Any Takers ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

For anyone familiar with Revelation's scriptures about what the end-time's "man of lawlessness," or "anti-Christ," will do when he comes to power, this news-story should ring a bell.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45034092

I continue to doubt this current president could be the anti-Christ (though, as someone said, Christ is certainly "The Anti-Trump").  My understanding of scripture is that anti-Christ will be a highly intelligent and charming fellow.  I doubt the current president can change that much.

I doubt too that the current president will act on his whim-belief that Americans should present a photo-I.D. to make a purchase.  To do so, he'd have to admit they currently don't, and he's shown he's incapable of admitting he's ever been wrong in any of his assertions.  Ten angels swearing on the Bible would not convince him that Americans are not required to show I.D. to make every purchase, after he himself said they are.

His ordinary followers know his assertion is a lie; but they always choose to self-delude so they can believe his lies.  It will be interesting to see what they do.

Most of them are anti-immigrant anyway, so they may actually convince themselves it would be a good thing that everyone making a purchase be required to show I.D., as a means of weeding out the "illegals" among us.  To do so, they would have to admit the current president is wrong, and that no such requirement now exists.  But his followers have demonstrated they're capable of incredible mental gymnastics.  I'm sure if they had to admit he lied, so they could say he's right, they could do it.

But in the meantime, the current president has put the idea of requiring I.D. to buy and sell (Revelation 13:16,17) out there.  It's now in people's minds, and in public discourse, available for any future deceiving "leader" to pick up on, and put into law.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Avoiding the "Christian" Politics Deception

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

My biggest problem in blogging is that I over-analyze things: over-analyze most frequently where they come from, since I'm convinced the origins of ideas, as well as of people, gives us a unique insight into what they are.

That becomes a problem when overly-analyzing takes the edge, and the point, off an observation.
So I've consciously refrained from doing so with this observation, and just saying it.

The only protection we have against being deceived by "Christian" politics and politicians is being a radically committed Christian ourselves.  The real thing is the only thing that reveals the false.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Self-Exam Time: Director's Cut

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I have absolutely no artistic ability: but there's one story about a famous artist...I think it was James McNeill Whistler...that I identify with.

Amateur artists often visit major art museums, bringing their own paints to practice copying a masterpiece that's on display.  The guard thought nothing of the visitor carrying a set of paints who'd posted himself in front of one of Whistler's works, and was studying it closely.  But then the visitor began to add his own brush-strokes to the masterpiece !  The horrified guard quickly nabbed the vandal, and called police.

Police determined that the vandal was James McNeill Whistler...who was unsatisfied with his painting on display, and decided to improve it with a touch-up.

I tend to be wordy, mostly by going into the full background of whatever I'm writing about.  That's the historian in me.  I very strongly believe that "things are the way they are because they got that way;" and that the only way to really understand how things are is to know the details of how they "got that way."

Many of my posts are long, convoluted, wordy ones.  Sometimes even I lose interest halfway through the telling of how things got that way, long before I get anywhere near "how things are:"...which is usually my point.
 
That's what happened with this post.  So a short while after I'd "finished" it, I decided to touch it up.

Usually a "Director's Cut" is one in which additional material is added to the completed work, to improve it.  This "Director's Cut," however actually cuts material from the completed work...and in my opinion, improves it, by getting to the point.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of us quickly pick up on what is another person's primary motivation (or as we Christians say, a person's "heart").  I remember the day my brother visited me, and I showed him my new office, and introduced him to my new partner.  When the two of us went to lunch afterwards, the first thing my brother said was, "Man, Rob is all about money, isn't he ?"

My brother had spoken to Rob for less than an hour, and he exactly knew Rob's heart.

So I take it seriously when someone tells me my views of things are all about my politics.  If you hope to be truthful with yourself, you have to listen to what other people say about you. 
Sometimes other people tell you truth that you can't see, or won’t admit, about yourself.

