Protect and Defend Your Right to the Establishment of a Religion, and the Free Exercise Thereof – Part I

Protect and Defend Your Right to the Establishment of a Religion, and the Free Exercise Thereof – Part I

A few days ago as I started out reading my email, I got my normal tickler from TownHall. TownHall is my kind of place – a gathering place for right wing extreme writers for most of whom Tea Party is, correctly, recognized not as a party but as a movement, and a rather wimpy movement at that. Writers for whom real political parties are the American Nazi Party (no, I do not advocate Nazism, but it is a real and active party and you gotta admit not liberal at all), the Libertarian Party (liberal in its espousement of liberty) and my party, The Constitution Party.

My current TownHall homeboy is Doug Giles. Well, one of my homeboys. So is Chuck Norris, of course, and I like Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas and several others who show up on TownHall. They all have their own column websites in their home papers or publishing, but TownHall aggregates them handily for me. Anyway, back to Doug Giles. Anyone who writes a book about and for his daughters is quite OK by me, especially if that book is Raising Righteous & Rowdy Girls. You need to learn how to drop it, dress it, skin it and butcher it before you learn how to cook it, as Doug and Ted Nugent would point out. Me? Not quite that extreme. But, as I think of extreme I recall one of my most favorite quotes of all time:

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! – Barry Morris Goldwater

One suburb away, in Evanston, I was president of Evanston Teenage Republicans when Hillary Rodham was president of Skokie Teenage Republicans. To my recollection, we never met. We did, I am sure, both work hard for Barry that year. I still have a boxfull of “AuH₂O in ‘64” buttons somewhere in the basement. Why did the extremism thought come to mind? Because Doug had written on

The Current Cowardly Church Needs a Mega Dose of the Rebel Spirit

read it here

In turn, then, I thought of the Armor of God and that we frequently try to go on front-line offensive with minimalist defense in the religion arena of politico-socio-ethnoracial-correctness of the post modern milieu; so, well to remind us of what we really should put on when we get up in the morning and why to do it:

The Message:

Paul Höganmöcher in his letter to the church at Ephesus, Chapter  6:

5 respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ.

6  Don’t just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ’s servants doing what God wants you to do.

7  And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you’re really serving God.

8  Good work will get you good pay from the Master, regardless of whether you are slave or free.

9  Masters, it’s the same with you. No abuse, please, and no threats. You and your servants are both under the same Master in heaven. He makes no distinction between you and them.

10 ¶  And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong.

11  So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way.

12  This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.

13  Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.

14  Truth, righteousness,

15  peace,

16  faith,

17  and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon.

18  In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

Now finally to the meat of what I will be later writing in my blog: Doug is right and we have a LOT of work and probably changing to do!!! And, here is the prayer he expressed to do it:

The Church needs the biblical rebel spirit of our founders injected back into the evangelical mix instead of this squishy, pusillanimous, ignoble and compliant crapola that’s currently cranking through our indolent pulpits and pews. God help the Church to lose its cowardly, effeminate bent in these critical days. Amen.

OK Here is Doug Giles column:

The Current Cowardly Church Needs a Mega Dose of the Rebel Spirit

By Doug Giles

7/8/2012

Whenever the ends of Government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the People may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new Government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. –Declaration of Rights, Maryland
Unlike America’s original rebel Christians who dumped the Brits’ taxed tea into Boston Harbor and told King George that he could kiss their King George, today’s evangelicals, I believe—especially the dandy ministers who love to be loved—would have folded like one-ply toilet paper before British oppression. We’re a timid tufted titmouse compared to our rowdy founding forefathers.
Here are four reasons why I believe today’s evangelicals would have melted like little bon-bons during the American Revolution:
1. Some dainty saints of today think rebellion against tyrants is disobedience to God, when the converse is actually true. Yep, these stooges of the machine believe that Yahweh wants Christians to be the corralled cattle of corrupt politicians and policies. Indeed, a lot of pop evangelicals have become nicer than God. Our current craven “faithful” think it’s sinful to say bad stuff about bad elected leadership. Many somehow think it’s righteous to go in an unrighteous national direction. And we’ve got stacks of do-gooders who are turning the other cheek to political abuse and generational theft so fast that they make Shakira look arthritic.
2. A lot of evangelicals would rather live as government slaves than live and die as free men. Some do it out of sinful slothfulness, completely passive and thus complicit in the face of evil. Others do so because they actually think Christ was a Communist and that government theft and wealth redistribution somehow fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. D’oh.
3. Others, especially in the ministry, won’t say squat about our political squalor because it’ll offend the emotional members of their congregation and thereby jack with their weekly offerings, which, in turn, will cause them to lose their vacation home in Naples where they’re currently banging their mistress. Here we are during one of the most crucial elections of our lifetime, and ministers don’t (or won’t) address these issues or show up at protests. Wow. Good luck at the judgment seat. I’ve been to many, many Tea Parties up and down the east coast of Florida and have only run into a handful of ministers. Where are you, ladies? Your absence and silence during America’s demise is more obvious than Pam Anderson’s recent enhancement. Hello, Judas.
4. Another thing that irks me is this end-of-the-world Rapture mentality that, supposedly, all of this bad stuff we’re currently fielding as a nation is God’s plan for the ages and that there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m sure glad our predecessors didn’t look at the gargantuan junk they were facing during times of oppression and upheaval and say, “Oh, well. The Rapture must be right around the corner.” No, what they did was think, work, pray and fight. And guess what, end-of-the-world Christian? They yielded up this grand experiment in self-governance, that’s what.
The Church needs the biblical rebel spirit of our founders injected back into the evangelical mix instead of this squishy, pusillanimous, ignoble and compliant crapola that’s currently cranking through our indolent pulpits and pews. God help the Church to lose its cowardly, effeminate bent in these critical days. Amen.
Doug Giles is the author of Raising Righteous & Rowdy Girls. Follow him on Twitter @Doug_Giles and on Facebook. You can see and hear Doug’s video blog and talk show at ClashRadio.com.

Decisions and Contentment - or 8:28'ed to Tears

Hop in, buckle up, hold on tight, be ready for a long ride today.
 
I am a big fan of Dr. Charles Stanley. I regularly read the In Touch Ministries daily devotional and it usually seems like a great thing to me. Today, their devotional is about "Decisions That Lead to Contentment." And, atypically, I take exception on this devotional.

Oh, there's nothing really wrong with it. It is a short treatise about Romans 8:28-39, quoted, in part, here from the NASB:

²⁸ And we know that ^[a]God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; ³⁰ and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

and quoted here from The Message:

26-30That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. 

If you have been to church more than a few times, you have probably heard at least one sermon echoing 8:28. It's easy and all to common to pump out a homily about how bad things are really good using this text.

But one thing I have learned over the years is never underestimate the power of Romans when you tackle it. 8:28 is no hole in the line to go rushing through blindly, it is not a magic salve that soothes any pain, and it has certainly, over the years, been the focus of much weak, incomplete, or just plain inappropriate theology. In fact, sometimes the "standard, Sunday School" treatment is just plain wrong.

I have a close spiritual friend who had two babies predecease her. Absolutely 8:28 tells us that God causes their worldly deaths to work "together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Someone tell me now how this helps my friend feel better, please!

We are talking about a year of sustained, deep pain and grief, and it is NOT over yet!!
The Sunday School approach, presented in the In Touch devotional, tells you to "choose to accept this as though it's coming from You. No matter what I see, I'm choosing to look to You, Lord." 
Poppycock!! 
I say that because "Oh, bull....! [bullroar, of course:-)]" is not overtly Christian in nature. 


Consider, very simply, the implications of:

called according to His purpose...conformed to the image of His Son...called...justified; and...glorified.

We are called to be glorified and justified. We are called to live a life of glory and justification. We are sanctified. We are saved. We are resurrected. We are immortalized. We are the sons and daughters of God.

If I have a hangnail, then 8:28 me about putting up with it because God wants me not to use that finger for something bad. When I put up with my devastating cluster headaches, God is pimping me through the thorn in my side, probably because of my impatience, definitely because I need to center myself on His purpose, positively because I need to continue seeking justification, sanctification and redemption. When my friend's babies die, when my wife has a coworker whose 2 year old grandson falls out of a 3rd story window to his death, when random teenagers fall victim to bullying in the extreme, when a nutcase goes wacko at an army base and plays spin the Beretta - don't EVEN try to tell me to rejoice because these are all good things. That is theological poppycock, like I said. And, don't EVEN try to reinforce me that all of these things are working together for His purpose, because I already know that. If, for a minute, you make the ridiculous mistake of telling me it's because I have sinned and need to be punished, don't even bother continuing to talk to me and be glad I was not packing a Beretta - not that I would hurt you, but I would scare the bejabbers out of you to catch your attention and then yell and lecture you into blithering submission about your weak theological interpretations.

