Freedom and False Freedom

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

There's a tendency in American Christianity to equate what scripture calls "freedom" with the “freedom” vaunted in the Declaration of Independence. That’s probably the essence of 90% of the “4th of July” sermons every year.

It’s a false equivalence.   America's founding doctrine is that freedom is a matter of exercising our “inalienable rights”…or as we call them in current political jargon, "entitlements"...and defending those "rights, by violence if necessary.

Jesus said otherwise.  He said freedom is a matter of knowing TRUTH (John 8:32).

If Jesus is right, the enemy’s greatest lie may be that by demanding, or even warring for, our “rights,” we can “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Brother Appolus, in his blog "A Call to the Remnant," gets Jesus' teaching about freedom and "rights:" and even more, Jesus' example: exactly right: “Would you be free today ? Lay down your rights.”

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Who Is Mike Pence

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

When Mike Pence was announced as Donald Trump's running-mate last year, we were all hearing that he was chosen because he was a stalwart "evangelical" who would appeal to that Republican "base."

It seemed to work for some supposed "values voters" I knew, who were torn about voting for Trump.  I don't think any of us had really heard much about Pence before: but the "buzz" (doubtless produced by the "Christian" political machine) was good, and I heard people bring up Pence' name as the reason they thought voting for Trump was a "godly" choice.

Seeing how his relationship with Trump played out, I didn't buy it then, and don't buy it now.  Pence has defended Trump, and "interpreted" his lies to make them seem palatable: he's had no discernible influence in changing Trump's character.  Bottom line, Pence has seemed merely another shameless sycophant of the kind Trump likes around himself.

But my biggest problem with Pence was that he used his "Christian" reputation (even if it was mostly political hype) to whitewash Trump's character.  One time my daughter and I were talking about the role Pence had played in some Trump outrage, and found we had come to think of him in exactly the same words: "Christian whore."

My friend Tim in Australia and I were discussing some months ago where Trump might fit in God's end-time workings.  Neither of us considered that Trump could himself be anti-Christ.  Scripture portrays that man as a uniter, likable, a professing "believer," and widely popular: a master-deceiver, able to hide his evil spirit from his followers.  That's obviously not Trump.

But we didn't really go on to consider that any constitutional process replacing Trump (following his death or impeachment) would give us President Pence.

I blogged several months ago that post-Trump politicians (of all factions) will undoubtedly try to bring forward "...a 'leader' perceived as more honest, intelligent, and likeable than Trump," to whom people will gladly give their allegiance.  ("Who's Next ?", 6/16/17).  Again, thinking of him entirely as a creature of Trump, Pence didn't even cross my mind.

But a profile of Pence in the New Yorker this week makes me think I'd better consider Pence actually could be "who's next."   Rather than a creature of Trump, Pence has long-time personal ambitions, telling high-school friends that he was going to be President.  Nobody but Pence can know how sincere was his conversion to evangelical Protestantism; but he's certainly made it part of his political persona.  He has also cultivated a mutual relationship with the Koch brothers, espousing their causes and accepting their contributions.  Over it all, he projects a voter-friendly image of "Midwestern nice."

I highly recommend the New Yorker piece for its insight into Mike Pence' character and intentions.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The Greater Fool Theory

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

This week we celebrated (if that's the right word) the 30th anniversary of the 1987 stock-market crash.

I heard an N.P.R. interview a couple days ago with a woman who's written the story of that event.  She mentioned, which I'd never realized, that the little-remembered 1987 market collapse was worse than either the 1929 or the 2008 crashes.

She placed the blame on the computer trading-strategies of the time: that when any stock started to go down, the computers were automated to sell...driving the stock-price further into decline.

She didn't say; and I'll have to leave to people who understand better than I do the workings of the economic system...which is most people; what part seven years of Reaganomics played in the crash.

I remember listening to "Morning Edition" that day as I was sorting mail at the Post Office.  Bob Edwards, the show's host at the time, asked a financial expert why the crash had involved even "blue chips:" the stocks of companies considered rock-solid in any crisis.

I have never forgotten the expert's answer.  (It is in fact the cornerstore of the sparse understanding I have of how Wall Street works.)

You have to remember, he said, that the stock-market operates by the Greater Fool Theory.  My remembrance is that Bob Edwards chuckled as he said, "The Greater Fool Theory ?  What's that ?"

Investors don't buy stocks because they believe in the issuing company, said the expert, or because they believe in the company's product.  An investor purchases a stock because he believes that, in the future, a greater fool will pay a higher price for it.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Jesus Says How It Is

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I know I'm increasingly one-note in my thinking.  I'm O.K. with that, because my understanding is that it's the right note.

