Manipulator Alert

Most people don't do evil because they love evil. That's pathology. Most people love what's good. But we can be turned from it if we don't "zealously guard" our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). Most of the world's evil is done by people who've been manipulated to think it's good.

Most people know loving God is the highest good. For many, loving our country is often the next-highest good.

Manipulators know how we think...and use it to get us to think their way. Their most effective seductions are making us think, and do, evil because it's "Christian" or "patriotic."

Smiling people who approach us wrapped in a flag, prominently wearing a cross, may be genuine. But knowing those are manipulators' favored ways of worming their way into our hearts, it's wise to be suspicious of anyone trying too hard to look like a "Christian patriot." Authenticity doesn't need props.

John Bunyan's "Faith" met a manipulator in "Pilgrim's Progress." "Faith's" comment about him (paraphrased here) has always stuck in my mind:

He said he lived in the town of Deceit, and he invited me home with him. But it came burning hot into my mind that whatever he said, and however he smiled, he meant to make me his slave.

Amen. So it is.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence

A few years ago, an angry neighbor came to my door, cursing and threatening to kill my dog.

What I remember most about the incident is that none of that same cursing fury boiled up in my own heart, to spew back in her face. I know I'm fully capable of it, especially when I'm attacked blind-side. The fact that rage didn't erupt from me in response made me aware how much God has worked, and is working, in my heart...even MY heart.

Thinking about it later, I tried to understand where that spirit of rage comes from. What stood out to me was that people kill (or threaten to) in the belief that killing will solve a problem. (People operating on that belief are dangerous to be near. I warned my kids to stay far away from her yard.)

It's an idea the theologian Walter Wink called "The Myth of Redemptive Violence: "...the pattern-of-belief [the strict meaning of the word myth] that wrong can be put right by violence. That myth, he wrote, "...enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right..."

Human beings have long experience with that thought-pattern. And we have abundant evidence to look back on, how that thought-pattern works in reality. If we believe wars bring peace, our world, today and through all our history, would surely be a place overflowing with the blessing of peace.

But we know that's not true, and never has been true. From pragmatic experience, it seems a good assumption it never will be true. In that regard, the idea of "redemptive violence" is also a "myth" in the everyday sense of that word: a story that's not true.

Scripture tells us to take our “…every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5). Even more than our passing thoughts, that must surely apply to the basic operative-ideas on which we act. “Redemptive (or ‘restorative’) violence” is one such idea, deeply ingrained in human hearts.

Jesus testified that He is Himself “…the Truth…” (John 14:6). Our human operative-belief in “redemptive violence" has shown itself every time, all the millions of times, it's acted on, to be a lie.

The test of “redemptive violence” is as simple as I John 2:21 puts it: “…no lie is of the truth.”

You Never Know...But You Should

We underestimate God's unpredictability.

He's always doing what we would never expect. Choosing a gang of slaves for His people. Making a peasant-nobody king. Letting good people suffer (ask Job). Changing EVERYTHING in the world, and life, by the execution of a third-world criminal.

But "unpredictable" is only saying He never does what we think He should, or expect He will. He is "predictable:" but only on His Own terms.

All His ways are always, and will always be, Good. Right. Perfect. Exactly what's needed.

We can expect His every word and deed to be Blessing...for all who will receive them. That's hard for anyone who expects Him to be "predictable," on their terms.

The only thing we can truly expect is that His every word and deed to us is Blessing...His entire unexpected Presence is in them, and He is the only Blessing.

Manipulators

I rail frequently against those I call "manipulators." The "spin-doctors" are constantly working to guide our thoughts in the ways that serve their purposes. I rail most frequently at the blatant political manipulation of Christians' thinking, making them embrace nationalism, hatred, contempt for the poor, for foreigners, for the sick...

But it's taken me a long time to grasp manipulation's deep sinfulness.

It's wrong to use other people for your purposes. It's just wrong.

I know there are people (and I know people) who think they're doing it for our own good. There are certainly those who know it's not; and they are the more culpable. But the purpose is the same: to make us think the way they want us to think, and do what they want us to do.

The manipulator's purpose is to make us his slave.

Bottom-line: manipulation is spiritual warfare. The character-profile of its author is most clearly visible when professional manipulators "spin" truth to their false advantage, in order to get us to do evil.

Bottom-line: resisting manipulation is spiritual warfare.

