World's Shortest Blog Post

I have read both of your last posts, and got through about half of the 95 Theses, about 85% of which I agree with. I'd like to give them both proper answers, but I can't promise that before Monday... it's a busy weekend scheduled. I'd rather do a proper job of answering, both posts deserved good answers. :) See you Monday if not before... Your Friend Hearthie

A New 95 Theses

I accidentally came across a website that, to my mind summarizes the problem with Christianity as practised in the US. I would like to know what you think of it, and if you disagree with it, how and on what biblical grounds.

I've mentioned before that a lot of non-Americans have huge problems with American Christianity, which seems to be more American than Christian. It is odd to me when people refer to much of western Europe as post-Christian when in the eyes of many Christians throughout the world, Americans have confused American patriotism with Christianity. Unfortunately, it seems almost impossible to bring up that subject without being called anti-American.

I haven't read through the entire site so I don't know if I agree with everything but the 95 Theses that they present, at first glance, do seem to hit on why American Christianity has fallen into such disrepute in the world, not only among Christians from other nations, but also among non-Christians in America.

The site is called Kingdom Now.

If for some reason, this is offensive to you or you would prefer not to discuss it, I understand, and in that case just ignore this post.

Layla

The Sermon on the Mount

I don't think God's will for anyone goes beyond that we are to love God with all our heart, our soul and our minds, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. I don't think there is a will beyond that. I think people want to think there may be a grand plan to their lives or that it is all more complicated than it is.

But most of us are not called to be missionaries, or martyrs or pastors or whatever it is that people think they 'ought' to be called for.

We are however, all called to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are called to do that every day. In practise to me that means to be aware of our surroundings and the people who surround us, and pick up on the vibes that tell us that maybe someone is having a hard time of it, and needs a listening ear.

In Luke 3, when John is baptising people, they are asking the same question regarding their purpose?

10 And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?

11 He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.

In Luke 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reiterates what God wants us to do with our lives.

27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

Why don't people just do what God asks of them? What He wants of us isn't very complicated but we are rather like the rich young man who wanted to know what he should do, and made a point of telling Jesus how religious he was and how basically, he really was a very good man who had kept the Law from his youth. And Jesus told him that if he would be perfect, he should sell all that he had and give it to the poor. And the young man wanted a pat on the back and a good boy. He didn't want to do more than he was doing. Just like us.

This is another example of how Christians pick and choose what they want to believe and do. They believe that Paul should be obeyed quite literally when it comes to women in the church or homosexuality being a sin, but when it comes to literally giving away all that they have or even something as small as giving to panhandlers on the street, then they want to rationalise it away. After all, who knows what the panhandler may use his money for? Nothing good, we think to ourselves, that's for sure. Probably liquor or drugs or loose women.

And how can God ask for us to give everything we own away? Is that good stewardship? Wouldn't we better serve him by keeping our money - after all we tithe and how could we tithe if we had no money?

One thing has struck me about Jesus' actions. He didn't tell us to worry about how the other guy was going to use our extra coat or the money we gave. And He specifically told us to live like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air who the heavenly Father provides for, while they do not worry how they will eat or where they will live.

If Christians realised that they are not of this world - that we are in this world, but not of this world - if they knew what that meant, they wouldn't live like they live, claiming to have faith but constantly piling up the piggy bank for the future. We are not to live that way. The politics of the world should be of no concern for the Christian, neither should wars. They are wars of this world and the Prince of this world is the Lord of Darkness, not the Lord of Light.

I have always given to panhandlers. I have always given to whoever asked me for anything. I admit that I am glad that no one has yet asked me for my house. I would be in a real dilemma then. Although I am not sure it counts as mine since the bank still owns part of it. But that is what Jesus requires of us. To have that much faith that we can give our house away and still believe that He will provide for us.

It is not my concern what a panhandler might use the money for. I am obeying Jesus.

If you are talking however about special gifts and talents a person has, and that being one's purpose in life, they are all secondary to the Sermon on the Mount. But beyond that, all gifts, whether one has a gift for healing, as in being a doctor, or as an artist, ultimately all gifts are from God and should be developed. The way in which the gift glorifies God may not always be obvious, but nonetheless, if one is aware always that one's gifts come from God, they do glorify the Father.

Layla

Angels!

Woot! They can make angels for the tree... that's a great idea. :)

As for resolutions, I agree that we should do things every day (and am working on my spiritual resolutions to live in the moment more, to be more grateful for daily things, etc) but the New Year just naturally happens to be a good time to start things, one of several that occur naturally throughout the year.

Let's see... spiritual questions...

What do you think God's will for your life is?

Resolutions

One of the things we did a lot of when we were children was draw manger scenes with coloured pencils. I can't speak for my siblings, but I really enjoyed it. I think a lot of the feeling of Christmas, as to whether one sees it as too secular or not, comes from within. I never had a secular feeling about Christmas and I got immense satisfaction out of drawing manger scenes and pulling off the cardboard windows of an Advent calendar to see some elaborate drawing of the shepherds or the angels.

It is quite possible that my mother never knew how much it affected me. Parents often seem to clue out about things like that and when your children are older you may be surprised to find out how much they picked up on the spiritual element of Christmas and the level of meaning it had for them.

We also made a lot of decorations for the house and the tree, in the form of paper chains, cut out snowflakes and stars.

I like an old-fashioned tree and make popcorn chains and cranberry chains for my tree each year.

But happy birthday! I have a sister who has a birthday on Christmas day and I can tell you she has always felt ripped off. She was not ripped off, as she was also the baby of the family, and we always made a fuss over her and she always got extra presents. She and her husband recently bought their first house and she is having a birthday party a couple of days before Christmas - she calls it her 'first' birthday party.

The only thing we ever did to her was call her the child who ruined Christmas for us that year. It really was a horrible Christmas since our mother went into labour on Christmas eve and we weren't even into Christmas day when our father took her to the hospital. She was born just after midnight and our father's first words to the doctor were, "What did we win?"

He had confused a Christmas baby with the New Year's baby, haha.

I don't do resolutions. I think that Mennonites were always against them. You were supposed to make each day count, not make a bunch of resolutions to be good on one day and for the next year.

I personally have no religious objections to them but they don't make any sense to me on the above grounds. I don't do spiritual resolutions either since I am not sure what that means. I need help every day and I can't wait and hang on to resolutions for a new year.

I have a few errands to run now that can't wait.

Layla

Advent calendars and Birthday cake

I like the concept of lighting candles, one each day before Christmas, to "count down". I'd probably not do the "one each Sunday" simply because I don't decorate for Christmas until mid-month (a rebel to the core, that's me).

While Advent has never been part of my Christmas celebration, I have gotten a new advent calendar almost every year of my life... my birthday is December 1! I've had the kind with pictures, the kind with chocolate, and have three or four in my Christmas decor that are filled with ornaments either for the tree or for the calendar itself. I've never particularly associated it with the religious aspect of anticipating the coming of the King, it's always been a "countdown to Christmas".

I might actually have TIME to spend working on the "feeling" of Christmas this year, so any ideas you have are most welcome. My son is old enough to really get and enjoy the season, and my daughter is always up for anything sparkly (they have both been commenting on the tinsel garland decorating the apartments near his school).

Jesus' birthday cake: Yes, people do it so their kids get that it's a birthday. I would like to go to someone's house who does that and see how they work it. I can't imagine having a cake on top of all the cookies and candy. In fact, the one year I made a birthday cake for my grandmother (whose bday was the day after Christmas) it was sugar overkill. (She appreciated it though, she was 70something at that point and it was her first bday cake). I would rather just stick to the "we give gifts because God gave us Jesus", which is what I grew up with too.

Onward... do you do New Year's Resolutions? Do you have a spiritual resolution?

Adventkranz

This post isn't going to be about anything very serious. it is going to be about Advent - the first three Sundays before Christmas, with Christmas Day counting as the fourth advent. That is how I am used to celebrating Advent but some people have 5 candles on their wreath, with the fifth candle counting for Christmas Day.

This Sunday we will light the first Advent candle on the wreath I made. Advent wreaths are a Germanic custom that I thought might interest you in your efforts to incorporate more of the 'reason for the season' into your Christmas.

One candle is lit on the first Advent, the third Sunday before Christmas, and two candles are lit when we are two Sundays before Christmas, and so on until on Christmas Day you have four lit candles. It is a way of providing a religious countdown to Christmas, and I think it helps to get in the mood for Christmas, instead of there being a huge rush of things and then, bang! Christmas is here and then it's gone before you know it.

