A day of infamy

On June 1, 2009, the Obama administration quietly distributed a presidential proclamation declaring the month of June to be LGBT Pride Month.  That's right, folks.  He's designated an entire month to glorify the sin of homosexuality. 

The Lord promised He'd never send another flood to wipe out the surface of the earth, but I don't recall Him ever stating he'd relent from punishing those reveling in sodomy.

It's kind of ironic that he did this right before embarking on a peacekeeping trip to the Muslim world, a culture which decries homosexuality pretty vehemently.

Expect fire and brimstone, folks. 

What does this even mean?

"Christian" music these days is getting to be simply annoying to me. But I fear that it's actually doing damage to our numbers, our members, and the body as a whole. Take the following snippet, for example.

In the song "Tonight" by Jeremy Camp, there is a line in the chorus that says

Tonight, I will realize to take hold of this very moment

What does that even mean? In songwriting, it's one thing to use artistic license to convey complex meaning with few words (using metaphors or other relational methods). And it's quite common to use sentence fragments lyrically, as well. But what exactly does this line - captured within the chorus, so it's drummed into your head - mean??

The answer is.......nothing. If I saw this written outside of the context of a song, I would think it was written by someone with a poor grasp of the English language. As it is, I think it's written by someone with a poor grasp of biblical discipleship.

No regrets

Something is being lost in today's churches. One of my cousins made a statement once that she "tried not to regret anything" that she ever did, because at least she could learn something from it.

But the problem is....we're supposed to regret things. We're flawed creatures, and will be until the Lord returns. And when we sin, the attitude of a person with a godly heart will be to repent. Regret is interchangeable with remorse (and, coincidentally, with sorrow), which is required for true repentance.

Now, I've heard the "don't regret anything" story before, but never from anyone who professed to be a Christian. And since that statement was made, I've heard it from other "Christian" sources, as well.

So, my question is: who's teaching this philosophy (even "new theology") in our churches, and why?

I guess the short answer is that its genesis lies in people bringing that idea in from the world, and never abandoning it in light of the truth found in the Bible. After all, people have been doing that to Christianity for nearly two thousand years.

I just hope this one doesn't stick around like some others have....

the rest of the story

yesterday, my wife and I went to church with my folks (who are members of basically a community church bordering on being charismatic). The preacher/pastor person who spoke seemed to have a good, cohesive message, and used a scriptural example to demonstrate his point. And then he missed the point completely.

His example was of that of Mephibosheth, the grandson of King Saul, who was crippled and exiled at the end of Saul's reign (and life). The claim was that David sought out Mephibosheth and extended grace and mercy to him, even unconditional love. And the comparison was to God's love. The statement that this pastor made over and over again was that "this kind of love is not dependent on the response of the person to whom it is offered" and the message was that God gives us salvation regardless of how we respond to Him.

We all know this is not true. Or do we? I tried to engage my folks in a conversation about this, and they said that it was implied that repentance is part of the story but it just was not explained in the sermon. I know for a fact that several members of my family don't understand the tie to repentance, and I believe very firmly that the importance of repentance is being lost to whole generations (just starting on a second one). So, if those who know just assume that the full story is being told, who will be left in 20 years to speak the truth and tell the rest of the story to those who are lost?

It was just another moment in a sad weekend.....

The fool says in his heart "there is no God" - signs of the last days #2

Combined with James Cameron's latest attempts, I think this could be considered another sign of the last days...
http://www.thegodmovie.com/

The blurb on this web ad says "irreverantly lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed" (credited to Newsweek magazine).

At this point, I don't know how much publicity this will get (and maybe I'm wrong in adding to that with this post), but little things like this have a way of gaining a cult following and festering (much like the Michael Moore films reference on the page).

Our hope

Something that I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with is the fact that evangelical Christianity is drifting more and more towards a hope only in eternity with the Lord. They've discarded the truth that the Kingdom of God is right here, right now, and, instead, trade it for an ephemeral view of a vaguely understood future time when everything will be "okay". Now, I'm not going the route of some "pastors" and saying that the Lord wants us to be prosperous and wealthy, but He does promise us that He cares for us and comforts us while we're in the midst of the evil in this world.

One of the evils associated with this weakend hope is that it actually would have the effect of weakening faith. Instead of actually trying to live like we've overcome the world, we live like we're resigned to our fate, like we have no champion more powerful than anything else in all of creation. And we sit back and take whatever the evil one dishes out.

This has to stop!

soon and very soon

I'll start posting something here. just stuff that's on my mind, and not anything like a log of what I dreamed last night, ate for breakfast, etc....

So anyway.....

(to be continued)