Session Notes

Steve McVey:

“Yep, that’s my daughter’s children! Jeremy really is a sweet boy. No, really. I’ll admit though that his train seriously jumped the track with that incident. It’s noteworthy that the first response that popped into his seven year old head was about the law and jail. The little legalist – takes after his dad’s side of the family. I’m kidding, of course, but the issue here is that it is the bent of the flesh to think in legalistic terms. Would it be wrong to do this or that? Would I be punished for doing it? We miss the point altogether. It’s not about right versus wrong or about punishment. The catalyst for our lives is to be love. When our lifestyle is grounded in our union with Triune Love, we live from that benchmark, not a set of rules that come with a corresponding set of rewards and punishment. We act lovingly because Love is our DNA. In Him we live (and love) and move and exist. So, when your own behavior jumps track at times, don’t look upward to an imaginary Judge of the Universe who stands ready to send you to jail. Look into the face of Pure Love and you’ll find yourself wanting to behave well on the basis of His attitude and actions toward you.”

THIS IS A VERY GOOD GRACE DISCIPLINE ARTICLE. However this conversation would be best had after the feelings of both kids are validated. I have found it is sometimes not necessary after the Spirit convinces the child that he is sad for the hurt caused to the sibling/friend.

Disney on ADD/ADHD.

If you are not laughing, you never met a child with either diagnosis…

Yes, I know this is a copyright violation — and it’s well on its way to being the most pirated clip in human history…

cbc.ca.

Religion is serious business, she says, and cultural elites like Hitchens are foolish if they think they can jettison it.

For one thing, she says, religion ties into the the glorious art and cultural traditions of the West. With their bare-bones, secular education, students come to university knowing nothing, Camille says. “NOTHING!” she shouts to the audience, the heavens, the ancient statues that lurk in adjacent rooms.

They don’t know Bible stories anymore (except, occasionally, for working-class students from religious homes, she said). They don’t know the story of Moses, fleeing slavery from Egypt.

How can you understand the depth of the American civil rights movement, she asks, without a regard for the religious underpinning of Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy? “Let my people go,” which black slaves used to sing, had a great resonance that allowed them to unite their pain and longing with a powerful, religious tradition.

What do we have? Homer Simpson? O.J. Simpson? The Terminator?

And again:

Religion is serious business

It’s just a bunny trail but… It seems that even the atheists are more capable of understanding the current state of Christianity then most of the Church…

That’s true in two senses — the reality that the Church has mostly become a business, and at a deeper level as well…

For years, secular society has claimed art — and we let them (Often acting as though most of it were evil — God FORBID we should paint/photograph a nude…) They claimed music — and we held idiot-level seminars on the evils of drums in worship. They have claimed the authority on traditions and culture — and we let them — often ignoring the roots of such ourselves. Secular society reduced the world to a mechanical system — and we avoided science and the beauty/order that clearly shows a Creator. They claimed/revised history — and we allowed them to ignore spirituality throughout it. They (correctly) mocked religion — and we passively sat back and defended religion instead of reciprocally mocking their ignorance and presenting intimacy with God.

In a place where spiritual people should have stood up and been counted, we have been silent — while barking furiously about ethical issues that change nothing in a society.

Now, finally, the ultimate pathetic irony: We’ve crawled our whipped hides back into our little stained glass caves where we are sitting, licking our wounds and railing on about the evils of this world and it is now the ATHEISTS who have had to stand up and defend the cultural value of faith out of their own fear of what a truly secular society would actually look like.

TheSpec.com.

A Freelton man who describes himself as a software developer and aspiring screenplay writer is accused in a California court of running a $14-million US Ponzi scheme.

Gordon Driver and his company, Axcess Automation, are alleged to have defrauded more than 100 Canadian and American investors since 2006 by promising them weekly returns on their investment as high as 5 per cent, based on special software he says he developed to trade futures.

Among those who invested in the alleged Ponzi scheme, court documents say, are Ron and Reynold Mainse, sons of David Mainse, founder of Burlington’s Crossroads Television and 100 Huntley Street.

Reynold Mainse became interested, Driver testified, and eventually invested some money. Ron Mainse also became an investor.

In Driver’s April 23 testimony, he alleged the two Mainse brothers also acted as finders, bringing other investors to Driver.

Ron Mainse is out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

Reynold Mainse did not respond to an interview request.

(For explanation on the title, go here.)

The mothership, meanwhile, had this to say:

Well the board of Crossroads have asked me to inform you that Ron and Reynold Mainse will not be appearing on any Crossroads programming or otherwise represent Crossroads for the time being as they focus their energies on certain matters in their personal lives. They’ve stepped down from their duties until such time as the board of directors have complete understanding of all the issues related to a matter that they were involved in outside of the ministry here at Crossroads.

(Of course, immediately the right set about painting them as victims instead of the finders they were.)

Nothing ever changes:

Rather interesting how they go down in flames right after attempting to mock/silence Drew for calling them and the Church to account for a gospel of control, shame and guilt and towards a Gospel of freedom, grace and intimacy with the Father. It’s almost Luke 13 in real life:

One of my favorite heretics paraphrased Luke 13 this way:

“I tell you it is not true that these people suffered such things because they were worse sinners than any other, but I also tell you that as long as you persist in seeing it this way, your deaths will be viewed in the same [Judgment of God] way.”

If only they could have looked forward with these eyes — it wouldn’t have been Drew’s last appearance…

Let me be blunt: Any Canadian who does not desire to live in a police surveillance state should probably check this out.

The legislation itself:
Bill C-46:
Bill C-47:

Here’s three dudes who need a note from you:

The Prime Minister of Canada (Steven Harper): harper.s@parl.gc.ca
The guy who sold his soul (Peter Van Loan): vanloan.p@parl.gc.ca
Whoever your MP is: Search

It should probably look something like this: (My MP is Harper)

Dear Mr. Steven Harper and Mr. Peter Van Loan,

I believe that the introduction of legislation which will allow Canadian police to access personal information about the sender or receiver of any electronic message without a warrant is an extremely dangerous and foolish direction for our country to be moving in. I further believe that forcing business (Internet Service Providers) to become the 24/7/365 watchdogs and surveillance system of a society violates the reasonable expectation of privacy that any free society is based upon and creates a culture of fear and paranoia only matched by that of the former Soviet Union.