I made my advent wreath with one of those metal wreath things you can buy at craft stores, with candle holders already in place. From the greenhouse, I bought some fir - at least I think it is fir - evergreens with needles that look more like grass than the more usual pine. I don't like needles to shed all over the place and neither fir nor balsam sheds. After cutting and wiring the branches to the wreath form, with a glue gun I glued dried pink flowers to the wreath, along with some realistic looking butterflies and birds.

You can decorate the wreath in any way you like. In Germany they are often very elaborate. I prefer a more natural look.

I put white candles in the wreath because that was what I had on hand.

Advent calendars were and still are also very popular among some Mennonite groups although today they are mostly made for children. Here you can buy them in almost any store. I don't know how it is in your area. They are calendars with religiously themed pictures that have little windows in them and in the bought versions, a small piece of chocolate behind each window.

Some Advent calendars now have activities to do for each of the 25 days before Christmas instead of chocolate and there are also 'advent' calendars that have nothing to do with the advent of Christ but focus on Frosty the Snowman and other secular Christmas creatures.

But the way I remember them from growing up was that there was no candy - there was a calendar with little windows for each day of the month, and you pulled them off to reveal a picture of some of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. It helped to point us in the direction of what we are celebrating as well as provide a direction for our childish excitement to focus, as each day we pulled off a window, we were that much closer to Christmas Day.

There are instructions online how to make your own Advent calendar. Perhaps this too would be something you would want to incorporate into your Christmas? They are easily enough made with cardboard and craft paper and there are many instructions online. There are even Advent calendars online.

I also decorated the chandelier over the dining room table with fir and balsam and picks of real-looking grapes and such.

You know, I only realised within the last week what people are thinking when they do the birthday cake for Jesus thing in an effort to supplant Santa. Duh! I never understood it before but I think what they are thinking is that usually the birthday child gets gifts and so they want to remind their children that it is Jesus' birthday and not their own in spite of the presents most people receive on Christmas Day. I think they are thinking that children will get the wrong idea from presents due to the fact that they are associating gift-giving with themselves, instead of the birthday child, Jesus. Am I right? Did I finally understand correctly?

The reason I didn't understand before was because the way I understood the gift-giving was not about a birthday for anyone so much as that because God gave the most precious thing He had to us, we, in a small remembrance of that gift, give gifts to each other. So in my interpretation there never was a supplanting of Jesus by Santa, or a misunderstanding of birthdays.

I don't think the birthday thing would have made sense to me because there is nothing that we can give God or His Son but our hearts, our souls and our minds. Therefore there is no need for a birthday present.

Layla

Cupcakes and Lottery Tickets

There are definitely occasions when I don't get my meaning across. :) We *are* in agreement. I think of our Heavenly Father very much like a human parent, only with a full knowledge of all consequences and absolute perfection. My kids would like me to feed them endless cupcakes... I would like to win the lottery. But my Father in Heaven doesn't think I need all those dollars any more than I think my kids should subsist on a diet of pure sugar.

Are cupcakes (or dollars) bad? No. Not in proportion to the need/use you'll put them to - just as you said. But how do we know as humans what sort of use we'd put things to? My mom used to come home from school, eat a whopping big slice of cake, and then go do chores ... burnt right off. I give my kids small portions of desserts. Why? Because they don't go work in the fields to burn off the calories. The same thing applies to our Heavenly Father and Christians and the lottery. (NonChristians aren't under that particular part of His will, imo, because He's not controlling the use they put anything to). If He allows us to have something like that in our lives, it's because He thinks we will use it well.

Now, of course we can counter His permissive will and we can use what He gives us to sin. I think we violate the permissive will of God every time we sin... it's never His will that we do that. However, I think He can and does use even sin and its consequences for good if we are His. The best good that could have been? No. But good ne'ertheless.

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

Continuing with the analogy of God as parent (and continuing to agree with you), I make my son do homework. Does that make him happy right now? No, not really. But it will make him happy later. I make him have his shots and go to the dentist. Is any of that designed to make him happy? No. But it's for the best. Yet - if there was a way I could make sure he'd never get polio, without a needle going into his arm - would I choose that? Of course!

And so, I believe, with our Heavenly Father. While He's not preoccupied with the happiness of the now at the expense of the glory of the Hereafter, I don't think it's His pleasure to see any of His children unhappy. So - should I go through a time of pain and heartache, I can trust that He is growing me up, using me to the glory of His kingdom, or SOMETHING. Someone will have the benefit, even if it's not me. Some die for Him, some suffer every day for Him. None of that pain or suffering is unnecessary, none is wasted. The God who tracks each sparrow's fall would not let any of His children hurt for no reason.

And, with this agreement... I close.

God's Will

I'm not entirely sure that I understood your most recent post. It has to do with God's will. I think we are in agreement that we can't know what God considers good, but I also think that you are saying that God wants us to be happy based on the verse in Matthew (?)

I would like to start off with a story. A few weeks ago I bought a lottery ticket. I have bought maybe five lottery tickets in my entire life. But it so happened that I was at the drugstore and they were advertising a 17 million dollar jackpot and it so happened that the line was long and before I knew it, I had convinced myself that it just might be my lucky day. After all, someone was bound to get lucky.

Then later, in that half-serious way that my friends and I used to speculate on what we would do if we had a million dollars, when we were kids, I decided that I would give all my siblings a million dollars each if I won the whole thing. My parents aren't short of money but I decided that a million in their direction wouldn't be a bad thing although I couldn't imagine that it would make a difference in their life since they are already doing all the things they like to do and money isn't an issue for them.

But for my siblings - well, it could pay off their mortgage. Pay for a family trip to Disney Land, if that's what they wanted. Pay off a sister's student loans for law school and put her all the way through school without having to worry about money. Pay another sister's way through nursing school. It could buy one budding Jimi Hendrix nephew the electric guitar he always wanted, and another nephew the drum set he would really like.

One set of nephews is in a private Catholic school and my sister always worries about paying the bills, and so it would be so much better if money weren't a problem and she wasn't having to juggle all the things she is juggling.

And maybe our entire family could take the vacation of a lifetime by renting some entire tropical island, with plenty of elbow room for all of us so that we could be together but not on-each-other's-nerves together.

And then I suddenly foresaw a different future: one in which my sister who is just short of her law degree - (her third degree: she has two other degrees, one a Master's) dropped out of law school, her husband out of graduate school and they wasted all the money and never realised their full potential as human beings.

And that my other sister, the one who is in nursing school, would drop nursing - or maybe still pursue it - but leave her husband since she would feel she could make it on her own.

I foresaw another brother's wife leaving him, because she would get to claim half the million dollars as her share.

And I foresaw being confronted by bitter siblings, asking me just where my brain was when I gave them all that money, didn't I know what could happen.

So then I mentally downsized the million to half a million. But then I still foresaw potential trouble ahead.

So where does this fit into your post? It fits in here: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Part of what we discussed privately was that I am not sure that our temporal happiness means all that much to God. That was my position. I think you are sort of disagreeing with it based on Matthew. In my parable above, my intent is to give a good gift to my siblings. But my good gift does not take into account free will. It takes into account how I think they should spend money. To pay off their debts, so that they don't have to worry about money. To provide musical instruments for two extremely talented young boys so that they can increase their talent.

But once I have given then that gift, there is no way to control what could happen and my good intention may have very bad consequences. In fact, by the time I was through imagining all the bad things that could happen with that much money, I totally understood why so many rich people, people like Bill Gates, or Oprah aren't spreading their money around a little more freely.

When Jesus says that it is God's wish to give good gifts to us, what does that mean? We are defining 'good' by our definition of what is good, which means we are defining it as being what we want: good health, good marriage, good kids, successful career that is fulfilling, good relationships with others, nice house, no debts, a few 'toys' to play with.

God is outside of space and time. To Him, all is one - the living and the dead are all together in Him. Yesterday and today are one in Him. He knows the sparrow that will fall before it even begins to falter.

But God's definition of what is a good gift is not necessarily our definition of a good gift. God looks through eons of time. He looks to the future in terms of His good gifts. His first promise was to Adam and Eve, that of their seed a messiah would come who would return things to their former state and glory. But this promise has still not been completely realised.

I partly agree with what you say when you say that there is God's absolute will, and God's permissive will. And I agree with you that we have no way of knowing what constitutes either the absolute will or the permissive will. It is human nature to think that our little screw-ups, our minor decisions have no impact on the absolute will but that is our thinking, and we are told in Isaiah 55:

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? You put it well when you wrote that God is non-linear. The butterfly effect is part of chaos theory - the idea that chaotic or random happenings in fact have an underlying order of cause and effect, and that little things can have bigger consequences than anyone ever dreamed of. A butterfly fluttering its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.

