christ is very near. He will be a world-uniting political-religious leader empowered by, and entirely in the spirit of, satan. He will be a miracle-working false Christ so accomplished and so attractive that the world will rush to follow him: so pleasing in every human way that he will "lead astray, if possible, the elect."

All of that is true, attested by scripture. Evangelicals' deception regards Anti-Christ is self-deception. We expect Anti-Christ's coming to be a super-dramatic event on the world stage a la the "Left Behind" series, which Christians can spiritually recognize and flee. But maybe scripture is right, that the spirit of anti-Christ is already at work...the father of lies even now spreading rebellion, blasphemy, and apostasy.

For a generation evangelicals have followed teachers of "Christian" lies like David Barton, because they want to believe America is a "Christian" nation. They followed (and still revere) a "Christian" leader who told them that government is evil: contrary scripture which says government is "...a minister of God to you for good" (Romans 13). They followed another of that faction (who claims he was personally converted to Christianity by Billy Graham), who proclaimed to the world that America (not Jesus) is the "light of the world." Less than a year ago, evangelicals voted overwhelmingly their heart's-desire to be led by the priest of a demon who claims to be "Jesus."

Evangelicals deceive themselves that they will spiritually recognize Anti-Christ when he comes: their actions show otherwise. The American Church lies to itself that it will stand against Anti-Christ, when so far it has completely embraced his spirit of lies, rebellion, blasphermy, and apostasy.

May God open the Church' spiritual eyes !!

All Things New

God makes all things new. (Revelation 21:5)

Man's "conservative" impulse is to save what we think is good from our past. For those who've been "...rescued...from the domain of darkness, and transferred...to the kingdom of His beloved Son..." (Colossians 1:13), it's hard to see what good there is to carry into our new life.

The "conservative" impulse can be a means of opposing God. The Pharisees of Jesus' time are a prime example.

Hemingway's Symbolism

It may be apocryphal: the exact quote is verified nowhere that I've looked for it: but it rings true with Hemingway's rejection of the "symbolism" critics found in his writing. Supposedly he once disgustedly told an earnest student who asked how he knew what symbols to put in his writing, and where: "If you write it right, the symbols put themselves in."

That's probably true of how any person perceives life/the world/reality, whether or not we go so far as to set it down in writing: if we perceive accurately, the "symbolism" is simply there to be found.

I don't much care for Hemingway's writing: but I share his disgust for the mentality that believes it must formulate and superadd its symbolism to reality. That seems to be a core feature of the "religious" mentality: as if God's creation were incomplete until humans' critical faculty had interpreted it.

That seems part of the problem with "Christian media." Even when the "symbols" it chooses are God's, and truly present in His creation: morality, Jesus, righteousness: being extraneously inserted there comes across as artificial. It's a false endeavor, and perceived so even though its falseness is worked by manipulation of what's true.

God's thoughts and God's Ways

“ 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
'For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.' "

Isaiah 55:8-9


It's no secret that the white American evangelical Church marches in lock-step with our country's (falsely so-called) "conservative" political faction. Every "conservative" thought and way is faithfully parroted by white American evangelicals. On every "issue" of the day, white American evangelicals will take the same "position," and adduce the same reasoning for it, as their political manipulators: social issues, foreign policy, legislation, military affairs.

It's a simple question: are human politics God's thoughts and ways, or man's ? If the latter, the white American evangelical Church has forsaken God, His thoughts, and His ways.