The very foundation of any democratically based free-society is the expectation of a system of restraints placed upon law enforcement (and those who wield power in general) based upon an understanding that no one is incorruptible. History has always proven that the absence of said restraints always creates a police state for everyone can be tempted to justify their own means if the end is sufficiently believed in. Placing the balance of effort upon law enforcement to prove that surveillance is necessary and then the burden of effort required to effect such upon their own limited resources ensures that said surveillance is only used where truly necessary.

Laws of this nature (C-64 & C-47) are always advanced under one fundamental line of logic: We must maintain the security of our free society from those who would destroy it.

While there may be some security benefit to this legislation, the effect of said legislation is, in and of itself, always a tearing apart of the fundamental freedoms that any free society is based upon to gain such — given that those powers are always handled by corruptible persons. Persons who can be bought or who, for ideological reasons, come to see this power through the lens of, “We can use this to stamp out what we don’t like or what costs us money.” (The villain of the day could be violent video games, offensive statements, religious ideas or simply the control of behavior for profit.) The end result of that security is a loss of freedom which ultimately destroys that which it claims to protect.

Franklin stated: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

C-64 & C-47 are the granting of inordinate power to persons who must always be considered suspect if a free and just society is to be maintained. I believe they have NO place in our country.

If there is truly any need for our private details to be accessed, a judge will see that and grant a warrant so that the police may collect those details — all by themselves.

–
Yours Truly,
Cal H. Henze, M.A.

Poemae Qui Aperio

I’ve learned that it is all of these beliefs
That they are making a prisoner out of me
I am the one who has created these walls
Now I am feeling like I want to break free

I’ve learned that even though I was living
I know that I’ve been dying to feel alive
I can say that I want more this time around
I’m starting to feel like I want to survive

I’ve learned that there is so much more
And this part of me that I thought had died
Now wants to come out and experience life
And convince me that I don’t need to hide

I’ve learned that things are not as they seem
And the lies that I was taught are not true
I am not the bad person that I thought I was
I’m a good person that bad things happened to

© Copyright www.poemaequiaperio.com

The entire site deserves a read.

It’s a single-author blog site filled with poetry from a person who, evidently, experienced some incredible abuse and is coming through it to some significant healing. If you start with the first poem (Down at the bottom) and then read them in order, they read like a road map of growth and transformation.

Wittenburg Door

Ms. Wisteria, who holds a degree in early Christian fabric and drapery design from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, worked as a model during her student days, and she came to a conclusion: Christian women needed a lingerie line that would let them look sexy but still retain that sense of modesty required for bedtime prayers and morning quiet time.

There’s a widespread misconception, she said, that Christians fear pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, and see it as degrading, corrupting and tainted.

“That’s a dirty, rotten LIE,” she yelled, stamping her foot on the marble floor.

“But it’s always so hard for a couple to transition from kneeling together in awe before the gates of heaven — praying for famine victims in Darfur, for instance, or the political situation in East Timor–and then jumping into the sack for a session of hot carnal pleasure. I wanted to help bridge that gap. That was my sacred mission.”

The result was her first popular cutting-edge design– the breakaway flannel granny gown.

If I wouldn’t take so much heat out of the fundamentalist Evangelical right (And reverends thereof), there’s a twisted part of me that would want to not bill this as the parody it is — and see how many would take it seriously.

But, having been drawn and quartered for not condemning a client who bought his wife sweaters from Victoria’s Secret, for linking to a site which sells foam wedges to support couples for love making (Especially disabled couples), for suggesting a Pyrex toy could be used to treat vaginal spasms, for suggesting that God created our ability to have fantasy and for having the nerve to suggest a sexual teaching guide (with [GASP] pencil diagrams) was not leading a couple into pornography, I must refrain — and wonder how much of the article really is parody; or if it’s history…

2007 September GraceVine – Grace Walk Ministries:::Sharing the Love & Life of Christ:

“2007 September GraceVine Grace Is Bigger Than Your Sins by Steve McVey   One of the most amazing aspects of God’s grace is the way it blows sin right off the map of our lives. Make no mistake about it – sin lost the battle with God and is now a non-entity as far as its ability to stop His purposes for the life of the Christian. Are there consequences for our sins? We have all seen that often to be the case. Do our sins disqualify us from being used by God? Not at all. David committed a horrible sin when he slept with Bathsheba, but after they were married and God wanted the temple to be rebuilt it was her son, Solomon, that He used to accomplish that project. Peter flatly denied that he even knew Jesus, but when it came time for the sermon to be preached on the day of Pentecost, he was the man who God used that day. Abraham had his wife Sarah tell a king that she was his sister so that the king wouldn’t kill him to have a chance to take her. Despite his horrible and cowardly sin, God reaffirmed His intention to make him the father of a great nation many times afterwards. The list could go on and on. It’s a strange thing to hear debate in the church today about who God can and can’t use. The fact is that God can use anybody He wants to use. I learned this truth even before I understood the grace walk. Years ago someone asked me about a certain, flamboyant TV evangelist. ‘What do you think of him?’ I was asked. ‘He’s an idiot,’ I responded in my ‘I-haven’t-learned-a-thing-about-grace’ way that was all too common back then. The woman then went on to tell me how God had used that man’s ministry to transform her life. ‘What do you think now?’ she asked. Without hesitation, I answered, ‘I guess God uses idiots!’ While my response was far from graceful, it’s true. God uses idiots. I should know. He used me despite my years of legalistic idiocy. God can use you too. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you might have done something that is so terrible that your Father can’t redeem your past and use your life for His glory. He can use you and He will use you. Jesus came to put away your sin and He fully succeeded at that. (See Hebrews 9:26) We need to stop worshipping our sins by focusing on them and glory in the finished work of the cross. God’s grace is bigger than our sins and He will use our lives for His glory. Let’s just trust Him to do it! “

This is a great article that God can work good for us despite how we act or believe!!! May His sense of control be so for our family, friends, school, churches, and clients. Now it is about feelings not deeds.

GraceAndMercy.org

Church history demonstrates that believers in every generation become enslaved to a performance basis for earning God’s approval and blessing. In other words, they believe they are right with God because they do the right things. This is a constant temptation for all who desire to please God. [...] I’ll be using the term performance basis interchangeably with the term legalism.