As with everything that is written in the Bible, I think because we are linear thinkers and because our thought of what constitutes good is limited to our own self-interest, we have to look at the Bible for examples of what God considers good or permissive will or absolute will.

Moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it seems to be a minor, permissive will sort of thing. But God didn't see it that way and due to that, Moses did not step into the Promised Land. David's use of permissive free will with regards to his adultery with Bathsheba brought a plague on Israel and the death of his son with Bathsheba.

Yet on the other hand, David, when he fled Saul, went into the holiest place with his men, the place where only the priests were allowed to go and ate the shew bread even though the punishment for that was death.

God in the Old Testament when He says that I will have mercy and not sacrifice and Jesus in the New Testament, when He says that the sum of the Law is to love God and your neighbour as yourself, and in His parable of the Good Samaritan, puts minor acts in the place of major, earth shattering acts. Jesus says that the person who gives a drink of water to a child will not lose his reward. These are minor, every day acts and yet those are the things that God judges us by and appears to count as His absolute will.

So in conclusion, I think that I don't really believe there is a difference between absolute will and permissive will. I think that they are one and the same - they are the butterfly effect and one day we will reap what we have sown in our small kindnesses and unkindnesses. Our bending to God's will or what we can best surmise from God's will based on our understanding of the Bible. It seems that God always prefers kindness, turning the other cheek. But we are also told to be watchful and not to fall into the trap of heresy that Paul took issue with in Romans 6:

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

and ... 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Our small, personal lives matter, and very often, when you look at the lives of the saints, they are not happy lives. There is nothing in them to indicate that God equated what we would consider a good life, or a good gift, with their lives. All of the apostles but John of the Revelation were martyred in cruel ways. This is not what most of us would consider a good gift or life.

Even in the prophecies of the coming Messiah, through human eyes, in Isaiah 53, Christ is described as, he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Christian lives, in the effort to obey Christ who lives in us, often reflect the same characteristics, having in them nothing that anyone in his right mind would desire, and certainly not happiness as we understand happiness. I am not saying that God doesn't love us or that He doesn't join in our weeping. But He has His eye on a longer goal, which we can only see through a glass darkly, and that very often the 'good gifts' He refers to in Matthew seem to be only in the world to come.

Layla

Time, Space, and the Nature of God

Something that came up in our private correspondence is what we are and are not meant for - what God's plans are.

God exists outside of time. He sees all of eternity. He knows who will and who will not accept His Son's death on the cross - because He's not linear. He exists as much in the moment when our sun goes nova as in the moment when He created it.

He knows that we will, and do, far prefer the joy on the other side of death's portal to whatever happiness or misery that we experience here. And yet He allows us to muddle about in our time-constrained selves!

I've heard preachers talk about two types of the Will of God. The absolute will of God, the one that controls the day of return, the days of our deaths, the "big stuff". And the permissive will of God - what we do in each of our lives, the little things that don't muck up His big plans. I don't think there's ever any way to know what we're doing falls into "permissive" or "absolute". Being tied to time, however... how can we speak outside of it?

I pin my faith to two verses, one of which shows omnipotence and the other omnibenevolence.
Omnipotence: Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Omnibenevolence: Matthew 7:11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? When we believe in an all-powerful God who loves us EACH as His beloved children... I cannot believe that any pain, any sacrifice, that we are called for in this life is anything but to be used for His glory. And I am willing to trust that through any trials that life will show me.

All of which doesn't stop me from asking him "Why?" and "Can I have xxx" any more than it does MY kids from doing the same to me. I'm glad He has eternal patience. :)

It's a zero-sum game, isn't it?

God says, "Do X" and then we obey Him? (Or we try, anyhow). He says, "Don't do X" and we don't? Second-guessing God is a bad idea, IMO.

My church follows the same scriptural principals with regards to female preachers that yours does. The exception seems to be that women are allowed to teach (as opposed to preach) and are encouraged to do so, with other women. A woman teaching a group of 5oo other women is hardly a mouse in the corner, and yet that's very standard in my denomination. As for women when there are no men to step up? Well, again - they're not in authority over men, so what of it? And once a man does step up... they retire gracefully. (In theory). I don't quite know why this is the way it is, but I really think this is important. Some of it might be the nature of males and females... not that females aren't capable, far from it. My thinking is that males more easily follow and respect another male, and a female led church would soon become a female ONLY church. It's one of those areas where I'm content to follow God and find out why when we get to Heaven (and yes, I do want to know why).

As for disqualified male preachers - siiiiiiiiiiigh. Oh sure. We need to go through and clean out the flock in a big way. I've been in two churches that have lost preachers through immorality. And they hurt, but they get rid of them. Since you toss out the big names - did you know Billy Graham spent his whole life, never letting himself be alone with any woman other than his wife or daughters, not in a meeting, not anywhere - lest he be tempted and fall? We need more men like that!

There's two ways to look at pastors. One is "preachers" - who wants to listen to "do as I say, not as I do"? For pastors - they do need to know how to lead a family, it's as you said - so there's no skeletons in their closets - but also it's practical experience in how to lead a church. If you can't shepherd your family, how will you shepherd your church family?

"Important" sins and "unimportant" sins: I think, again, that this is a zero sum game. The only reason that I can see homosexuality as a more "important" sin is that at this time it's become a lifestyle. Very rarely do people marry their bottle of gin and adopt children... "Lifestyle sins" keep you from grace, simply because you know you'll have to give them up when you take Jesus in your heart. Even if you have to lean on Him to do it... you know He's going to ask you to. Other than that? Sin is sin is sin. And my failure to stay on a diet is just as sinful as murdering your neighbor. This is the essence of why we need a Savior - no one of us is holy or perfect enough to enter Heaven. I'd agree with the classicists - the #1 sin is pride. Whatever keeps you from realising your need for grace, whatever keeps you from Jesus - that's the #1 sin for you.

For myself - a struggle for me is the constant attempt to put too much faith in humans and withdraw my interest and faith and dependance from on High. I am.. very small and soft in my heart of hearts, and very willing to give myself over to love and obedience. That's a good thing, but I take it too far, and focus only on the human and not on God. One of the reasons I will be so happy to be in Heaven is that I will finally be able to relax and not second guess myself. No more "is this okay?". I won't be ABLE to worship anyone but Him. (And no sins of the flesh either, to which I am quite susceptible). So I constantly tip over from throwing myself at the feet of some man or hiding, hurt, at the feet of our Lord.

Good questions! :)

Women Preachers

Did all go smoothly then, for your Thanksgiving? As to another topic, I was wondering if there was something personal you wanted to share about your personal struggles with life and faith?

I was also wondering how you felt about women as pastors? For? Against? Ambivalent? The church in which I grew up did not allow women to serve as pastors, taking this from 1 Corinthians 14:

34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

I have mentioned before that the Mennonite practise of faith is not one set practise, and that within the Mennonite Gemeinshaft (fellowship), there are many variations in interpretation and practise. Of course at the time I grew up in the church, it was unheard of in any church, in any denomination to have women as pastors. This would have been back in the day when we all walked to school five miles, barefoot, through blizzards, uphill both ways.....

But as far as I know, my particular church that I grew up in still will not allow women to serve as pastors. That is not true of all Mennonite churches.

I have to confess that I am somewhat ambivalent about whether this is theologically necessary or not. I am not sure that Paul meant for our time what he might have meant for his time. There may also have been particular problems within the Corinthian church that he wanted to stop.

Paul also sets standards for men to serve as pastors:

1 Timothy 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

and in Titus: ...For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:

6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;


8 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;

That also negates a lot of men currently pastoring churches, including the prosperity type churches, given to filthy lucre.

The Mennonite church also interpreted the 'husband of one wife' thing to exclude as potential pastors men who had been divorced or who had been intimate with women other than their wives.

It seems to me that Paul is clearly saying that the leader ought to be above reproach in all ways, much like a presidential candidate should have no skeletons in the closet for the opposite side to use against him. In this case, Christ is more important than a presidential candidate, and Paul, as I read it, was saying that a potential pastor's life, ought to have been the kind of life that has always been measured, so that the enemy (Satan) can use nothing he has done to undermine the gospel that he preaches.

That also leaves out the Jimmy Swaggerts and Jim Bakkers. I don't intend to harp on them - it is only that they are well-known names associated with well-known sins and I give them for an example.

There are many pastors like that among us lesser known people, who are men, who are serving as pastors. I do not say that they necessarily continue to live in sin, only that they have had intimate relations with persons other than their spouse, their children are not well-behaved, they are not particularly hospitable unless there is a chance for money for the church, and not particularly temperate judging from their waistlines.