We are called to be glorified. It ain't easy on the way, boys and girls. God never said it would be easy, He just said we would never be alone. Grieve, cry, mourn my dear friends when you must - I am there with you, and always, too, is God.
 
 
 

Breaking Routine

Ouch!
That is exactly what I said when it happened. I closed the dog door, turned around, and was attacked by a kitchen chair. I never go barefoot. Until Wednesday night when I was carrying my slippers instead of wearing them.

Don't break routine. You don't know what else you might be breaking!

The Xrays were negative. Madi and I think it was dislocated and she relocated it and straightened it when she taped it for me. I had vicodin at home already. It is hurting less all of the time.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Trimming Twitter

Yes, I tweet. No, it is not an addiction for me as it is for some. However, I realized this morning that much of the junk I was reading I had originally "follow"ed because it sounded neat at the time and now it was pretty much a sea of drivel with a few, a very few, nuggets of wisdom included.

So, I "unfollow"ed some of my tweets. I didn't "block" anyone, but I unfollowed several people. I probably get unfollowed too, and for much the same reasons I used today. Too many tweets, too many times the same thing, obviously very reactionary and stuck on one point, and bitter comments about some of the people and movements they most radically oppose.

Those feelings are okay to have; but, expressing them all of the time to everybody else would not win any favor with Dale Carnegie; for sure you are not winning friends and influencing people with a lot of the tweets that I see.

Then there were a couple of the generically generated fact tweets. If they repeat the same facts over and over, and they tweet 18 times a day spouting only marginally interesting, if that, information, then it's out of my window for sure.

So, I am trimming down my input, and I hope to be appropriately pruning my output over the next several days.

Sharing Burdens

Practical Ways to Bear Burdens

 Directly copied from today's In Touch devotional
Comments to follow

Read | 1 Thessalonians 5:14
There are hurting people everywhere, but at times we just don't know what to say or do to ease their pain. Here are six practical ways to bear someone else's burden.

1. Be there. At times the best "method" of helping is simply to be present. During our darkest hours, we don't need someone who tries in vain to fix everything; we just need a friend.
2. Listen. Don't attempt to give answers or tell people what to do next. Injured souls frequently want simply a listening ear so they can express what's on their mind.
3. Share. Never parade yourself as someone who has all the answers. Instead, allow your own pain and failures to help others.
4. Pray. There is power in speaking people's names before the Lord. When they hear someone talk to Jesus on their behalf, healing often starts taking place.
5. Give. Sometimes helping others involves more than a handshake or warm hug. Maybe they need something financial or material. One of the best measures of sincerity is how much we're willing to give to others.
6. Substitute.You may know an individual who bears the burden of caring for someone else. If you step in and take his or her place for a while, you are emulating your Savior--He, too, was a substitute.

Because we were unable to do it ourselves, Jesus bore all of our sin and sorrow, even unto death. As a result, we can live happily and eternally in communion with our Father. If Christ did that for us, how can we ever say, "I'm too busy to bear someone else's burden"?

Copyright 2012 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.

Burdens of others

I sense, lately, a sentiment and a movement that there are a lot of us who would like to reach out and help someone but that we do not really know how. The need and the reticence may both have roots in the materialism of society today. To quote from "The Jerk", "I can live without the money. I just like all the stuff." There is a great tendency to think that stuff is what it's all about where realistically it's thoughts and emotions that are most burdensome. That is why the 6 steps

Be there

Listen

Share

Pray

Give

Substitute

make so much sense. Jesus's guidance is pretty straightforward  about these things: if your neighbor needs it and you have it, give it to your neighbor.

That is true brotherly love.

Unfortunately, a lot of people over the years fall into the trap of "letting Joe do it." If the attitude is "I'm too busy, take care of it for me" prevails, then it is a quick transition to having the government take over, and we end up with robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Smacking loudly of socialism, because it is, we eventually reach the point that there is not enough of somebody else's money to steal and spread around. Big difference when that "somebody else" is allowed and driven to share his gifts with others.