Because performance-based living is so deeply rooted in human nature, the entire world, not just the Christian world, is filled with people who either thrive on it or who are constantly striving to extricate themselves from it. But apart from the applied grace of God – the exact opposite of performance-based living – nothing more than superficial relief is ever realized by anyone, Christian or not.

The really entertaining thing about these guys is their background: They are specialists in bringing people out of cults. They have launched this site to take on fundamentalist Evangelical legalism — using those same skills. (See their first post)

From where I’m sitting, it looks to be about time…

This man has compressed more of what the life of Christ is into a 5 min song then most preachers get in their entire lives.

This song is a prayer set to music — the heart cry of a man who knows the Father for a people who know little of such and everything of rules, status and performance.

Along with polyphenols, this is probably one of the most significant discoveries the research community has come up with for years:

There is a free trial available here for those south of the 49th but I’m not sure about what is available to us Canucks yet…

Living longer is under the, “Ok, whatever,” category for me but the ability to be clear, active and raising hell right to the end, now THAT is interesting…

Ok, this guy needs no other intro except to have his videos posted:

His mission: “To find those with holy hand grenades up their butts and pull the pin…”

BTW: 100 Huntley St. got massive feedback over this. About 60% of the comments were hugely positive — but the other 40% (Coupled with raw cowardice) caused them to refuse to replay his interview and erase any evidence of it ever having been aired. (Not even the KGB could erase something that well.)

Think about it: 60% of those who are watching this (A massively conservative Evangelical audience to begin with) are on his page — and there is such a limited grasp of the situation the Church is in that all 100 Huntley St. can do to cope with reality is to try to deny it.

If this is any indication, the bricks and mortar church is likely already dead — it just hasn’t noticed it yet.

The Associated Press.

As dismal as murdering 60,000 late term babies (that were perfectly capable of immediately being delivered and shortly given up for adoption) is, I think I’ve discovered something even more twisted…

There’s something really bent about the psyche of an extreme right that can advocate for the death penalty, for the war in Iraqi and against an abortion that is required to save a woman’s life — and then open fire on an abortion doctor as he and his family served in their Lutheran Church.

(Someone should probably inform the Right that if all of the above is true, they are NOT even remotely Pro-Life — they are simply Pro-Birth and not particularly credible…)

There really is only one answer to this level of deluded — and Steve Taylor sang it years ago:

(Note: Before someone flips out and over reacts, SEE BELOW!!!)

I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good — Steve Taylor

I have the road in my blood
I drive a custom van
I play the tunes
I’m the neighborhood ice cream man
So don’t you mess this boy around

The other day when the clinic had it’s local debut
Some chicks were trying to picket
The doctor threatened to sue

I don’t care if it’s a baby or a tissue blob
but if we run out of youngsters
I’ll be out of a job
And so I
I did my duty
cleaning up the neighborhood
I blew up the clinic real good

Try and catch me coppers
Your stinkin’ badges better think again
Before you mess this boy around

I’ve hung in Saigon just to see the special effects
I’ve hung from gravity boots for my napoleon complex
It’s time to close
Ohhh…. There she blows.
History In the making
You picked a fight.
I pick dynamite
I blew up the clinic real good.

Preacher on a corner
Calling it a crime
The ends don’t justify the means anytime
I stood up on my van
I yelled “Excuse me, sir
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with this country
a few plastic explosives won’t cure”

FYI: Steve Taylor was a satirist who spent his life delivering cynical parodies of the Church in hopes of making at least a few of Her members think. He was confronting people who would take the law into their own hands.

PLoS ONE

A pooled weighted average of 1.97% N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45 of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72 for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Meta-regression showed that self reports surveys, surveys using the words “falsification” or “fabrication”, and mailed surveys yielded lower percentages of misconduct. When these factors were controlled for, misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others.

Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct.

Much of the world has a set of illusionary pictures:

(1). The religious nut job: This guy has little ability to think for himself, he follows what he is told by some establishment, he is unwilling to look at contradictory data and he lives only to win the approval of his superiors — who are controlling him. For many, if you believe in God at all, you fit here…

(2). The scientist: This man is deeply driven by a pursuit of truth. He is open minded, unswayed by superiors, profoundly rational (And non-religious) and can never be corrupted by the finances that fund his pure research. He is widely believed to possess a halo as well — but God (who of course, doesn’t exist) had nothing to do with it…

It seems definition #1 VERY often applies to both images…

What is really happening is a fundamentalist extremeification of much of the world. (Yes, that’s probably an invented word…) More and more we are seeing vast numbers of people who hold positions that are untenable and easily confronted. Yet, those people now so commonly refuse to address contrary data and, when forcibly presented with such, refuse to modify their positions. This is the definition of fundamentalism.

Often, those people, when presented with contrary data, will resort to attacking the persons presenting that data rather then even assaulting the data — to say nothing of being willing to actually address the possibility of modifying the positions they hold. Mostly, when they address the data at all, it’s addressed for purposes of vilification — not for understanding.

The myth of a pure scientist is just that — a myth. No scientist can exist without money. Piss off the grant giver = no money. Contradict the widely held scientific consensus = no money. Issue results that upset the ideologues at the university for which you work = no tenure and no money. Say something that just isn’t politically correct and infuriates some special interest group the powers that be support = political pressure from the school donors to give you no money. A successful scientist is one that usually says what he is told — sometimes he slips in truth too — when he can get away with it…

This isn’t some push to cancel science — it has so much to teach us. It’s a push to recognize science as just another religion. A belief system within which people seek truth, perform study, draw conclusions and try to impose such on others.

Like every religion, it demands a rather careful sifting — not bowing down before it…

Simple rule of thumb: If people created it, then STOP worshiping it.

Steve McVey:

“The problem with rededicating ourselves to Christ is self, which is really just another word for the self-sufficiency of the flesh. The essence of religious flesh, as strange as it might seem, is our attempt at trying to live the Christian life. That is what actually prevents us from living the Christian life. In fact, the harder we try, the greater the likelihood that we won’t succeed because victory in the Christian life doesn’t come by trying. It comes by trusting. “

This is a great reminder article we need often it is not what we do, but what Christ does through us. I disagree with, we have to trust/be dependent, but I do think we have to be OPEN to coming to Him, trust, and being dependent. May it be so

nationalpost.com.

When a teenage girl knowingly sends provocative pictures of herself to friends or a boyfriend, is she guilty of child pornography or simply practicing self-expression?