It is (or should be) a given that every Christian wants truth.  Jesus said "I AM...The Truth" (John 14:6): so it's hard to believe anyone is Christian except they love The Truth.  That has to include even (especially) the unflattering truth about oneself.

That's my understanding too of scripture's repeated commands that we honestly and rigorously examine ourselves: our own works (Galatians 6:4), if we are "in the faith" (II Corinthians 13:5), if we are taking communion in "an unworthy manner" (I Cornthians 11:27-30).

Believing Who Jesus says He IS, and what scripture commands; I pay attention to what other people say about me, and examine myself to see if it's true.  So I test myself, to see if my view of things is all about "my politics." 

It's always "conservative" family and friends who say so: and insofar as they mean all my views are from a "politics" the opposite of theirs, I'd agree that's a fair characterization.

The actual political philosophy called conservatism is not at issue.  If it were, I'd have some points of agreement with "conservatives:" but I find they actually have very few points of honest agreement with conservative philosophy whatever.  Which is why I always denote them as "conservatives:" false, pretend, wannabe conservatives.

 (There's even greater hypocrisy when some call themselves "Christian conservatives:"
but the subject here is politics.) 

What my "conservative" family and friends mean by that label is more a tribal identifier ("us") than anything political.  And again, I'll happily agree I am not a member of their tribe.  But if they choose to see my views as solely about my "politics," it seems I should test my views in those terms.

So I did, choosing the most "un-conservative" politician I could think of, indeed a self-professed socialist.  This was the test:

If Bernie Sanders spewed lies upon lies, in everything he said, every day...if Bernie Sanders filled his twitter-account daily with violent outbursts of anger against other people...if Bernie Sanders stirred up his followers to despise and hate people he didn't like...

would I view Bernie Sanders as a good man, an honest man...a man Christians should follow ?

If Bernie Sanders did the same things the current president does...and if I adored Bernie Sanders, but criticize the current president for doing those same things...that would definitely prove my views were all about, solely about, "my politics."  It would also prove me a complete hypocrite.

But my view is that Jesus says liars and haters are children of satan (John 8:44).  If Bernie Sanders was a liar and hater, I'd take it on Jesus' word that he was a child of satan, and I'd warn other Christians not to have anything to do with him...same view I have of the current president.

I think it might be well that "conservatives" (especially "Christian conservatives") test themselves the same way, to see if their own views are all about their "politics."  They are, after all, under the same scriptural commands I am to love truth, and to examine themselves.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Repentance and Franklin Graham

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I don't know how many times a year Franklin Graham preaches: maybe 150-200 messages, all over the world ?

In his lifetime I have to imagine he's preached the gospel message of repentance to hundreds of millions of people, in person, on radio, on T.V., in all the inhabited parts of the earth.

For an evangelist, of course, repentance is exactly the right message.  Repentance is the first step toward following Jesus: without looking honestly at all your wrong deeds and wrong ways, and turning away from them, no one can truthfully follow Jesus.

I wonder then if Franklin Graham believes in repentance.  He certainly knows what it is.  And if anyone knows how central repentance is to living in Christ, we'd have to say he know that, in and out.

Does Franklin Graham believe repentance is something he needs to do ?  I doubt he'd say or believe (as some church-goers seem to) that he repented on some specific date...and that took care of it.  I'm sure Franklin Graham knows that living in Jesus is a continuing process: I'm sure he knows that human beings continue flawed, foolish, rebellious, conniving, hypocritical, and self-deluded, in greater or lesser degree, every day of their lives.

I'm fairly confident that Franklin Graham is enough of an expert on the Biblical teaching about repentance to know that repentance has to be a daily discipline, a lifestyle, in every Christian's life.  I'm sure he's honest enough to realize that includes himself; and I'm sure he probably practices daily repentance in his own life.

So I have to wonder why he's never repented his endorsement of this current destructive president during the last election: or of appearing at last year's inauguration to tell the world the current president is "God's man:" or of his continuing support for the current president's violent foolishness, such as his threat to incinerate every North Korean in a nuclear attack ?