When Jesus said "I AM...the Truth..." He characterized Himself as reality, Personal, whole and entire.  The personal implication for me, for every human being, is that living in reality is the only way of life that "works."  That may be why His full statement was, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and The Life."

When Jesus said satan is "the father of lies" He said the enemy of life is futile and destructive unreality.  And that satan himself is the personal, whole and entire source ("father") of unreality...beginning with his telling Eve she would "surely NOT die" by disobeying God, after God had warned her she would.

We know who Eve chose to believe.  And we know, from her and our experience, who told her the truth.

I choose to believe Jesus.  That means my whole and entire way of life is about loving truth.

That includes politics.  When Jesus said "I AM...The Truth..."  He said politics is not really about politics.  He said politics is a spiritual matter, in which we make a spiritual choice.  Our choice determines our life...or death.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Where Is God When Disaster Strikes ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

In the last few months the U.S. has suffered repeated and unprecedented catastrophes.

We've had such a series of devastating hurricanes back-to-back the past couple months that they've blurred together in our memory.  We remember the name of Katrina, standing out for the unbelievable damage it did to New Orleans' buildings and social structure in 2005.  But even these few weeks later, who can remember which of this year's hurricans was which ?

Which one made half of Floridians flee the state, with the governor warning people that if they stayed, "you will die" ?

Which one flooded Houston like no American city has ever been flooded before ?

Which one caused devastation and social dislocation that Puerto Rico is still digging out of ?

Even before we could sort all that out, Las Vegas seized the headlines from Puerto Rico with the largest mass-shooting in American history.

Then last week and this week California suffered the most destructive wildfire in its history.

Any single "largest" or "worst" catastrophe used to be taken as a sign of God's displeasure, and make people look for a spiritual explanation.  And perhaps that's not a "primitive" or unsophisticated response to disaster.

After all, the truest answer to "Where is God ?" is always that He reigns.  It makes complete sense then to ask, of circumstances among men, how it serves His purpose for the world.

Jesus warned against the smug cause-effect theology that sees sin as the reason for every misfortune (John 9:1-3).  But He in no way disavowed the theology that God punishes sin, mercifully warning us against continuing to choose evil: and that His warnings sometimes come in the form of heightening disaster.

These are unprecedented times in America; and not just in the catastrophes enumerated above.  Another is that we have an unprecedented human ruler...one who prides himself on doing what no president before him has ever done.  One who daily says incredible things...things literally "incredible," because they're not true.  One who makes catastrophic policy-decisions, breaks his word, insults, bullies, and lies...to "make America great again."

America's "faith-leaders" told us he was "God's man."  Americans chose him...American Christians most strongly of all groups...and, even having seen his true character, many continue to choose him.

Maybe America...especially American Christians...should ask if we have offended God.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Family: Psalms 68:6

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I went to a wedding last Saturday.  Shane and Melody were my daughter's friends through her former boyfriend, Joe; a drug-dealer currently in federal prison, who's the father of my 6-year old grandson.  I knew them all through my daughter's association with them...which horrified me no end.

Like all my daughter's friends and acquaintances, Joe, Melody, and Shane were druggies.  Low-lifes.  Several rungs lower on the social ladder, to my notion, than trailer-court trash.  Not the kind of people I'd choose to hang out with.

But I did, because my daughter was one of them, and part of the drug-life.  I hated that life: and frankly, hated her associates who (as I saw it) encouraged my beloved daughter to belong to their drug-life world (...even while I knew she chose it).

I prayed for my daughter for many years, that she'd see and choose Life (Who Jesus said He IS).  Through a drug-arrest, God answered my prayers of desperation.  And through a drug-arrest and conviction, He also brought Joe to Himself.  Maybe Joe's mom loves him the same way I love my daughter, and was praying for him.

Maybe Shane and Melody's family and friends were also praying for them...or maybe God was just being His incomprehensively-merciful Self.  He also brought them to love Him, and love His word.  It's crazy...Who does that kind of thing ?!?!  Nobody...else.

Joe, Shane, Melody...enemies of God (maybe my daughter's name should be on that list...and mine ?).  God made them His Own children, brothers and sisters of Jesus (Romans 5:10).  The family-resemblance is unmistakeable, in so many things I've seen them do, and heard from them.  God has truly made them teachers and models to me in more ways than I can count.

And He's made them greatly more even than that.

I went to Shane and Melody's wedding Saturday.  It was a family celebration.  Our Father was there, blessing them, and blessing each one of us there, by the joy of His Presence.

You can't pick your family...either when you're born, or when you're born again: God picks.  I'd have never picked any low-life druggies as my family.  But God did.  He's wiser than me: and He's made me fall in love with them, in His family with them.