Is it better to have a man - any man, even a man who violates the above qualifications that Paul lays out for positions in the church - to a woman who holds all the qualities that Paul values in men, but happens to be a woman? If so, why?

Another thing I think about is that there have been times in Christian history when there were no men left to teach - due to war, imprisonment and similar things - and women then unofficially preached the gospel to those who were left.

They did not call it preaching but preaching it was and how can it have been better not to preach at all, not to speak of God, than to speak and preach of him?

It's always struck me as strange, how Christians pick and choose what is a major sin and what isn't. Like ferinstance, homosexuality is a major sin but drunkenness isn't. Although we are told that such people will not inherit the Kingdom of God, we nonetheless excuse drunkenness along with other sins, like gluttony, but make homosexuality a bigger sin than any of the rest of the sins. Even though there is no such distinction made in the Bible.

So what are your thoughts?

Layla

Happy Thanksgiving!

I "Mary'd" out all day yesterday... and am hoping to strike a balance today. I **love** what you said here: And if we are doing His work everyday we are not clock-watching labourers in the field doing a poor job of it - but we are not afraid that He will find us sleeping when He comes and our work undone. That's perfect! I've been a clockwatcher since birth I do think.

Now, where shall we go, theological questions-wise?

Clock Watching

Happy Thanksgiving, Hearth. I hope you managed to Martha it out.

Have you ever read The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton? If not, I highly recommend it. I think that given your appreciation of C.S. Lewis, this book would not fail to move you. In the book, towards the end, Merton muses on the irony of having chosen a life of verbal silence, when his nature leaned towards curiosity and self-expression. I seem to recall that he came to the conclusion that he had sacrificed that part of his personality for the sake of Christ who had called him as a monk.

I think he has a point in that it sometimes seems to me that what is the hardest for us to do, in terms of what our nature is - introvert/extrovert - is what we need to force ourselves to do. When we do what is in line with our nature, well, that is the easiest thing.

For me, the hardest thing is to put myself out there. I really would rather just be left alone with a book. So when I force myself to do things I really would rather not do, I try to do it with a cheerful heart, as a sacrifice to God.

I want everything to be perfect when company comes over when really it might be better to let things be imperfect, and just sit and chat a while. Not because I get so much out of it, but because maybe the other person needs someone to listen. And because, when you listen, when you least expect it, you often learn something you didn't know before.

For me the 'cure' or semi-cure for daydreaming is that I make a list of things that I know need doing but which I keep putting off. That usually involves cleaning. Nothing brings you more into the moment than cleaning. And I need to be in the moment more, I need something to tie me to the moment without thinking too much.

I think you hit on the problem many Christians who believe in the eminent approach of the Rapture experience - that of looking so forward to that day, that it takes the place of the work that they have yet to do in the vineyard. Proverbs 13:12 says, Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

In no way do I doubt the return of the Lord Jesus Christ but I think that when people dwell too much on the 'End Times,' they tend to mistake their own visions for visions from God and make themselves too open to error. Why? Because hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

The prophet Jeremiah is very interesting in chapter 23. It is a fairly lengthy chapter on false prophets. I have heard modern day Christian 'prophets' use a phrase something like, "the Lord put a burden on me" or something along those lines - I probably don't have the right church words - to describe what they feel is the Holy Spirit giving them a special message, maybe to pray for a particular purpose, or to pronounce a particular idea. Pat Robertson is one of the more infamous people to do this but everyday Christians do this as well, on a much lesser scale.

Through Jeremiah, God says .... I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.

31 Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith.

32 Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.

33 And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD.

34 And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house.

35 Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken?

36 And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.

I think that there is a balance to be found between waiting on the Lord, as we do, and believing He will return because He said He would and being sleepwalking virgins through life, instead of waiting with lamps lit, and eyes awake. Getting overly caught up in the day and the time and the means in which He will return and who the Antichrist is and who the False Prophet is takes our eyes away from the work that we still have to do until He comes.

And if we are doing His work everyday we are not clock-watching labourers in the field doing a poor job of it - but we are not afraid that He will find us sleeping when He comes and our work undone.

Layla

Oh then you and I are well-matched

Because I started my inventory and came 'round to something I've come 'round to before... I need to live in the moment a great deal more and do less daydreaming. How do you DO that? I learned long ago to live in the future and in my dreams and in books to escape the tedium of everday life, but now have lost my ability to live here and now - and I think that's what I need to do to strike a balance.

I beat myself up for not being more "Martha". I'm the gal who would love to sit like Mary but who guilts herself into going into the kitchen... I think I need to be more respectful to my real self there.

We've talked quite a lot on this blog about Heaven etc. One of the places I'm really off balance is that I either tend to put my hopes on something/someone in this world (and then get them crushed) or I completely live for the day of homecoming to the point I long for release, and just sit there and "Mary" out to it. Not good, either way! The only way I can see out is to be in the now and work with what I've got today. To just "be here" and enjoy the laughter and feel the pain, and leave my hopes to Him and not dwell on them (very similar to what you've said you do). Hope terrifies, yet I clutch it.

And, in that spirit, today and tomorrow are "Martha" days for me as I need to prepare for our Thanksgiving and for not feeling well for a few days. Off I go!

I don't know really know what taking a 'spiritual inventory' means. When I look back, it seems to me that at the very points in my life when I felt the least spiritual and every day was a struggle, that those turned out to be the most spiritual times, and leading to the biggest lessons. But when I am in the spot, the only thing I see is a spiritual desert, a valley of dry bones.

I guess to me a spiritual inventory would mean knowing what I believe and why I believe it and being aware of my weaknesses. My biggest weakness is that I really hate people. Well, I don't really hate them, I just am not very good at rolling with the flow, as when unexpected guests show up. It is incredibly hard for me just to put on a hostess smile, knowing that whatever I had planned for the day is not going to happen, and be generous with my time for other people. In the story of Mary and Martha, I am way over on Martha's side.

Just who did Jesus think was going to feed Him and His apostles and all the neighbours if Martha sat on the floor and listened along with Mary? It would be Martha who would have to live with the neighbours later, gossiping about what a poor hostess she was, sitting there on the floor and not bothering to get any meal ready for her guests.

I am always so disappointed in myself, that in the quest for perfection, I miss so much of the enjoyment of the moment. I fall so far short of what I want to be. I tend to be way more unforgiving of myself than I am of other people and sometimes have to slap myself mentally in the face and ask myself, Who do you think you are - God - that you have to be so perfect?

With regards to writing about really personal struggles, for myself, I guess I am not comfortable with that. I don't make any sort of resolutions. What I do, is each day I ask God for the strength for that day. I try not to look too far ahead. Every once in a while, I crack and then dump every single worry far, far into the future, onto God. It's not that I think that God minds, it's that I can really work myself up worrying about too many things. When even a day is too far into the future, I ask for strength for the minute. I ask that wherever I go, I am aware that it is an opportunity for God to use me, if I am open to it.

Layla

You've made me think a little differently, thank you

I think maybe I've got my own version of "make it perfect" for the kids... "make it not too secular". :) Probaby mom-itis. You have given me a lot to think about (and a lot to chill out about) so many thanks. I needed that!

Onward...
Both my preachers (Dr. McGee and Pastor Mike) talked about doing a "spiritual inventory" today, looking back to improve forward. Whenever it comes about that two people take the same theme on the same day, I hear the Holy Spirit at work. And I got hit hard with Pastor Mike, and "using the day for the Lord". I've been not doing much this past week, even though feeling better, just out of habit of hoarding my strength and somewhat out of depression. I have two days before I'm going to be feeling unwell again, so I need to use them well, and use them for Him.

Do you have any big spiritual lessons that you've learned this year? (That you want to reveal to our theoretical audience, of course). And what, if any, resolutions are you making this New Year with regards to spiritual growth? I'm not thinking that this would be a question/topic to answer tomorrow, but something perhaps we can address as we go over the next month or so?

Whereas I enjoy talking about the big theological things, I think it's useful for folks to be able to read our personal struggles and how we work through them with the Lord. So, I'm going to try to be as transparent as I can be in a blog format read by strangers... if you're not up for that, it's cool. You can throw questions at me and make me work harder. :) And if you are up for it, we can do that for each other. And we can continue on with our discussion about the big things as they come to mind.

Your thoughts?

Christmas

I see Christmas and the celebration of it a little differently. My parents tried to make Christmas, the secular part, special. I know it was a lot of work, and I know it more now that I am older and am the one trying to make Christmas special for everyone, and trying to accommodate every one's notion of what is special. So it is hard for the woman who is busy with all this stuff to feel any sort of peace and goodwill to men.