New research that looks at the criminalization of self-made images exchanged among consenting minors argues that the laws and public service campaigns designed to protect girls from becoming victims may actually be blaming the girls themselves and curbing their natural desire for sexual self-expression.

Teenagers sending provocative and even pornographic images via cellphones — a practice known as sexting — is really just a modern variation on "playing doctor or spin the bottle," Peter Cumming, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, argued in a paper on children's sexuality defending the practice.

"Technology does change things, and there can be very serious consequences," Prof. Cumming said. "But that obscures the fact that children and young people are sexual beings who have explored their sexuality in all times, and all cultures and all places. A distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn," he added.

In the last couple of months, the media suddenly seemed to discover that teens had phones (With cameras) as well as computers (With WebCams) and, as usual, the sky was falling. News outlets ran stories, prosecutors suddenly started charging girls who were even photographed in their underwear and, “Dr.” Phil commenced his usual clueless moralizing and grandstanding to shame girls into ceasing the practice of sending erotic pictures of themselves to others (Which, of course, he and others immediately commenced calling pornography.)

Ignoring the reality that this doesn’t fit any scientific definition of rage based erotica (Which Porn is). Ignoring that even under the blunt instrument of the law, nudity does not even remotely equal erotica/pornography and ignoring the raw senselessness of punishing a victim as her own perpetrator, this insanity has provided an interesting window into the collective self hatred present in the sexual psyche of North America. It’s like the veil has been violently pulled back and people are suddenly exposing the attitudes about sex that make them so uncomfortable:

Sex as a means of manipulating others.
Sex as a means of violating others.
Sex as a reason for marital failure (If marriage itself doesn’t kill sex in advance.)
Sex as pure sleaze.
Sex as a means of keeping one gender or another under your thumb.

No more are those attitudes hidden in the back room — but the weird thing is that the proponents of such are hardly hanging their heads in shame over the obvious shattered reality now visible in their belief systems. The above attitudes are actually the foundations of their sudden outrage and activism with rants about how boys will use girls, how gullible girls are for being sexual, how no one will want a girl who does this and how badly girls who do this are gonna get hurt.

As far as I can tell, this is the first researcher who has squarely faced the key question: Why are we shaming/punishing/condemning young girls for being sexual beings (Yes, very stupid ones…) instead of addressing those who would distribute the evidence of said stupidity?

The stunning irony in this entire debate is that neither Oprah, “Dr.” Phil, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, WiredSafety nor any of the major news outlets launched their campaign with a set of messages to young boys about respecting the sexualities of young girls, how a woman’s sexuality (especially offered to you) is a precious gift, how much of a moron you look like when you treat a girlfriend (Or her picture) like a piece of meat to hand around to your friends, how women are attracted to men of honor and how those that violate the above should be charged and educated to grow up.

Naw… Because that would expose our own attitudes about sex and, particularly, women’s sexuality. Like, perhaps the fact that we think sex is evil, dirty, sick and nasty — and you should only do it with the one you love…

Gospelrevolution.com

Most of our lives do not play out the way Imus', Jimmy Swaggert's, Ted Haggard's, Bill Clinton's, Michael Richard's, Mel Gibson's, or any other high profile person's does under the glare of the public's spotlight. But play out they do. Still, to whom much is given much is required. When you have a bigger platform, and take that platform for criticizing other human beings for being less than you are as opposed to criticizing what they think or teach, then your "fall" will be greater.

We cannot recommend living a life of condemning others as less than ourselves. We tried. It is not a positive existence. We are not holier than anyone. Neither is anyone holier than we. Because all of our potential and perceived evil was paid for by the Blood of Christ. Plus, all of our holiness has been imputed to us by Him.

I went to see this guy this weekend. He’s a very interesting speaker — and a guy who has been through the fire for actually having the courage to read his Bible for himself instead of just regurgitating what he had been fed. His site is no less interesting.

So much has been written about Jesus in two different channels — it’s easy to see Him as a little MPD (Now the politically correct term is DID).

On the one hand, Jesus is presented as a guy who loved everyone, who went around healing people and drawing the hearts of the broken towards Him. (The subtext under this particular presentation is usually, “Shut up and be tolerant.”)

On the other, He is presented as a guy who ripped the religious leaders a new one and who braided up a whip (Properly translated, probably actually a flog) of cords, stalked into an area the size of a city block, physically attacked people, whipped animals and functionally leveled the place. (The subtext under this presentation is clearly, “Look out sinner, unless you straighten up, you’re next.”)

The result of this has been a Church split into two camps: The nearly fascist rantings of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity and the passive moralizing or lukewarm social activism of Mainstream Christianity and Roman Catholicism. Neither, to say the least, is having much impact on our society — except as fuel for the fires of comedy…

But, if you actually stop and look beyond the stereotyping, you see a different Jesus: He’s a Jesus who loved everyone (Even his murderers), who was willing to lower Himself to serve/heal anyone and who really did die to redeem the whole world to Himself — and He’s a Jesus who was ruthlessly and aggressively intolerant of the ideas and hypocrisy of people who would act like they were holy, judge/condemn from that platform, violate the hearts of others and/or suffocate them with religion. But, even those people, He still loved.

I wonder what our world would look like if every believer on the planet was willing to walk his/her naked, unzipped and unarmed heart into the homes, bars, back alleys, crack houses, sexual chaos and relational brokennesses of people and simply love and minister the healing power of Christ to those they find there (instead of moralizing at them) while, en mass, also standing up to the hypocrisy of the religious/political leadership and demanding truth out of them?

YouTube

Something I wish every proponent of this technique would try…

What is striking is that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times while being interrogated by the CIA. One would think that sometime about say time #20 or so, someone would have clued into the reality that it’s not working (torture really doesn’t work) and tried something like real interrogators use…

CNN.com

Liberty University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is drawing heat Friday for its decision to revoke recognition of the College Democrats’ chapter on campus.

According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, the school decided a week ago the organization “stood against the moral principles” held by the school and therefore could no longer be sanctioned.

Maria Childress, the staff adviser to the club, told the paper the school — which opposes abortion rights and gay marriage — had issues with the Democratic Party platform.

Childress says she was told by Mark Hine, the vice president of student affairs, that “‘You can’t be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative.’”