I have to believe Franklin Graham, of all people, must know that no one whose heart is continually filled with lies and murder (which Jesus defines as hateful contempt for others, in Matthew 5:21-22) is "God's man."  I'm sure he knows the scripture where Jesus said such a person shows he is satan's child (John 8:44).

Has Franklin Graham, the world's foremost preacher of repentance, confronted our current president with his need to repent all that ?   I of course have no way of knowing the answer to that question, one way or the other, with any certainty.  It seems unlikely, however, that anyone who'd told a sinner he needed to repent would thereafter approve and encourage him in his evil deeds.

Has Franklin Graham, the world's foremost preacher of repentance, looked at his own actions honestly; questioned if his public endorsement of a liar and murderer as "God's man" might have been wrong...and might have led millions who trust his spiritual leadership to revere and follow a person of the enemy's spirit ?

It seems a question that any Christian of rigorous honesty should ask himself, in his self-examination.  It seems a very great sin that any Christian should whole-heartily repent of.

Franklin Graham, like everyone else, will have to examine his own need for repentance.  He's preached that message often enough we have to presume he knows it.  But so does every other Christian: knowing about and doing repentance is the only way anyone has ever become a follower of Jesus, so we all have the necessary experiential knowledge.

So we all have the same question to ask ourselves in self-examination: have we obeyed God, or disobeyed Him, in what He commands of us ?  If we've disobeyed (and anyone honest with himself will sometimes have to admit he's missed God's mark), we have to choose...again, continuingly...whether or not we will confess and heartily repent our failing.

In this day, the great questions thrust on American Christians are whether God wishes us to follow and revere men of satan's character...and does He want His people to join themselves to liars and murderers, encourage them in their ways, and approve and support their evil-doing ?

It seems beyond incredible to me that Christians should EVER have to examine themselves on those self-evident questions: but the accelerating corruption of the times and the world has made it so.  And the "witness" of so many American Christians is corruptly affirmative to those questions that it's become controversial to even raise them to Christians.

(Note: those questions have become politically controversial...never Biblically controversial.)

But I hope some in the American Church will...in their secret heart, if not in public...consider those questions.  Anyone honest enough to ask themselves those questions, probably has the integrity to answer them honestly: and the courage to repent, if need be.

Two scriptures come to mind, to encourage anyone who will honestly self-examine::

"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is...to keep oneself unstained by the world."     --  James 1:27

"Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves."     --  Romans 14:22


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Why No Repentance ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It seems a valid question: why is there not a wave of repentance sweeping over the American Church ?

Some 80% of American "Evangelicals" voted for Donald Trump.  That's tens of millions of professed Christians.  Their votes were the margin by which Donald Trump became president.

Yet there are virtually no American "Evangelicals" confessing their sin to God, and asking for forgiveness.  I can only think of two reasons.

That American "Evangelicals" and "conservatives" think the president they chose for America is doing good for our country and people.

I've heard some delusional people say that.  But I doubt anyone with commonsense and a basic moral concept of "good"...which should include most Christians...could say so.

Or perhaps pro-Trump "Evangelicals" don't really believe Jesus is Lord of their political opinions and actions; that politics is somehow the one human activity exempt from His moral law and judgement of good and evil.

If "Evangelicals" believe that...how are they Christians at all ?

Why are there not millions of American "Evangelicals" bitterly repenting before God ?  The only reasons I can see are self-delusion, or unbelief.

Which, if either, is more "Christian" ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Faith Without Works Is Dead:

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I think it's self-proclaimed "Calvinists" who get rabid about faith being more central to Christianity than "works."  What I've read of John Calvin's Institutes, he seems much truer to scripture than those who call their teachings with his name.

But it raises the question why some self-identify pre-eminently as followers of a particular man's interpretation of Christ's teachings.  Doing so seems to effectually make "their" man's interpretation of greater importance than Christ's teaching.  I have to think that's exactly the sort of thing Jesus had in mind when he rebuked His listeners for following the "traditions of men" (for example in Mark 7:8, where He calls them "hypocrites" for doing so).  What is more a "tradition of men" than interpretations identified by mens' names ?