Since it is simply a fact that I am going to be the one doing so much, and it is simply a fact that I feel like an abused servant at Christmas time, I try to turn that into a good thing. I try to mentally put it in a place where I am doing this for Christ, who was our servant.

The Christmas before last, for once, there were no family gatherings on Christmas Day but we had one the day after Christmas. So I thought this was my chance to have a more relaxed Christmas since usually I am cooking on Christmas Eve for Christmas Day. And when that happens I have no time to go to church.

But on that particular Christmas, for the first time in maybe 3 Christmases, we went to the Christmas programme at the church we like to celebrate it at.

So come Christmas Day, I was playing carols and singing along. I had a goose planned for dinner. I was also mixing up all the stuff to cook and bake to take along to the family gathering the following day.

I mentioned that we have a tradition of picking out poor families and buying presents for them. For years now it has been one particular immigrant family with thirteen children. This isn't anonymous. I wanted that but my husband had other ideas. Since Europeans tends to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, I dropped off the presents a week or so before Christmas so that my presents don't take away from their celebration.

At three in the afternoon, guess who shows up in the middle of my peaceful Christmas? All fifteen people in that family. Guess who was horrified? Me! I couldn't believe that they were ruining my Christmas. They came loaded with versions of their ethnic holiday foods - they knew that weren't going to just have dinner on hand for an extra fifteen people. But honestly, I was so mad, I was shaking.

So I went downstairs to collect myself. I thought of saying, Sorry! We were just leaving for a family gathering.

But I realised, that they were, from their heart, with their company and their food, wanting to reciprocate what I had been doing for many years with Christmas presents. So I swallowed hard, said a quick little prayer and went back upstairs and put my defrosted goose back in the fridge, got out the toys, put their food in the fridge and we celebrated Christmas. And I did all the running around and I had no fun at all. I was doing it so that they would have a wonderful Christmas - which they did. They were so happy with themselves.

I believed in Santa whom we called Saint Nicolas. I don't remember at all when I no longer believed in Santa. I suppose that after hearing enough children tell me there was no Santa, and hearing them laugh at kids who still believed in Santa, I must have got the hint somewhere along the line.

My father would make pretend reindeer tracks outside. The porridge and the milk disappeared somewhere. I thought I heard a reindeer on the roof one Christmas and I was terrified that I wouldn't get any presents because I wasn't asleep. I don't think there was any attempt to make the religious aspects of Christmas special. They were special because they were real. We didn't sit around for weeks on end talking about how God sent His Son. We already knew that. We took that part for granted.

We sang Frosty the Snowman along with Silent Night. So I don't see any difference between my childhood Christmases and the secularization of Christmases that you don't like. Christmas was advertised then too. Toys were always wanted then too. I wrote letters to Santa about all the toys I wanted.

First of all Christ is the reason for the season only for Christians. He is not the reason for the season for everyone. I don't concern myself with how others celebrate Christmas, even if they leave Christ out of it and Frosty in it. I don't have to. No one is forcing me to leave Christ out of it.

I think that the problem began when Christians made a private religious celebration public, by putting up nativities and other religious symbols in public places, they invited the public into 'their' celebration. And then when the non-religious public took to the celebration and made it their own as well with secular elements, then we object. If we had had proper respect in the first place and took our faith seriously, we wouldn't have made a public spectacle out of it and just asked for it to be abused.

Furthermore, we are trying to have it both ways. The early church co-opted existing pagan festivals and built Christian festivals around them. Christians can't say that non-believers 'stole' their holiday when Christianity in fact usurped pagan festivals.

However I don't think that the fact that many Christian festivals coincide or have some pagan elements in them negates Christmas. Paul, when he went to Athens, noticed that the Athenians, in their effort not to ignore any god had put up altars to the unknown god.

Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

You notice how Paul says that he is there to tell them who this unknown god is whom they worship in their self-admitted ignorance. In other words, Paul is taking an existing belief and co-opting it and using it to explain the Jewish-Christian God.

We don't know when Jesus was born, and December 25 only acts as a symbol of that day to us. And the winter time was chosen precisely because of the pagan festivals, that it wouldn't be strange to the people to to celebrate something at that time. Attaching it to Christianity became a means of making Christ known to others during a time when people were jolly and looking for any excuse to celebrate.

You mention that some fundamentalist Christians have taken on Jewish celebrations for being less secular, I suppose. Although if Christians are now usurping Jewish festivals, I guess the Jews are thinking, there goes the neighbourhood. Jewish traditions don't exist in a vacuum either - they too have connections to other celebrations by pagans in the regions where their celebrations began. Instead of thinking of it as though Christmas has let the secular or pagan in, why not think of it as how secular or pagan have let Christ in?

The reason that there is less commercialisation in North America among Jews, is because minorities tend not to impose their celebrations on anyone. Jews took their faith a little more seriously than we did. They didn't put on public displays and insist that every street corner had a Hanukkah menorah. And so they remained truer to the spirit of their celebration than we did, although even they, in countries that are predominately Christian, have added elements to their celebration, such as more presents, instead of the traditional gift of money given over the days of Hanukkah.

I really don't see that it is so difficult to keep Christ at the centre of your celebration but I don't think that gifts are things that take away from Christ. We give gifts to each other in remembrance of the gift of Christ to us. We light our Christmas lights in memory of the Light of the World. If there is a connection way back to pagan celebrations, well then, those folks back then, ignorantly worshipped the unknown God, who now, in our Christian celebration of that old celebration, him declare I unto you.

It doesn't strike me as even slightly odd that many Jewish or Christian ideas have roots or similarities in various pagan beliefs. If we all come from the same source, the same beginnings, of course our mythology will all lead back to our common story, and every faith will contain something in it that says, we have forgotten the original story, but this is the altar to the unknown God whom we think we knew once.

And who was gracious enough to allow us Gentiles to participate in the faith that was given in trust to the Jewish people, to hold for the world, long ago.

Layla

I think it's the cult of Santa et al

The parents I hang with make such an effort to make the secular version of Christmas "special" for children (as if it's not special already) that the religious bits get pushed to the side. The still small voice gets drowned out in choruses of "Frosty the Snowman". These are people who are horrified that their seven year olds would find out that Santa's not real!

I'm not sure if folks are trying to relive their childhoods, or just super worried about making everything perfect (I tend to think the latter), but ... well, it's just odd. I had a note from a friend the other day asking me how I kept my kids from thinking that because Santa's not real, maybe Jesus isn't either. That's what I mean by the cult of Santa... how far have we gone when that's a concern?

I'd rather go back to the Christmases you had as a child - or even the ones I had. Maybe I just feel the pressure as "the mom" to make everything happen? It seems like (though Christmas is my favorite part of the year) that the season is so much more about consumerism (buy, package, make things shiny) than it is about even the most slight spirituality. Or even, really, about the family gatherings... it's like we don't take time for each other really. :( And perhaps my feelings about that are colored by my own very rushed holiday efforts, jaunting from my house to my parents' house and then back, trying to accomodate everyone and everyone's version of "special". By the time I've gotten the mandatory bits of Christmas over, it's hard to get myself (and I'm by far the most spiritually oriented in the house) in the mood for contemplation of our Lord.

I see the draw to switching to the Jewish holidays, as some very fundamental Christians do. There's no way I'd get my family on board for that... but there's a draw. What do you feel at this time of year?

Reason for the Season

So what is it, in your opinion, in your situation, that makes it hard to keep Christ in your Christmas, with regards to children?

Layla

Jesus IS the reason for the season

But I don't think that any Christian I've ever met has chanted it for the benefit of non-believers. (Okay, maaaaybe when they make us cranky by taking away the city nativity displays or suchlike).

That quote, and the odds and ends that American Christians get up to (like making a birthday cake on Christmas for Him) to bring more Christ into Christmas, are, I think, for our own benefit. It is terribly difficult to live in this secular, commercial society, and hold on to the religious meaning of Christmas. I don't know what the difference is living in rural (?) Canada without kids vs. living in suburban America with kids... but I know I constantly feel the pressure to do more stuff for the holidays - and it's secular stuff. Bad stuff? No way! But secular.

I think what folks are trying to do is remind themselves (and their kids) that the holiday is not about the gifts, not about snowmen, not about any of that... that it's about our Lord coming to be born.

Thanksgiving is probably the closest thing Americans have to a non-denominational religious holiday. We are encouraged to think about the things we have to be thankful for, to spend time with our families, to consider our nation's past. It's a very special time for most of us, I think. And well it should be! I heartily resent it being almost the "rest day" before turbo-Christmas shopping begins, as well as some of the big stores being open that afternoon. I guess you can't SELL gratitude... :(

Your Christmases as a child sound wonderful! :)

Hugs and hope you're feeling well today.