Ironic isn’t it — a Fundamentalist Evangelical College called Liberty University which purported to be founded for the protection of freedom and the American Way uses its political clout to silence two of the most fundamental of American rights: Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association…

The experts, in their inestimable wisdom, have spoken: Obama, along with his wife and beautiful children, apparently is going to hell…

Here’s some links to help you with your Hackintosh shopping list:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.5.6 (Most recent Hardware List)

http://hackintosh.org/ (General info)

http://www.hackint0sh.org/ (A superior site — Tons of info)

http://www.osx86project.org/

Yes, we all know Apple thinks this is naughty — of course, we also all know they need to get off their butts and manage even the simple feat of putting a quad core processor in a real machine (To say nothing of the next gen of chips) so we are not forced to this.

The Daily Beast

Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins’ advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the “triad.”

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That’s closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—”triangular triads,” to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, “Janet loves it when she gets a double decker.” In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.

But, But, But — they PROMISED!!! They were so sure it wouldn’t be a slippery slope…

PracticalHappiness.com:

” PracticalHappiness.com is dedicated to providing the most practical and effective dating and relationship advice on all aspects of dating and relationships for men and women. Do not settle for generic, mainstream, useless dating advice, driven by marketing and by telling people what they like to hear.

From becoming more attractive to the opposite sex, eye contact with women, pick-up lines, meeting and talking to singles, to other very useful dating tips and relationship advice for men, such as first date tips, how to flirt, on-line dating tips, confidence with women, self-esteem, insecurities and fear of rejection, advice on long-term relationships, including dealing with jealousy, commitment issues, escaping the friends zone with women,cheating and breaking up to advice for women on becoming a more attractive woman to men, being a classy woman, meeting quality single men, and other dating and relationship tips for women – this site will guide you toward finding answers to your most troubling dating and relationship questions.”

A client just asked for information on this subject and I figured I’d post the grand master…

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of information in this area — most has been driven by the pursuit of cash and has usually tell people what they want to hear — not what actually works.

This guy is giving most of his advice away for free — and it’s mostly quality.

nakedpastor:

“Kathy said, on May 11th, 2009 at 3:51 pm Cynicism at its’ finest. I love it! I just discovered your blog about a week ago and am really enjoying it. I am not a fan of the bricks-and-mortar church. Church to me is what happens every Thursday night in our small group.

I’m in the west but maybe some day will visit your church. We have a mutual friend-Shane.

Ray the Recovering Cynic said, on May 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm True story from a pastor friend of mine: apparently the day after his paternal great-grandfather’s death, the local priest dropped by Granddad’s house … and the first words out of said priest’s mouth were, ‘how much money did he leave to the church?’

Granddad left the church that day, and never returned. A soul was lost.

nakedpastor said, on May 11th, 2009 at 4:12 pm ray: the priest’s?”

Ok, I’ve posted some of the comments — but you really need to follow the link to see the comic. It’s just too true.

The last comment — by the Rev himself — had only one error. It should have been followed by a period.

I’m adding this guy to my blog roll…

CNN.com.

In a message posted on the Miami archdiocese Web page, the archbishop apologized to parishioners and radio listeners for what he called a “scandal.”

“Father Cutie made a promise of celibacy and all priests are expected to fulfill that promise with the help of God,” Favalora said. “Father Cutie’s actions cannot be condoned despite the good works he has done as a priest.”

Cutie apologized in an online statement Tuesday, saying he “wants to ask for forgiveness if my actions have caused pain and sadness. … I assure you that my service and dedication to God remain intact.”

Isn’t it interesting how an archdiocese well known as a safe haven for sexually abusive priests suddenly manages to get so pissy assertive when the other person involved is old enough to vote. And has ovaries.

It says something about the priorities and underlying patterns of brokenness here that this is what would finally be called a, “Scandal…” In any other church, everyone would be cheering that the one leader in the area who is actually doing something productive to really change people’s love lives has now, himself, found love.

You always see this pattern in systems of religious power: Those actions which undermine the power system are always deemed to be so much more evil then those which are neutral or actually maintain said system. The rating process really has nothing to do with any sort of evaluation of the actual damage sustained by human hearts…

post-gazette.com.

Grove City student suspended over gay porn video

Says film income helped pay tuition

Thursday, May 07, 2009

The Associated Press
GROVE CITY, Pa. — A student is appealing his suspension from a Christian college in Mercer County for appearing in gay porn videos using a pseudonym.

Twenty-two-year-old John Gechter, of Philadelphia, was suspended for one year pending appeal from Grove City College after a student saw him last month in a video posted online.

Mr. Gechter is appealing the suspension and says he may sue, claiming that the gay porn job isn’t any of the school’s business, especially since he performed using the name “Vincent DeSalvo.” Mr. Gechter says he used his porn income to pay for his schooling.

School officials say Mr. Gechter is suspended because he was well aware his porn involvement “exhibited behavior contrary to the values” of the school about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Three interesting things here:

The most interesting part of this is still being recognized by precisely nobody… Apparently, the student who was looking at same-sex oriented erotic videos and narc’ed him out — well, s/he’s still a member of the student body…

It seems that, on this week’s edition of the naughty list, the sex acts involved in viewing same-sex erotic materials are not quite naughty enough to qualify as a, “Really bad sin,” — but performing them (at least on film) is. Or maybe, the real issue is just that the public can’t identify which student reported the problem — thus the school can still claim the problem doesn’t exist in their back yard, avoid dealing with it and still retain their carefully crafted public image…

The second interesting fact is that this guy is telling the truth about his financial needs. It seems that, for no better reason then hiding their finances from the government, the school canceled every student’s ability to subsidize an education in the normal (student loan) way.

The third interesting thing is that no one stated considering keeping them both there, admitting that the entire student body is overloaded with broken hearts and working with all of them to heal such…

Fundamentalist logic…

Author’s main web site

Grab and composite of book.

(This needed to be archived — it’s not going to be allowed to stay up long. Small loss anyway considering the website seemed to have been designed by CIA torture specialists…)

From what I have read so far, this author has written the literature survey and logical defense I wish I had the time to create. I’ve been arguing the irrationality of a genetic explanation for the emergence of Same Sex Attraction for years from a variety of sources but this guy just found them all and then some.

The book also contains a more novel integration with an understanding of the emergence of heterosexuality and how such alters the core, “I was born this way,” argument.

The author is going to take a phenomenal amount of heat if they let his site survive at all. It’s worth a read.