It's certainly not just "Calvinists" who fall into that trap.  Wesleyans are another example; who, if I remember right, are either strongly pro-Arminian or strongly anti-Arminian...and so position themselves as a second-generation human-interpreter doctrine.  There are others: and the map of such doctrines seems too tangled to make any sense of whatever.

Needless to say, controversies about those doctrines give satan tremendous opportunities to divide Christians, and set them at their brother' throats.  Satan doesn't miss the opportunity

But for anyone who becomes apoplectic at the title of this blog (probably chip-on-the-shoulder "Calvinists"), I'll just point out those words are taken from James' discussion of faith and works.  Dogmatic controversialists can (and do) work their heuristic sophistry on James 3:14-26 to "prove" that James meant the opposite of what his words say.  But I'm quoting his words because they seem to me to mean exactly what they say.

I quote James because I've been reading Jimmy Carter's most recent book, Faith, and one of his early chapters is "Demonstrating Our Faith."  His discussion of "faith" and "works" seems scriptural, and not at all about the supposed controversy.

Indeed, everything Carter has to say seems informed by his life of commonsense Christianity.  His life is what makes his words worth listening to; and no doubt some who read his book because they admire his life will gain insight into the faith he lives.

For most convinced Christians, what he says about faith is probably preaching to the choir.  But some of the quotations he uses to open each chapter contain striking insights.  Those he used for the chapter "Demonstrating Our Faith" particularly struck me.

Emil Brunner sums up James 3:14-26 better than anything I've ever read or heard: “There is no such thing as Christian faith apart from Christian conduct.”   Faith is real-world stuff: it's what we do, not a theological construct for controversialists in-fighting.

Karl Barth too put James' truth in terms of everyday reality: “You should read the Bible in one hand and your newspaper in the other.”  Faith is what we do in terms of daily reality.

I've said it before, many different ways.  I say it here in terms of living faith manifest in Christian conduct.  In 2018 America, there is a very prominent anti-"Church," a faithless body.  A body of people who claim to love Jesus, "The Truth," but instinctively follow and revere the lies of their politics and nationalism.

May God open their eyes.  And may they choose to see, when He does.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Oddly Enough . . .

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Oddly enough...as I've been recently pondering what it means to be a "Christian blogger"...it seems the majority of people find it strange (indeed, alarming) that anyone would say, "I hear God speak."

That's probably understandable from secular people.  From what I've heard them say or write, most thoroughgoing secularists are pretty skeptical that God (if He really exists) actually says anything to human beings.  Even casual unbelievers somewhat aware the Bible is supposed to be God's word (including many average "church-goers"), don't really believe God has anything to say that is personally and universally relevant, immediate, and powerful.

The fact is most people, professed atheists as well as professed Christians, really don't believe God's word is a living word to human beings.

So neither group is comfortable hearing that God's word is so alive it can be heard, in or out of the scriptures, by anyone who will listen for it.  Hardcore secularists find that idea nonsense: indeed, evidence of mental defect.  Their unbelieving cousins in the church probably think it theoretically possible: but really only possible for, and really only the business of, missionaries and preachers...the professionals.

And it's not rare that church-goers, clergy and laypeople, react with anger as well as skepticism to anyone saying "I hear God speak."  Saying so is often considered hubris, and the natural reaction is  "who do you think you are !?!"  (Jesus got this unbelieving reaction from the people of his home-town when He taught there, Mark 6:1-5.)  The corollary thought...man being the jealously self-interested creature he is...is "do you you think you're better than we are !?!? "

It's a very natural, and completely wrong, reaction.  Hearing from God has nothing to do with hubris.  Indeed, the proud are the very people who will not hear from God (by their choice): He says He is far from the proud...He says He gives grace only to the humble (James 4:6, I Peter 5:5).