"God sets the lonely in families..." (Psalms 68:6, NIV)

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Joseph Smith the Deceiver

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Everything I've read by Fawn Brodie has impressed me.  She was a rigorously honest historian, and a graceful stylist.

On a cruise this week, I've had a chance to re-read her first book, No Man Knows My History, the first biography of the "prophet" Joseph Smith which was neither Mormon hagiography nor biased anti-Mormon invective.  Brodie, a non-practicing Mormon herself, searched the historical documents of the LDS and RLDS archives, and affidavits collected by the earliest crusaders against Mormonism, subjecting both to the same strict examination.

The picture of Joseph Smith which emerges is not at all flattering.  Brodie gives Smith credit for his charismatic personality and his imagination, his attractive playfulness and his forceful oratory.  But she doesn't soft-play his earlier career as an unsuccessful treasure-hunter, his continued failed attempts to enrich himself (often at the expense of his followers), and his child-like craving for attention and grandeur.

Brodie came to the conclusion that Smith's theology, and his "Golden Bible," were products of his personality, and not revelations from God.  She was subsequently excommunicated by the "Saints," and her work attacked by Mormon historians.

In the over-70 years since publication, Brodie revised the biography once, and some of her conclusions (for example, the identity of Joseph Smith's children by various "plural marriages") have been challenged, sometimes successfully, by new evidence.  But she rigorously documented Smith's immature egotism, and how it manifested in the  "Book of Mormon" and his theology.

Smith at various time showed disdain for his own "Golden Bible."  When the cornerstone of the temple in Nauvoo was being laid, he placed in it the remaining original copy of the Book of Mormon, saying "I have had trouble enough with this thing," shocking one of his priestly witnesses (p.276).  One of his former high officials (albeit a particularly slippery one) who left the church later claimed that Smith proposed to him a plan to have plates engraved that he could exhibit for a fee as the original plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated (p. 316-7).

Brodie documents well the most fascinating fact of her subject, Smith's transformation from petty frontier con-man to prophet of God's new faith.  He  himself seemed at first to be amazed to find his revelations believed (much like Donald Trump's amazement that he could "...stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters").  He called his followers to their faces "...the greatest dupes, as a body of people, who ever lived..." (pp. 295-6).  To another visitor who remarked on the absolute power he held in Nauvoo, he agreed no man could be entrusted with unlimited power; but added in "a rich, comical aside" (said the visitor) "Remember, I am a prophet !" (ibid)

The tragedy for Joseph Smith, and his followers, was that he eventually came to believe his own deceptions, to the point that Brodie characterizes him as "...fully intoxicated with power and drunk with visions of empire and apocalyptic glory" (p. 354).  When he set out the "articles of faith" of Mormonism, one was that "the Book of Mormon  [is]  the word of God."  And he came to fully believe that he was himself God's sovereign ruling authority on earth, whose word supplanted all previous religious doctrines.  Another "article of faith," for example, was that "...men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression" (pp. 277-8).

Smith led his followers in self-deception (or let's say "hypocrisy").  After he'd been teaching "plural marriage" to his inner circle for some years, word leaked out.  Smith not only denied to the world that he and the "Saints" were practicing polygamy, he solicited affidavits from his people testifying there was no polygamy.  And he got them: not only from his high officials who already had "plural wives," but even from the parents of a 17-year old girl who were witnesses to their daughter's marriage to Smith only months before (pp. 320-1).

But the famous "revelation" that God commands the practice of polygamy was far from the most heretical of Smith's teachings.  (That revelation was nullified as God's abiding word for Mormons when a later "Prophet" heard God reject polygamy...conveniently, when polygamy was the issue blocking Utah from being admitted as a state of the United States.)  His greatest heresies were yet to come.

In the King Follett funeral sermon he declared that "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man...:" the "Adam-God" theology that Mormon leader Lorenzo Snow summarized, "As man now is, God once was: as God now is, man may be;” which Mormonism still teaches (p. 366).  In an argument with one of his authorities who opposed the church' "debauchery," he exclaimed "...we can all go to hell together and convert it into a heaven by casting the Devil out !  Hell is by no means the place the world of fools suppose it to be, but on the contrary, it is quite an agreeable place" (p. 370).

But more than re-defining God Himself, and hell, Smith's theology was most about glorifying himself.  In one of his last sermons, he proclaimed, "I have more to boast of than any man ever had.  I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam...I boast that no man ever did such a work as I..." (p. 374).  He clearly considered Jesus a lesser spiritual leader than himself; and his ambitions for secular glory also led him to proclaim himself General of his own Mormon army, and a candidate for President of the United States.