‘Superfoods’ Everyone Needs:

“Top Superfoods Offering Super Health Protection Beans Blueberries Broccoli Oats Oranges Pumpkin Salmon Soy Spinach Tea (green or black) Tomatoes Turkey Walnuts Yogurt”

I have also heard that guacomole, flax seed, and dark chocolate are included.

CNN.com

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words — and the only answer that can be given to this order of monumental stupidity and callous disregard for human life:

(JesusFacePalm)

Christianity has not been based on the teachings of Jesus for a very, very long time…

CNN.com

There had been no confirmed deaths in the United States related to swine flu as of Tuesday afternoon. But another virus had killed thousands of people since January and is expected to keep killing hundreds of people every week for the rest of the year. That one? The regular flu…

Since January, more than 13,000 people have died of complications from seasonal flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on the causes of death in the nation.

No fewer than 800 flu-related deaths were reported in any week between January 1 and April 18, the most recent week for which figures were available.

The report looks at deaths in the 122 largest cities in the United States.

Worldwide, the annual death toll from the flu is estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000.

Ok, I admit it, the stupidity factor here is starting to get to me. Seriously, EVERY flu is of either pig or bird origin — that’s where they come from. Somehow, some media outlet tagged the correct source onto this one and the whole world has freaked out — even though the death toll from this bug is actually LOWER then usual.

Today they found the kid that first got the bug — and the entire village too. Yep, still alive and ticking — and now immune to the bug they managed to start. Fears that this virus causes a critical immune overreaction have proven to be just that — fears. Basically, like all other flu bugs, this one is sadistic enough to only make you WISH you were dead, but, it’s probably not going to be kind enough to kill you.

The media hype over this is even more absurd in that Tamiflu and Relenza can kill this bug with two miserable pills and the majority of people just feel normally flu-ish — not even knowing they have this particular bug. The bug is so mild that the medical community doesn’t even want to use Tamiflu and Relenza — they would like to save it for a real problem…

But hey, never mind that — we’re in the middle of a national emergency, Obama needs 1.5 BILLION dollars in funding to fight back (or something) and we’re all gonna die… (Or maybe he just wants another cool billion to spend somewhere…)

Steve McVey:

“I’ve taught several times about how sailing is a metaphor for the grace walk. On land, we seem to have control of our own forward motion, which I’ve suggested depicts a legaslitic lifestyle of self-sufficiency. Once we abandon ourselves to the wind (the Spirit) and the water (The Word/Jesus), we have no illusions that we are in control anymore. Safe sailing necessitates that you go forward as the wind leads you. To fail to cooperate with the wind can bring dire consequences – not because the wind is punishing you, but because you are experiencing the natural result of independence and pride. Happy sailing involves watching the wind and water and cooperating with what they are doing. That’s what we plan to do today. Will we go? Will we stay? We don’t know yet, but we are willing to do either one, once the wind lets us know. So it is to be in life if we want a successful and enjoyable journey.”

This is a great article regarding resting in that EVERYTHING, HAPPENS FOR A REASON. Any situation can result in experiencing/showing God’s love understanding and grace because Jesus took any the sins of the world. May the Lord give us/our families/teachers/friends that rest.

Babies born to women who suffered morning sickness may be smarter:

“‘They can be dehydrated, they cannot work. Poor quality of life. So in a way this study further supports them and empowers them to treat themselves.’ Koren and colleagues wanted to look at whether there were any signs that using diclectin during pregnancy was harmful. The drug has been on the market in Canada for decades, but was pulled from production in the U.S. about 25 years ago over concerns it might be harmful to fetuses. It is being reintroduced in that market. The concerns, which came to light after the thalidomide scandal, led to the drug being extensively studied, said Dr. Tina Chambers, a teratologist at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine. Teratology is the study of abnormal fetal development, congenital malformations and what causes them.”

This is a very reassuring article that the med has been safe for a least 10 yrs. Nausea is actually a sign of a healthy pregnancy. God seems to say so as well. Isn’t it great that technology can even reassure you if it is even possible to become pregnant. Now women can really wait for His best timing for marriage/family!

Steve McVey:

“Today, the thought hit me: ‘I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I am intentional in waiting for the Captain to give me instructions.’ When Roger asks me to do something, I do it immediately. I don’t ask a question. I don’t delay. I just do it. That’s a crew member’s role. When I have no particular duty to do, my role is to simply enjoy the journey. I don’t have to feel guilty that I’m not doing more. I don’t have to try to find something to do. I’m just supposed to ‘abide in the Captain’ and do what he says. If I have no specific orders, I just enjoy the ride.”

Reading this article you can literally feel God’s unconditional love and peace of just being/doing when He says to do it. In Him we live, move, and have our being. I think we can avoid a lot of disappointment May it be so for us our family. friends, the girl’s school and clients.

timescolonist.com

And just as we were beginning to acknowledge this and trying to overcome the stigma attached to the disease our attention has been diverted by court cases in which people infected with HIV, mostly men, have been convicted for conduct that risks, or is simply perceived to risk, transferring the disease.

Johnson Aziga of Hamilton is the first person in Canada — possibly in the world — to be convicted of first-degree murder for having unprotected sexual intercourse with two women without telling them that he was HIV positive. He’s received a “life” sentence.

This has to be one of the most striking and disturbing articles of the day. Here’s the logic:

Forget the fact that this man knew what he was doing would kill. Forget the reality that he got the ability to bring that kiss of death through his own actions. Forget the fact that he lied to get that ability to bring this kiss of death to another. Let’s blame the victim of this deadly gift for the crime of trusting him and curse the injustice of the legal system for arresting him for this deliberate homicidal act.

Why? Well, here’s the logic: We live in a world of AIDS where everyone should live in fear of this pervasive plague or at least some other STD.

Really? Lets talk about a pervasive plague that impacts around 2/3rds of one percent (0.7%) of the population, is mostly transmitted by male on male sex (40—49% of new cases) and, in the United States, a known population (African Americans) make up about 48% of the total HIV-positive population and more than half of new HIV cases — despite making up only 12% of the population.

Is it any wonder that, so called, condom fatigue has set in? Is it any wonder that the general public still seems to think of STD’s in terms of chlamydia or the like? Is it any wonder that a few (Yes, even at the chlamydia level) very foolish individuals have begun playing a condom free game of Russian Roulette and could also be at risk to this order of calculated homicide?