If this were more than a quick lunchtime post, I'd search out, and ponder, and write about the scriptures where God says His people, all His people, should hear His voice, and should expect to hear His voice.  I'd quote all the scriptures that tell us hearing God should be our standard, ordinary, walk with Him, daily, and hourly.

I don't right now have the time or tools for that kind of in-depth study: and hope the reader will.  Suffice it to say, it is the Bible's teaching that we should all hear God speak to us (and if the reader disagrees, all the more reason to minutely search the scriptures on this question...and please correct me if I've misstated God's command).

So I say, I hear God speak.

Unbelieving secularists can take that as evidence of mental instability: unbelieving "Christians" are welcome to take it as vaunting pride.  Their reactions say more about where their heart is than about mine.

Saying I hear from God is my affirmation that God tells His people to listen to Him; so I do.  God says those who listen will hear Him.  I affirm that what God says is so in my experience.  I affirm that God is true to His word

I hear God speak.  I affirm that all who love God will obey Him, and all who obey Him will hear Him.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Rob Schenck, "Costly Grace:" The Conversion of an "Evangelical" Activist

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio's award-winning "Fresh Air," yesterday talked to Rev. Rob Schenck about his new memoir, "Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love."  Schenck reflected on what he calls his three conversions: from Judaism to Christianity, from a Christian missionary to an "Evangelical" activist, and from a Reagan "Evangelical" to a minister of the inclusive grace of Christ.

Schenck talked about his 25 years in the most militant and violent wing of "Evangelicism."  His beliefs and actions at that period were, he said, a result of his embrace of  "...what I now call Ronald Reagan Republican Religion, which is distinctly different from Christianity, and, over time, became very narrow and very contemptuous of other people - and very self-righteous, very self-affirming at the expense of others. And I spent a long time there."

Schenck's view of today's "Evangelical" movement deserves to be quoted in full:

[Political involvement] "...has compromised our spiritual and moral integrity. In fact, I entitled my chapter on Donald Trump 'Donald Trump and the Moral Collapse of American Evangelicalism.' I think it's a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. And I think it may lead to the demise of American evangelicalism as we have known it. But my hopeful thought in that - that as the phoenix arises out of the ashes, so a new evangelicalism will emerge mostly led by a new, younger generation of evangelicals that are truer to the faith that is at the center of evangelicalism."

The mp3 of that interview at https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628000131/once-militantly-anti-abortion-evangelical-minister-now-lives-with-regret is "temporarily unavailable."  A transcript of Schenck's interview can be read at: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=628000131.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

"Political Correctness" I

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

One of the mindsets that has grown up with...or rather, degenerated with...today's "conservatism" is hatred of "political correctness."  By that term, the opponents of "p.c." mean the social viewpoint and responses that we're all supposed to subscribe to, and operate by.

That its opponents choose to cal it "political correctness" says a great deal about where they're coming from.  Instruments of social control...which is what they mean by their use of that term...can certainly be political:  especially if they are embodied in law, and subject to political debate.  

In that sense, the civil-rights laws of the 1960s making it illegal to deny a job, or refuse to rent to, or deny restaurant-service to, black people were quintessentially "p.c."  They may indeed be where the idea of "political correctness," and opposition to it, originated.  Civil Rights law is most certainly an instrument of social control.

Following the Civil Rights era, many Americans were doubtless over-sensitive that their words and actions not offend other people, especially "minority" people.  Not just black people: native people, handicapped people, oriental people, mentally-ill people...the list is endless.  Of course "endless:" if society is broken down into its constituent parts (a favorite ploy of politicians), we are each some kind of "minority."

That was the jumping-off point for many hate-groups, like the "White Power" movement.  Their claim was that if black people deserved "special" treatment because of their race, so did white people.  It's a typical operative "principle" of such movements to claim they stand up for the "rights" of some (in their eyes) unjustly-downtrodden "minority."  Telling people their "rights" are being denied them is a guaranteed way to generate anger: and anger always produces hatred: and, when you make enough people hate, you can gather a hate-group.