Holidays and Holy Days

Well, first of all, Thanksgiving isn't a religious holiday in Canada as it is in the US. Mennonites when I was growing up, didn't celebrate it, because it was seen as a celebration of excess. I still have a more or less take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards Thanksgiving.

We really only started to celebrate it in my family as we all grew up and moved out, and Thanksgiving, since it is a holiday and a day off work, became a time when we could all get together at our parents' place.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Thanksgiving but Thanksgiving isn't as big a deal anyway in Canada as it is in the US from what I have heard from American friends. Since I have never celebrated Thanksgiving in the US, I don't have a point of comparison there.

I think that there is nothing wrong with Thanksgiving as it is celebrated by Canadians generally. I don't think that each holiday has to have a religious significance. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. For a spiritually minded person though, the very notion of thanksgiving, would generally make one's heart and mind turn to God, I would think. It is like the Feast of Booths celebrated by the Israelites. It is a time of joy, and thanksgiving for the harvest but also for the Lord of the Harvest.

As far as Christmas is concerned, growing up, that meant attending church on Christmas Eve and having a Christmas programme put on by the children in Sunday School. At that time the services were all in German. We memorized the Christmas story as told by Luke in German, and usually each child had a Bible verse to memorize.

There may have been one play, that of Mary and Joseph and the angels proclaiming the new born king. But I don't recall that there were any other plays the way there are today. There were lots of Christmas carols sung (in German with a few in English). At the end of the programme, the children each received a bag of goodies: lots of peanuts, an orange, and assorted Christmas candies.

Then the entire congregation sang Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night) and the holiness in the air made the hairs on my arms stand up.

Then, around 9 pm, it was over and we all went home and hurried to bed to wait for Santa Claus, or Saint Nicolas, as we called him in our German dialect. Mennonites generally didn't have a problem with both and I never recall being confused about the reason for the season.

I absolutely believed in Santa Claus. In our home we put out porridge and a glass of milk for him and in the morning it was always gone. Proof positive. I believe that the way I thought of Santa was that long ago, God had sent His Son to save us, and each year, in memory of that day, Santa came and gave us presents in memory of that. I am sure that I was never told that. But I think that is how I put Santa and Jesus together in my mind.

We got tons of presents and I was always the first one up - usually at 2 am. Each time I was terrified that maybe Santa had forgotten us and each time, I discovered that he had in fact arrived. And then I would go running around waking my brothers and sisters and parents, and we would stay up all night eating candy and playing with our new toys. Our parents sure put on a good show for us, with being amazed at the toys Santa had brought us.

One year we got skis and the night was mild, so everyone went out skiing in the middle of the night. I remember the Christmases as the very best time ever, full of peace and a feeling of being loved by God.

My father once made us kids pick out a present for a very poor family. We took our responsibility very seriously and picked out a game that was seven games in one: snakes and ladders and checkers and I don't remember the others. It was the best present we could think of and we felt a twinge of pain at the thought of giving it away. So we knew it was a good choice. You couldn't give away something that didn't cause you pain. Then it wasn't a real present.

After church, on Christmas Eve, our dad, with all of us in the car, drove down the driveway of this poor family, with the lights out. Then he crept onto the front porch and banged a couple of times hard on the door and then he ran back to the car and we drove out of there as fast as we could. It wasn't a present if people knew you had given it. Then they might feel shame at their poverty and we might feel pride at our own goodness. The point was that we shouldn't be thanked for doing this. God sees all and we wouldn't let our right hand know what the left did when it came to things like that.

And we never breathed a word in school when we went back to school. Nowadays it seems to me that a kid wouldn't be able to keep such a secret since we were in fact dying of curiosity to know if they liked the game as much as we hoped they did.

Later, as I was the oldest in the family, I made my younger siblings pick out a family and a present and did the same thing with them. That was the whole meaning of Christmas.

We have done that most years since then.

I really think that in recent years, Christians have overdone the whole 'reason for the season' business. If people who aren't Christians have a materialistic view about the whole thing, I think that is their problem. I don't worry about how they celebrate it, if they celebrate it. Belief is a private thing that no one can take away from you. You make your own reason for the season in your heart and in your home. It doesn't have to extend to others beyond the home.

Belief is also not something that anyone can force on anyone else. It makes a mockery of belief to insist that non-Christians who celebrate a secular Christmas, must know the 'reason for the season.' They don't believe and no one can force it. God gives us free will. If He doesn't force Himself on us, what right do we have to force others to celebrate a non-secular Christmas?

Layla

I like that!

Spiritual accents... that's great! :) And it makes good sense. I think the two of us are about as differently accented as you can get in Canada/the US without going to someone that doesn't respect the Word as absolute authority.

So, what is your next "hard question"?

Hm... maybe to have that wait until your migraine goes away....
/me gives you an aspirin, a cold compress, and a dark, quiet room

Spiritual Accents

No, you haven't scared me off. I have been alternating busy with sick and sick with busy. At the moment I am really, really sick with a migraine.

Hard topics are good. It is good to be challenged and to know why you believe and what you believe so that when others ask you about your beliefs, you can articulate it and anticipate questions that others might have.

We have different views on things and I think a large measure of it has to do with different cultures interpreting Christ through the eyes of their culture. That is what interests me - because no one really knows how differently their culture can cause them to interpret the Bible. It's like a regional accent - each person thinks it is the other person who has the accent. Just like the spoken word, we all have spiritual accents. We just don't realise it.

I think that our spiritual accent can be a good thing and a bad thing. When we are challenged by someone with a different spiritual accent, then, although maybe grumpily, we have to reexamine our own beliefs and see whether they are in tune with what Christ really said, or just a received belief - an accent.

Does that make sense?

Many hugs and now I will go and lie down. Ugh. If they can send a man to the moon, why can't they do head transplants?

Layla

Now I've scared you off

from YOUR own blog... :( I didn't mean to do it!

At any rate, I think we need some fresh subjects to ponder, having gotten into rather deep water with the salvation and age of accountability etc etc...

It's coming up on Christmas and Thanksgiving in the States... how do you make those holidays more spiritually meaningful, or do you? (I know you had your TG a month ago.. all that pie!)

I've pretty much given up the holidays themselves... they're secular and that's the way it is. Christmas is mostly about the kids and the joy. But Christmas Eve? Now that's my veryvery special spiritual holiday. And I do enjoy it. It's a time to go to church (mine usually has communion) and to come home to a nice calm dinner and spend some time watching the lights on the tree, some special time reading the Christmas story and contemplating the love of our Lord. I try hard to keep it special like that, which can be hard with a town full of family and last minute preparations. But... that's what I do.

How about you?

Judging requires information

Information that I don't have.

While I agree that prosperity gospel comes periliously close to heresy... what of the church where a pot of propserity honey hides a core of truth in each message? "Seeker sensitive" sermons are more and more the rage these days... people are saved by the most unlikely methods.

At any rate, when I said I wouldn't judge those I don't know - it's because to do a proper job I'd need to listen to at least half a dozen sermons by the person in question, do a brief biographic search, and look into their fruit. It's not my call to do that... and I won't casually besmirch the name of someone who might be my brother in Christ. Is it the call of others? Yes. Just not mine. :) If you want to start doing the due diligence on folks, go for it, I"ll be interested to hear your results. For me, I'll stick to doing that sort of research on the people I'm relying on for my spiritual food.

To be very frank, I think the American church is in terrible disorder. We are weak and through and through with various disease. But there is still a remnant of faithful, even in the most lukewarm churches - so I am leary of attacking them. This is not, to my mind, the time for that. It's the time for getting our own spiritual houses in order and praying for our brethren to do the same. I don't know... I just can't bring myself to speak against the brethren. Even the ones that make me want to bite something! I don't think it's being a "nice lady" (though a compliment that I covet), I think it's being constrained of the Spirit. /shrug.

Watching and waiting and hoping for change....................

Hearth

Judging a Book by its Cover

You are such a nice lady, Hearth. Yes, I do have complexes from witnessing religious discussions turn into flames. Thank you for understanding or at least trying to understand what I am saying.

First of all, with regards to judging. I partly agree with you and yet partly not, because humans make judgements all the time. Only a fool doesn't make a judgement call, as when Jesus referred to the builder who built his house on sand and the wind and the sea washed it away. And again when he asked what builder does not, prior to building, first sit down and see whether he can afford the thing?