Amen !

Good Question

How honest is our talk about "God," if that's what we call something that approves our nationalism, our militarism, our love of violence, our hatreds, and our totally-corrupt human politics ?

-- adapted from Shane Claiborne's "Jesus for President"

Commonsense Towards Manipulators

Manipulators want you to think the way THEY want you to think.

When manipulators get you to think the way THEY want, they can make you DO what they want.

Manipulators want power over you for THEIR good...not yours.


Manipulators like you to think you ONLY have two choices.

Manipulators like you to think THEIR way is absolute Good, and the other choice they allow you is totally evil.

When manipulators get you to think this way, it's easy to make you DO what they want.


Reality is that manipulators give us false choices:

that we don't have to accept the choices they give us:

and that we can choose NOT to think the way they want us to.


Above everything else, manipulation is spiritual warfare;

and resisting manipulation is spiritual warfare.

What Heaven Will Be Like

There is a sea of ignorant, sentimental, speculation about what heaven will be like.

I'm as ignorant as everyone else what heaven will be like, and sentimental too. So I speculate:


Yes, you may see your mother in heaven. You may see Abraham Lincoln. You may meet Mother Teresa, or the apostle John, or Moses.

But if you do, the only, overwhelming, cry of your heart will be, "GLORY TO OUR BELOVED GOD !, Who is merciful even to the vilest sinner !"

Evil Ravings of a Brain-Washed Traitor

Obama is not the issue. People are not issues. (Issues are much bigger, and more important.)

Obama has done some things that are good for the country. All Presidents do.

Obama has done some things that are not good for the country. All Presidents do.

Obama is not personally directing every action of government. No President does.

Obama is not personally causing everything bad, or everything good, that happens in America. No President does.

Obama was not born in Kenya.

Obama is not a Muslim.

Obama is an ordinary, flawed, well-intentioned, fallible, human being.


The only thing incredible about these commonsense statements is that millions of people can only perceive them as evil ravings of a brain-washed traitor.

The Poor in Spirit

" 'The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, 'If we say, "From heaven," He will say to us, "Then why did you not believe him?" But if we say, "From men," we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.' And answering Jesus, they said, 'We do not know.' He also said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things...Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.' " (Matthew 21:25-27, 31b-32)


The second day of His final Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus came to the Temple-grounds, where worshippers from throughout Judea and the diaspora were gathering. Amidst the tens of thousands with their sacrificial animals, the loud praying of the crowds and bleating sheep being slaughtered, the "chief priests and elders of the people" sought Jesus out and challenged His authority.

These were not men who did the ordinary work of the Temple; not the workaday priests continually slitting animals' throats and splattering their blood on the altar, or those who chanted psalms to the dusty, noisy crowds. Jesus' challengers were men of the wealthy, politically-connected establishment from whose families every High Priest was selected: the Bushs, Kennedys and Rockefellers of Judaism.

Jesus expertly challenged His challengers: could they recognize authority, spiritual authority, when they saw it ?

I'm impressed that the Jewish rulers' referred first to their public-image. They knew any straight answer, either for or against John's ministry, would let them be bested by a rustic trouble-maker, or lose them popular support. To save their public image, they dared not answer.

Jesus pointed out that their dishonesty went deeper than playing to the crowds. Even "afterward," He said: even after seeing that God changed the lives of repentant tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John, even after John's threat to your religious establishment was ended by his murder: you dare not admit you were wrong. To preserve your self-image, you dare not, even now, honestly admit to yourself that John was preaching God's message.

I doubt the chief priests and elders acted any differently than any of us would. What we perceive as ours is hard to give up. The "rich young ruler" was crestfallen when Jesus said, from love for him (Mark 10:21), that he must give up all his riches. The chief priests and elders had even more to lose: wealth, but also status, power, reputation, public esteem and self-esteem.

Those who welcomed God's rule in their lives at John's preaching, had none of these. Pariahs, despised by all who met them, the prostitutes and tax-collectors had no status to forfeit, no power nor wealth, no reputation or self-respect to lose.

Bob Dylan got it right: "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose."

God, give us the BLESSING to have nothing to lose !

How to Live in the Kingdom of God

The only way to give reality to confessing Christ is

to love The Truth,

to love The Good,

from an honest heart...

and sincerely repent each time we miss it.


This is how we live in the Kingdom of God.