Be that somebody else. Take stock in what you, yourself have. Determine what you are going to do to help your neighbors bear their burdens. Then do it. 

Timing is the Father's Business

Our pastors have been talking about Acts lately, and more specifically addressing the reality of the Resurrection. 

So I dutifully dug out my Bible (typed in biblegateway?) as suggested and read the opening of Dr. Luke's book in two translations - my favored The Message and the latest adopted translation for the LCMS, the English Standard Version.

The Message, Acts 1:1-11

ESV, Acts 1:1-11

The ESV phrase is: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” The Message expresses this phrase as: "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business".

Timing is the Father's business. That was a really neat awareness for the day. It really is His business in different contexts: it's up to Him, not you; it's what He does, His job; timing is something that keeps Him busy, timing does not just happen; ... keep thinking about it for a while.

We who have chosen to be disciples, as the followers of Christ called themselves (or followers of the Way - but NEVER calling themselves Christians, a derogatory term)  try to relate His word to how we choose to live our lives. In so doing we feel like we are following the Way. So, we always jump on Romans 8:26-28 to explain unexplainable, and most of the time bad, stuff: in The Message then the ESV

•   "Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."
• 26 "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

And now I remember the old song, "Who Knows Where or When?" "called according to his purpose" cf. worked into something good. Different, but the same. 


He assures us things will get better. He also assures us that timing is strictly His business. We are well to remember that.

Choosing to Believe?

Infrequently, I disagree with Charles Stanley. When I do, it is undoubtedly the contrast between the Baptist perspective, in which I was raised, and the Lutheran perspective to which I have come over the years. Today's In Touch devotional was an excellent example.

Choosing to Believe

Read | John 3:1-21

Faith isn't something we can lay claim to because we were born to believing parents or have citizenship in a Christian country. Nor can we attain it by attending or even teaching Sunday school, though I've often heard such incorrect assertions. Instead, the following should be true of genuine believers.

A clear understanding of the gospel is essential for a person to believe and receive the good news of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross was the only sacrifice required to remove our sins. God offers His grace as a gift to anyone who will receive it.

A definite decision at a particular point in time serves as a sort of landmark of the heart and mind. People do not just slip into Christianity; faith in Jesus must be chosen. Believers are those who have made a deliberate decision to trust the Lord and follow in His ways.

A blessed assurance follows the clear-cut decision so that believers can be certain of their salvation. God wants confident, assured children (1 John 5:13).

A visible symbol of what happens when someone receives the Savior--namely, baptism--illustrates dying to one's old ways and rising to new life in Christ Jesus. Believers are to take this step as a public way of identifying with Him (Matt. 28:19).

A man or woman of faith chooses to surrender to Christ, embraces the Word of God, and lives fully for the Lord. True believers no longer muddle through the practices of religion out of habit, but instead worship and rejoice in a vibrant personal relationship with the Lord.

Copyright 2012 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.

Here we go - my version!!
First, read Ephesians 2:8-9, like Martin Luther did.
Concentrate on these words: 

"Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. 

Baptists ask for a public affirmation of faith and an (optional) demonstration through baptism. In some cases, the baptism is not optional. Lutherans point to one baptism for salvation. Me, I am an engineer, very binary, very logical. When I finally quit over-analyzing all of this stuff, I realized it is EXACTLY as my Bible says:

1. God had the idea and did it to us; we don't play the major role. Questionably do we play a role at all. So, someone talking about when they were saved is not demonstrating that they are and probably does not realize that they were saved when God turned His back on His Son for that awful time at Calvary.
2. We do not make nor do we save ourselves. It is completely God doing it, a gift, freely given and, by us, MUST BE freely excepted - no strings, no conditions.
3. Thank you, Steven Curtis Chapman, for these words: I know there's a God who knows my name and a Son who died to take the blame; I believe Jesus is comin' back; promises are promises and Facts are Facts." 

All of this is dependent only on the individual knowledge of what is going on. In general works, not even specific is necessary. That is how and why salvation reaches even those who have not had the blessing of hearing or reading The Word, but have come to these realizations through their observation of the world and God's nature.


Then comes FAITH. Boy, do I have fun talking about faith. Faith happens regardless of, despite what we do or think. Once the Holy Spirit finds you, it's all over. Faith formation is His, not yours.


More on that later.