Naw — let’s decry the failure to, “Overcome the stigma attached to the disease.” In English, that means, “Convince the population that this is everyone’s problem instead of still mostly being the byproduct of limited (Mostly homosexual) extremely high risk behaviors centered in a known population.” It means, “Ignore that there are some who actually pursue infection with the HIV virus.” It means, “Let’s all act like it makes sense to pretend obvious and rampant irresponsibility on the part of one known population group should be destigmatized while demanding hyper-responsibility in another.”

Once again, forget standing up, telling the truth about where the problem is centered and demanding that the core of the problem deal with it. Let’s deflect it by talking about other STD’s and make the whole world responsible.

Is it any wonder this completely preventable disease called HIV/AIDS is not going away?

Steve McVey:

“The message of Easter is that Jesus Christ has drawn us into Himself and settled the issue of our worth once and for all. You were in Christ on the cross and everything about you that would have debilitated you in terms of reaching the potential God intends for you was done away with there. You were buried with Him and on the third day, you arose with Him – full of resurrection life. Now the essence of who you are is Him. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? The key to reaching our God-given potential is to see that Jesus Christ gives us our identity. ‘In Him we live and move and exist,’ says the Scripture. We have nothing to prove. The only thing we need to do is to just be ourselves and as we do we will mature outwardly into the person we already are inwardly.”

This is a great article that reminds us that we can do all things THROUGH Christ! In Him we live and move and exist. We have nothing to prove. May it be so.

I’ve used these for years — they work.

Alternate link

Steve McVey:

“The LORD’s delight is in those who honor him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love. Psalm 147:11 For many years, I taught people that the way to honor the Lord was to do what He said – to obey Him. Obedience – that was the most important thing in the Christian life, as I saw it. But the problem was that, no matter how hard I tried and how sincere I was, I couldn’t seem to be consistent in that area. This verse from Psalms shows that the Lord is honored when we put our hope in His unfailing love. It isn’t our obedience, our faith, or even our level of love for Him that honors Him most. It is by learning to rest in His unconditional, unfailing and unchanging love that He is most honored. As we learn to accept His acceptance, the calm that comes over us is amazing. No more do we have to struggle to stay on God’s good side. No longer do we condemn ourselves because we think we aren’t doing enough to keep Him in a good mood toward us. We come to learn that our Father’s love has nothing to do with how good we are, but has everything to do with how good He is. Then, lo and behold, the realization of His unfailing love begins to transform us. We find ourselves being motivated to live a godly lifestyle because we want to behave, not because we think it’s the right thing to do. We become increasingly free to relax and just be ourselves, knowing that He loves us no matter what. The love of God for us will mature us, motivate us and minister to us every day. Life increasingly becomes more and more about Him and not about us. “

This is a great little article on revealing God’s healing/Finished Work by resting in the Father’s unconditional love for us!

Steve McVey:

“Living in God-given freedom will inevitably bring the scorn of the self-righteous down on you. Jesus stayed in trouble because the way He acted didn’t fit the expectations of the religious crowd who thought it was their duty to police everybody else to make sure they were minding their P’s & Q’s. When He enjoyed a good meal and a glass of wine with friends, they called Jesus ‘a glutton and a drunkard.’ (See Luke 7:34) “

This is a good brief article that talks about the confusion of seeing Jesus took away they sins of the world. Regrettably the world often falls into feelings of self-righteousness which makes it seems that Jesus did not take away all the bad. May it be so that we have his we have his true understanding/confidence/trust/freedom/rest.

worldnetdaily.com

A respected pastor, best-selling author and founder of a major ministry to teens predicts an imminent “earth-shattering calamity” centered in New York City that will spread to major urban areas across the country and around the world – part of what he sees as a judgment from God.

“An earth-shattering calamity is about to happen,” he writes. “It is going to be so frightening, we are all going to tremble – even the godliest among us.”

Wilkerson’s vision is of fires raging through New York City.

“It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires – such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago,” he explains. “There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting – including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

I can just see how this latest embarrassment to the cause of Christ on earth got started:

David Wilkerson awakens in a cold sweat: (Gasp)(Pant)

“Oh NO, I just dreamed God nuked the world — this has to mean more then last night when I dreamed I was falling into a pool of chocolate pudding and the night before when I dreamed my wife wanted to stab me and I woke up with a massive bruise in my ribs where she delivered the right elbow of fellowship to stop me from snoring. Yes, it HAS to mean more…” (Burp)

“But why… Oh ya, now I remember — God didn’t pour quite all His wrath out on Christ. God’s focus has now shifted to to nuking the sinners in the center of the entire known universe — New York City. (You know, like, where I live…)”

“Of COURSE, I’ve been appointed as His mouthpiece — I now speak for the (Que reverential tone) L-O-R-D!!!!!!! Now where is my antacid — this heartburn feels like my chest is on fire…”

“But wait, what’s that verse some Still Small Voice is mentioning?”

2Tim. 1:7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

“Ah — never mind that — It’s not just the heathen, WE’RE ALL GONNA BURN!!!!!”

Either that, or this guy has got some serious inside contacts inside Al Qaeda…

Green Smoothie Recipes + In-depth Info on Green Smoothies:

“Here’s a variety of Green Smoothie recipes chiefly from Frederic Patenaude – see  his Green For Life program – includes 7-day green detox cleanse and Green For Life book by Victoria Boutenko. Always blend the fruit first – 2-3 cups any greens of your choice, 2 cups papaya, 2 oranges, 3 dates 1 handful lettuce leaves, 1 handful mint, 4 bananas, 1/2 cup water Winter Smoothie – 1 cup organic frozen berries (any kind), 2 cups fresh spinach, 1/4 inch fresh ginger, water 1/2 bunch romaine lettuce, 1 cup strawberries, 2 bananas, water 4-5 kale leaves, 4 apples, 1/2 lemon juiced, water 2 big handfuls mixed baby greens, 2 pears, 2 mangoes, 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries Choc-mint – 2 cups spinach, 10-12 mint leaves, 3 bananas, 2 Tbs. carob powder, 1 cup water 1 handful of spinach, 2 stalks of celery, 2 bananas, 2 pears, 1 apple, 1 cup water 1 small handful of spinach, 2 cups arugula, 2-3 mangoes, 1 cup water 1/2 head romaine lettuce, 1 small pineapple, 1 large mango, 1-inch fresh ginger 1 handful wild greens (e.g. dandelion), 1 small handful mint leaves, 3 cups honeydew melon 3-4 stalks celery, 2 ripe persimmons, 1 banana 1 handful chard leaves, 5-6 kale leaves, 3 large bananas, 1 cup water 1 handful parsley, 3 cups of peeled papaya Do you see that anything goes? Buy bunches of greens, a variety of fresh fruits, a GoGreen Sprouter, and CHANGE YOUR LIFE. The First Step to Health is One Green Smoothie a Day. How much time and money we save on dental and medical bills – when we get the kitchen equipment we need to enjoy Mother Nature’s food.”