I admire Fawn Brodie;s life-long practice of honest history.  And nowhere does her integrity better serve truth than in documenting the spirit of anti-Christ at work in Joseph Smith and his "church" since its founding.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Politics Is Not Really ABOUT Politics

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

This post is titled with an observation by our brother Tim (Onesimus) in Australia.  His blog-posts are consistently insightful and informative: but his above observation is the wisest word I've heard about the relation of politics and Christianity, in my 45 years of observing and pondering their interaction in America.

Yesterday Tim posted the negative comments of a reader who had unsubscribed because his posts were "...very political and you are not even American."  (Tim does often comment on the incredible spiritual blindness of American Christians toward their politics: but also about Middle Eastern Christianity and its refugees, Australian news and politics, art, Muslim conversions to Christianity, and much else).

He responded with three points he considers paramount in how Christians look at politics.  Those points seem to me spot-on: and the embodiment of exactly what he means, that "politics is not really ABOUT politics."

Tim's full post is at https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/  His viewpoints are always worth hearing (even if he is not American).
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"...politics cannot be used to address spiritual realities. For example, righteousness cannot be legislated or enforced, because the lawmakers and enforcers are no less fallible than those they seek to control – even IF those lawmakers and enforcers were religiously devout...

"True justice and righteousness will only ever come through Government on this earth after the return of Jesus, when he reigns over the nations during thousand years commonly known as 'the millennium.'

"Secondly political realities can and MUST be addressed according to the Spirit and not according to national self-interest. The follower of Jesus should be set apart from political rhetoric and partisan allegiances. As believers we need to stand as a CONTRAST to the world’s political expediencies, by representing what serves God and His Kingdom, not being swayed by patriotic fervour, or what we are told are the nation’s interests.

"Our nation’s interests rarely (if ever) reflect God’s interests – and yet, contrarily, God’s interests ALWAYS reflect the best (eternal) interests of the people in ALL nations, not only those where we live.

"Thirdly, our own attitudes and actions should always be informed by truth, an understanding of God’s character and with an eye on God’s overall purposes."
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Tim's closing paragraph also seemed to me exactly relevant to the way American Christianity was seduced by "conservatives," on the basis of their alleged "pro-life" agenda:

"It is easy to be distracted by single issue agendas – even worthy issues can draw us away from the 'bigger picture.' By focusing on the rightness of that one issue, we can find ourselves being blinded to the wrongness of the larger political agenda being presented. Beautiful gift wrapping can easily disguise a sealed box filled with stinking garbage."

AMEN !  and AMEN !!

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The Wall of Babel

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The people decided to build a tower in Babel "whose top will reach into heaven" (Genesis 11:4).  They convinced themselves that building bricks and mortar hundreds of feet into the sky would allow them to "reach into" heaven.   It's the essential mindset of godlessness: that human beings can, by their own efforts, by natural means, lay hold of spiritual blessing for themselves.

Scripture says their foolish belief that they could seize heaven by building a tower tall enough was based in their desire to "make for ourselves a name" (ibid).  Isn't pride always at the heart of godlessness ?  Is there anything God hates more than pride ?

I've been thinking this week about one of the first teachings God put directly into my thinking (i.e., "heart"), over 40 years ago: that we have nothing we were not given.  And that God is the only Giver of "every good thing given and every perfect gift..." (James 1:17).

I understood from the thought He put in my heart that we are profoundly foolish when we struggle...especially when we struggle in our own strength, and by natural means...to seize blessing.  We are foolish as well to struggle to keep possession of His blessing.  Blessing is entirely and only in God's gift, at His will: our struggle is with our own ungodliness and pride, which keep us from His will and His blessing.

Our current president continues to insist that his multi-billion dollar border-wall will keep "illegals" from entering America...from taking American jobs, from spreading crime across America, from stealing services and resources that belong to Americans.  And many have convinced themselves that building a steel and concrete wall for thousands of miles across the land will keep and protect for Americans God's blessings to America.

Is our border-wall any less an attempt to seize spiritual blessing by our own effort that the tower the people of Babel built, or any less the product of ungodliness and pride.

Is there anything God hates more than man's ungodliness and pride ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Praying for North Korea

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I've been praying for the people of South Korea.  A close friend's family lives in Seoul, 50 miles from the border, and they and all their countrymen are very much on the spot when national leaders start blustering nuclear threats.

I've been praying for the people of North Korea too.  They are even more in the cross-hairs.

North Koreans need our prayers, and our pity.  They follow a man they've been taught to believe is wise and good, who loves and protects them: even though the un-brainwashed world can see he's a violent egocentric liar.   But North Koreans had no say in choosing that kind of leader.

I pray for and pity the people of the United States too: even the ones who did choose that kind of man as America's leader.