There is a a judgement implicit in Jesus saying that no one comes to the Father but by Him. I don't think that you yourself would judge a non-Christian religion to be anything but a false religion.

One meaning doesn't apply to every situation. God gave us brains to use, not for decorating the insides of our heads. It may be appropriate to do one thing in one situation but not in another, as when David and his men ate the holy bread from the Temple, the priests' portion. The punishment for that was death. Context, very often in the Bible, doesn't just seem to be everything, it seems to be the only thing unless one is such a literalist or fundamentalist that they insist on only one meaning for every statement. Which would mean shooting themselves in the proverbial foot, since to assign only one meaning to each word or by sticking to the letter of certain verses, means that God is contradicting Himself all over the place, and I wouldn't think that a fundamentalist believes God contradicts Himself at all.

Paul speaks about believers judging believers in Corinthians 1:6: Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

In Luke 12:56, Jesus, in a speech that covers a lot of other things as well, says, Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? And in John 7:24: Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

We can have a pretty good idea of what God would call righteous judgement by the way Jesus acted and the things that He preached. We know he told stories of the Samaritans, a people not highly regarded in terms of their religious leanings. We know he ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. So much for our modern saying of 'birds of a feather, flock together' or judging a person by the company they keep.

We know that Jesus said the whole sum of the Law was to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. And we know that he judged the Pharisees and Sadducees quite harshly. And we know He told us to beware of false prophets and we are given examples in Paul's writings of false doctrines against which he did not hesitate to judge - even though he did not know personally some of the people that he judged.

We know that the Holy Spirit in Revelations, takes issue with the Ephesians, because they have 'left their first love' and with the Christians of Pergamos because, (Ch 2:14-15) But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.

To me, not judging a person means not saying that they are going to Hell because they baptise differently, or have religious rules for food and drink. Those things are all external. Then there are things that are heresies - and I won't hesitate to call the prosperity gospel a heresy - and that I think we do have an obligation to judge.

A lot of the judging that humans do to each other and which the Bible speaks against seems to have more to do with the tendency of us to judge by appearances. In the cases of pastors who preach a prosperity gospel, this isn't an appearance type of judgement. One is judging them by their own words, their own stated beliefs. It is judging those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.

In 1 Corinthians 2, we are told: he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

The spirit of God within us is supposed to tell us, or let us know, what is true and what is not true. What seems like something that Jesus would do and what doesn't. We are supposed to have the mind of Christ. When a Christian has the mind of Christ, his inner conscience or inner Christ, when someone reprimands him - rightly - as when Paul went nose to nose with Peter over whether the new Gentile Christians were obligated to follow Jewish Law - acknowledges the correction and strives to correct itself.

Because of course, we all make mistakes in interpretation and it is hardly ever on purpose. Sometimes we may have heard a verse and an interpretation of a verse so often, it doesn't even register. And then someone else comes along with a different interpretation, and although we have never heard it said that way before, it seems to be more the 'mind of Christ' than how we had traditionally understood it. And then the 'spiritual' Christian, who judges all things, makes that inward adjustment or correction because they 'just know' it is more right than what they had believed, and yet that Christian, as the verse I quoted above says, is judged of no man - he is convicted or judged by the mind of Christ within him.

With regards to the last part of your post, and why Americans take exception to criticism of some American policies, at first I was going to post that, yes, I know, it isn't that simple. And then I had second thoughts, because Jesus makes things very simple indeed. When you eliminate politics from your religion, what you have left is treating people the way you would treat Jesus if he showed up on your street. And that is very simple.

I am not suggesting that politicians' jobs are simple. What I am saying that a Christian response to people, no matter who they are, is very simple. Childishly simple in fact. If people are hungry, we feed them. If they are naked, we clothe them. If they are in jail, we visit them. Today my sister was telling me about her day as a volunteer at her son's school. Her son is in grade 2. The subject the kids were meant to address was what people can do to get along. And one of the responses the teacher got (from a boy, of course!) was, "Don't dig holes in other people's yards."

That about sums it up. Very simple. Christians should behave like Christ did and not dig holes in other people's yards. Let the politicians do their jobs governing the secular world. Why does your average Joe Civilian Christian worry about whether a politician is behaving like a Christian, even if the politician is a self-professed Christian? Even if he is a Christian, his profession is politics, not ministering to anyone. But Christian ministers - now they claim to be the mouthpieces for God - when they sin, it should be an issue among the community of Christ.

Layla

Starting from Agreement

I am horrified with how Christians behave too. We can certainly start from an agreement there. And yet, I don't feel like I should sit in judgement on Christians that I don't know other than by reputation. A brother or sister in Christ that I know? Someone who I have some direct responsibility to? Yes - there I must judge, there I have responsibility to confront, to pray over, etc. (And lest our readers think that this is one way... feel free, Layla, to do the same to me anytime you see it needful).

Quick note: Please feel free to say what you need to say. We're both wearing scars from the old debate board, where the point was to win the debate not to have a good discussion. I am interested in what you have to say - including about American Christianity. And if I wince... well, perhaps it's justified! You'll not scare me off.

Our "Christian Leaders" aka Robertson and his ilk. They'd fall under "brothers and sisters that I don't know personally". I judge them insofar as it includes not listening to them and paying them as little attention as possible. I would say that American Christianity has been poorly led. We've become very much like sheep rather than thinking for ourselves. One might say this about American popular culture in general, which I can bemoan at any length you would like.

My particular variant of Christianity, and how I was raised, was to question everything the Pastor said... we were SUPPOSED to listen to the sermon with Bibles open, making sure he was working straight from the Word of God. I went to a church youth group from 1st - 8th grade (and my son goes now) that has the specific purpose of helping the youth memorize scripture. So what do you think would be my reaction, raised that way, to going somewhere else and listening to something that turned the Scriptures on end? You'd never see me at that church again!

The other thing that is important when selecting a pastor is seeing if the Spirit leads him. I know that's a popular evangelical catch-phrase, but let me see if I can clear it up, at least in this instance. When I'm in a church (or listening at my desk) to a sermon given by someone filled with the Spirit, that sermon will touch me. It will touch my heart, somehow, some way. Even if he is preaching about Levitical purity law, I'll feel the Spirit whispering to me. All Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit, and when that's what you're listening to, you can tell. When you need to say something to a brother or sister and didn't even know you needed to say it, and the words just flow... that's the Spirit (and we're promised He will do that).

American Christianity: American Christianity as seen from the outside is largely a growth of American culture as a whole. And Americans (speaking very very generally) have been taught to accept what their leaders tell them (which is totally anti-American) without question, so long as those leaders have the "right" credentials. Where is our Puritan spirit? Where is our determination to be strong individually that we can be strong as a country? Oh wait... that's the first bit of my "what's happened to America" rant... nm. :)

Mega-churches: Lots of megachurches operate in highly populated areas. My own church has 2,000 members or so - and it's one of at least five or six in my town of similar size. Then again, there are 200,000 people in my town, and half a million within a 20 minute radius. So. Some megachurches are big because of the area they are in, and some are big because megachurches focus on outreach, and it's very easy to go to a megachurch. (I've been to a few real ones). It feels good to belong to a body of believers, it feels good to say, "Oh yeah, I go to MegaChurch 2 - you do too? Awesome!" Sometimes you get a really good pastor and your church will grow by leaps and bounds. My childhood church went from 300 members to 2000 members in the space of 5 years because of a really good pastor. (And then that pastor was attacked by Pride and the church went back down as soon as he left - sad, very sad). Sometimes it's just "easy grace" and prosperity gospel. Sometimes it's the Spirit at work. I'm loving my current church and the new pastor.... he's really getting back to basics spiritually and calling us all to account. So - you won't hear me criticizing other big churches. Remember, even in that church full of sugar and fluff - there are real believers working hard somewhere.

American Christianity and social policies: A sticking point. We are called to love the sinner and hate the sin. What to do? I think that's why we have many types of members in the body of Christ. I wish we could work together, hand in hand. Take our illegal immigration problem. (And it IS a problem). If we were REALLY a Christian country, first our laws would make some kind of sense, then we'd have them enforced where they'd do some good (corporate level), and then the folks in the desert handing out bottles of water would be friends with the people guarding the border who would be friends with the people checking documentation, who would be friends with the people doing outreach... etc. Instead everyone says, "my way or the highway" and hates each other. And the laws make NO SENSE. To the point that five normal people can sit down and think up a way to deal with it that's sensible and reasonably fair in less than an hour, but our gov't won't DO that. And we have people dying to get here and endless problems with folks once they are here, from exploitation to crime to... name it. Sigh.