Though not all poltical movements or parties are hate-groups, the "White Power" people illustrate another "principle" by which politics operates.  Politics is not an endeavor in which deep and honest thought is required, or rewarded.  So it's always easy to create a "movement" or "party" among the thoughtless, simply by reversing, or opposing, or denying some accepted verity in society.

That's largely the origin of today's Reaganite "conservatives," whose (notably-shallow) demi-god told them that "government is the PROBLEM" ...in reversal of, opposition to, and denial of the American operative verity that "the people" are the government; and the operative Biblical verity that government is "a minister of God" to do good for people (Romans 13:1-4).

The "anti-p.c." idea undoubtedly came into being that way.  At a time when Americans were especially sensitive, and some overly-sensitive, to not offending others, it was easy...indeed, inevitable...that some people would react against, and reverse, and oppose, the idea that people should be sensitive toward each other.

In the lower middle-class mixed-race and -ethnicity neighborhood where I grew up, my mother taught me it was rude (and the hint was, low-class) to call neighbors "dagos" or "wops, "niggers," "spics," "kikes," or "polocks."

In practice, it was usually no big deal among friends: "ethnic" guys just took it as a friendly joke.  Guys from the Ozarks weren't offended or angry to be called "hillbilly" by friends.  But in the Civil Rights era, on TV, we saw angry southerners cursing "niggers" or assaulting "niggers" often enough to know that was an intentionally, violent and hurtful epithet: we never would have said it to a black person.

And my mother was right.  Treating people with contempt, deliberately "hurting their feelings," is simply the wrong way to treat people.  Not because my mother said so: because Jesus said so.

What has always struck me about the "anti-p.c." movement is that it ridicules the simple decency of treating people right: that it legitimizes treating other people contemptuously, because being sensitive to other people's feelings is "politically correct."  The problem is not that the "anti-p.c." movement views Jesus' teaching as "social control:" it is.  The problem is that "anti-p.c." teaches that social control is evil.

That's largely because haters of "political correctness" view it entirely as "liberal" social control.  We all know "conservatives," deep-thinkers that they are, think "liberal" means "evil," of course.  And there are historical reasons they do.

The Civil Rights movement in which "political correctness" had its origins was a "liberal" movement: those who opposed it did so on the "conservative" principle that government should not "intrude" in citizens' lives to tell them what to do.  That political "principle" of 1960s' segregationists (and of their Confederate ancestors) was the "conservative" one Ronald Reagan legitimized slightly over a decade later in his first inaugural speech, when he proclaimed that "government is the PROBLEM !"

In accord with that doctrine, Reaganism ever since has sought to "de-regulate" governmental control of society: never mind that that is the job of government, and one of God's mandates to human "authorities" in Romans 13:1-4. 

And when Reaganism also renounced the principle that American government expresses the will of "the people," what could be more intrusive social control than "problem" outsider-government telling citizens how to treat each other: with Civil Rights laws, for example, embodying societal "political correctness" ?

That's the conservatives' " nightmare, which always sends them into hysteria about losing their "rights" when evil socialist government tells citizens what to do.

But to be honest about the matter, no one is more insistently "p.c." than "conservatives" themselves; no one more fearfully vigilant that everyone in their ranks rigorously conform with whatever is the current group-think.  "Conservatives," more than anyone else I know, delight in searching out and anathematizing each other for the least deviation from the party-line.

And having bought into the deception that "conservatism" is Christian, much of the American Church today likewise practices its own rigid "political correctness," with accent of the "political."  There are spiritual truths about Christians' politics, and the politicians they follow, that no one is ever supposed to speak in Church, or to the Church

The fact, for example, that the "conservative" politics most American Christians follow is a manifestation of the sin scripture calls "rebelliousness:" the stiff-necked autonomy ("self-law") that comes from a heart-attitude that "nobody tells me what to do."  The fact that, rather than their works of "Christan conservative" politics, God looks on the heart of American Christians.

Rebelliousness was satan's own original sin.  I have a hard time believing God is pleased when He finds it in the hearts of those who claim to be His people.

(To Be Continued)