I think that's why American Christians as a whole start wincing when folks outside bring up stuff. It SOUNDS simple (and having read papers from outside the US, it's generally portayed as the meanie Americans), but it's not. And the spirit of evil, of hatred and division, is just all through everything. Why do you think I hate politics so? It's impossible now to simply say, "I think we should do xyz and this is why" and have other people assume you're saying that in good faith. Everything is grandstanding, everything is about profit or fame or somesuch. It's AWFUL. Why do you think I want to get away from it all? Like when my dog got turned into hamburger by the pitbulls last year... I was trying to get the city council to define "dangerous animal" to include severe dog-on-dog attacks, and people would come up to me and tell me that obviously pit bulls should be outlawed. What? No... I just wanted to be able to make my neighbor with the dangerous animals TREAT THEM like dangerous animals, even after she moved away from me. I wasn't mad at her! I wasn't even mad at her dog (he was being a very good pitbull). I didn't want revenge... I wanted to make sure that dog never lived next to a child or someone else's beloved family pet, because he'd dig under another fence and do it again. But people don't get that. If you aren't foaming at the mouth, they just won't listen. Do you want tears? That makes me cry.

So, we wince from truth - and we wince from the lies that get wrapped around it. American Christians - well, you'll not find a bunch of folks less unwilling to lend a hand, to donate a dollar, to help. At the same time, they'll support some of the meanest snakes on the planet. God knows where my brothers and sisters hearts are, where their backs are, where they work and where they slough off. And I'm glad that He's the one judging - because no one else is capable of beginning the job, much less finishing it.

I'm sure I've missed stuff, but have been typing away for about an hour now... bring back up whatever you'd like me to have another go at. :)

God Works in Mysterious Ways - or Not

Now I'm afraid that my last post may have scared you right off your own blog. I actually intended to write about something else, but the Spirit may have had other ideas. See now, I don't really know what people are talking about when they talk about the Holy Spirit and attribute every thought to him 'leading' them. But maybe that is what happens when my intentions are to write about something entirely different than what I end up writing about.

I guess that is my problem with people who claim that the Holy Spirit must have led them to this or to that since, the way they've described this process (for want of a better word) when their intention is at odds with what they end up actually doing, is that if one is indoctrinated to believe in the leading of the Holy Spirit, then it is easy to attribute almost anything you want to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Non-religious people have such experiences too and call it deja vu.

But maybe the Holy Spirit did lead me, in spite of my doubtful ways, into that post. I won't swear to it though. I can only say that my intention was certainly not to hurt you or to blame you for every single bad Christian in the world. I know from our emails before we started this blog, that you too hurt when God's name is besmirched. And I'm not asking you to apologise or hold you accountable on behalf of what others do.

My thoughts were more general than that. They usually are, although I have no idea if they come across that way.

I was thinking only that we (Christians, generally) have a very bad habit of throwing up our hands as though the bad parts of Christianity, or the bad Christians are some sort of fluke for which we bear no responsibility. If we don't see that it isn't a fluke when it keeps happening over and over again, we can't stop it. We are not responsible for the individual sins of an individual but I think society, and especially Christians should have a general feeling of responsibility. It shouldn't be the exception when a Christian actually acts like a Christian.

I can't remember who it was but someone once said that the problem with Christianity was that it has never been tried.

What I was going to post on was Mennonites, and how on the surface it might seem as though I have painted them as truly good Christians, good people, whether one is a Christian or not. Hardworking, pacifist, forgiving and all that crap that non-Mennonites tend to believe that Mennonites are, in addition to having the horse and buggy parked outside the front door, of course.

Mennonites, as I know them, having been born to a Mennonite family and raised in a mainly Mennonite community, and having gone to a Mennonite church - for a while anyway - are some of the most unforgiving people you will ever meet. And that was what I was going to post on. But that post will have to wait for another day.

Layla

Bad Christians

I really don't want to give the impression that when I speak about things that bug me, that I am talking especially about the United States, or that I am speaking politically. I think you know that but if anyone reads this they might not know it. So just for clarification....

Paul said that in Christ there was neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. In Christ there is no nationality, and I don't want to make it American versus Canadian either. I wasn't even thinking about Giuliani specifically.

Without meaning this to be taken politically or from a nationalist point of view, as a Christian I find it offensive when Christians reflect badly on the name of Christ no matter where they are from. If I take issue with some of the things that American Christians do, it is more along the lines of Paul giving the Corinthians or the Thessalonians heck, if you see what I mean. He wasn't giving them heck for being Corinthians or Thessalonians but for not acting like Christians.

From a purely faith perspective, I just don't get that American Christians put up with political leaders invoking the name of God at every opportunity. To me it is like when someone tells me, "To be perfectly honest...." If that person is perfectly honest, why does he need to preface his words with assertions of his honesty?

I would just love to be able to ask my questions about religion in America openly and directly, instead of the embarrassed way that non-Americans, in real life, face to face with American Christians, tend to broach the subject. I always fear that questions about religion will be taken, by Americans to be anti-American or about politics. Politics and religion are co-mingled in the US in a way that is unheard of except for Islamic countries, and so it is easy for it to seem as if it is a political discussion.

It is terribly hard to discuss Christianity with Americans.

Americans do have a we're-the-centre-of-the-universe mentality and so Americans, even American Christians, don't realise how utterly strange and mystifying they are to Christians from other countries. To many Christians from other countries, the American form of Christianity seems unchristian. And most non-Americans wouldn't ever want to get in any one's face about their practise of faith.

So where an American Christian might, in the cause of evangelism, have no problem telling a German, or a French or a Spanish Christian that they see a problem in how they practise their faith, and how it seems to be more a cultural thing than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and tell them that they should be born-again - a German or French or Spanish or Canadian Christian would have a really hard time saying that to an American Christian. And yet we are told to be our brothers' keepers, to keep the faith we received from the apostles alive and true. To take it to heart when we see a brother or a sister straying from the straight and narrow.

You see much of Europe as post-Christian and the United States as sort of the last bastion of Christendom. But many Christians in Canada and Europe express dismay at the absence of Christ in American evangelical Christianity. To many, the United States only has a veneer of Christianity, lip service. To many, American evangelical Christians are the epitome of the cultural or social Christianity they disapprove of in European Christians. To many Christians, American Christians have lost their way.

But few, if any, will ever say that to an American because they don't know how to do that. What they say won't be understood at all. It is so much a part of your culture to be righter and better than everyone else that all criticism is brushed off as anti-Americanism. And it isn't meant as bashing the US - it is meant as concern for one's brothers and sisters in Christ. It seems, to many, that Americans are Americans first, long before they are Christians.

Why have American Protestant Christians , when Protestants have traditionally been adverse to Catholicism and "the Pope running around as the ultimate authority on faith," crowning emperors and claiming the right to rule the world in religious matters, and political matters, come to the point where they want to impose their faith on their countrymen?

How has it come to that? It seems anti-American. For sure it seems anti-Christian. I have never taken the view that there is only one interpretation possible for anything at all in the Bible, and I leave room in my personal theology for different interpretations, but this is something I don't get at all. I don't think see how that is the fault of the press - if a majority of evangelical Christians were against it, politicians wouldn't be using faith as a platform and Pat Robertson wouldn't be either.

That's a fault in the church, not in the world. Many of these evangelical churches now making the news have huge congregations. There is something wrong with the people that they are attracted to fool's gold.

You are absolutely right when you bring up the example of people carrying Bibles they have never opened. But there are people who can quote the Bible as well as Satan, chapter and verse, but Christ has not affected any part of their everyday lives in how they look at the beggar on the street, the welfare mother, the street kids, the illegal immigrant looking for a better life.

I submit the story of the Good Samaritan as the example. He may never have opened his version of the Bible either - but he lived it. Then you had all the other religious leaders passing by, who were very familiar presumably with the scriptures - but didn't live it. You can have faith without ever once having opened your Bible. It is better to read for yourself but the fact is, that most Christians don't think for themselves as to how they interpret what they read in the Bible. Some Christians know all the 'technical' stuff and none of the stuff that counts.

The religious leaders of Jesus' time tried to draw him into politics. And he deflected that entirely with "whose image is on the coin?" To claim power in earthly terms was treason but Jesus did not claim power in earthly terms when asked about his political aspirations by Pilate and he is the example we ought to follow.

33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

What is hurtful to me as a Christian, is that far too often non-Christians are absolutely right when they accuse Christians of picking and choosing which words of Jesus they will follow. That makes me want to sit down and cry tears without end. Christians are their own worst enemy and it isn't enough to excuse all our sins with claims of how we are forgiven, not perfect. Jesus said, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

I am absolutely horrified by how Christians behave :-(

Layla