This is great for selective kid eaters. It is a wondeful way to combine breakfast and lunch when your really busy. You can’t even taste the veggies, except don’t use snap peas!

John Eldredge: June 2008:

“First, we really need vacations, just as we really need Sabbath rest each week. There’s a rhythm to life. The heart beats, then it rests. It beats, then rests. We wake each morning, then we sleep every night. We wake, then we sleep. We spend energy, then we take in food to replenish what we spent. Vacation is like that. We’ve got to have periods of rest and joy and beauty in our year. So here is what we’ve learned about vacations: First, ask God! Don’t just assume you know what is best this summer. Ask God what he’d have you do, and when, and with whom. Too many folks squander their vacation because they don’t ask God what he has for them. We went to Kauai because we prayed about it last winter, several times. ‘Where should we go, Lord? For how long?’ Visits are not vacations. Most folks spend their vacation time visiting relatives. That rarely is restful and restoring. Visits are not vacations. Don’t confuse the two. Pray over your vacation beforehand! You know there is a thief. You know he hates joy. The mistake we often make is somehow thinking that vacation time is exempt from the Battle. It’s not. I spent weeks ahead of time praying over our Kauai trip – praying for safety. For the weather. For our travel. For our love as a family to be full. Don’t spend your vacation running. Too many times the temptation is to fill the time with busy-ness, running here and there, touring, trying to ‘fit it all in.’ Most folks get home and need a vacation from their vacation. Don’t squander it running around. We spent most our time within a few miles of the place we stayed. Resting. Being renewed. Don’t drop your guard. The temptation when we get to wherever it is we were going for vacation is to drop our usual prayer life, drop our armor, and think ‘this is time out.’ It’s not. To protect the time, I got up early every morning and prayed hard over the day. Don’t be lulled into a false security. Okay. Now ask God what he has for you this summer.”

May it be so for everyone!!!

CATO.ORG

In 1988, I wrote to Vice President George Bush, then head of the South Florida Drug Task Force; to Education Secretary William Bennett; to Assistant Secretary of State for Drug Policy Ann Wrobleski; to White House drug policy adviser Dr. Donald I. McDonald; and to the public information directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, General Accounting Office, National Institute of Justice, and National Institute on Drug Abuse. None of these officials was able to cite any study that demonstrated the beneficial effects of drug prohibition when weighed against its costs.[5] The leaders of the war on drugs are apparently unable to defend on rational cost-benefit grounds their 70-year-old policy, which costs nearly $10 billion per year out of pocket, imprisons 75,000 Americans, and fills our cities with violent crime. It would seem that Vernia Brown and many others like her have died for nothing.

Canada has essentially legalized drug use with the gram minimums for criminal prosecution. Isn’t it interesting how all Canadians suddenly went out and became junkies — oh, wait…

Just maybe, now is the right time when our Governments are going to figure out what Scripture always taught — being forced to be good usually makes people want to be bad — while freedom always drives them to seek the longings of their new and good hearts. Addiction is a problem with a broken heart in need of numbing — not a violation of anything but that heart which, yes, clearly was created for so much more.

Perhaps then we could turn the police services loose on the task of dealing with white collar criminals who bilk us out of untold billions every year — you know, the R. Allen Stanfords, the Bernie Madoffs and the CEOs of big residential lending firms that created the financial mess the world is in. Oh, ya, right — I GET IT now.

Ya, let’s push to lock up all the junkies…

Chicago Breaking News

The pastor of Willow Creek Chicago — the city campus of the evangelical megachurch Willow Creek Community Church — has resigned and admitted to “sexual impurity,” a church spokesman said.

The pastor, Rev. Steve Wu, could not be reached, and the church would [not] specify what took place.

Wu, 43, moved from California’s Silicon Valley in early 2006, hired by senior pastor Rev. Bill Hybels to lead Willow Creek Chicago, the downtown branch of the South Barrington-based church.

And further down…

The statement said: “He admitted to sexual impurity and has taken full responsibility for his sin. He has expressed a desire to participate in a restoration process.”

The usual drama continues — yet another collection of sex obsessed evangelicals find yet another in their midst who slipped Willy across this week’s line and, yet again, have tossed him out on his, er, nether-regions as a form of utterly useless restorative therapy that is sure to result in both zero change and a speaking tour — probably with a book deal. (Clearly, we assume, this is necessary because sex is so much badder then all the rest of the antics they are involved in.) None of this is new. What’s interesting is how honest they have been this time…

“has taken full responsibility for his sin.”

Two errors in seven words — pretty much a record I think…

Last time I checked Scripture, it tells me Jesus took responsibility for the sin of the entire world, took it all upon Himself and died for it. Paul further tells us that (Rom 7) we died with Christ to all of the elemental principles of this world (Col 2:21) and the very concept of the naughty and nice list style of living that got instituted in at the Fall in the garden of Eden. Sin was such a serious problem that no one other then God Himself could do ANYTHING about it — and He had to die, kill us and then raise all of the above to a new life to do it. And, He did it — once and for all

But not in Bill Hybel’s inferno… It’s a special place of image and performance where people handle sin with so little seriousness that they actually believe that a human being can do something to fix it. Here, sin (At least whatever of it is on the latest naughty list) is still front and center (Because apparently Jesus only died so we can eat Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers) and people are still scaled by it until they can work hard enough to appear to clean up their own acts.

But don’t worry, it’s a caring place where they help people reach that sinless state — by ensuring their unemployment…[SIGH]

I’m still waiting for a church with the guts to stand up and say,

Today pastor _________ came to us to admit that he’s been having an affair with our women’s ministry coordinator. We’re leaving both of them in their jobs and are going to set out as a community to experience what it is like to see Jesus do what He said he would do in setting the captives free if we actually become the safe place He talked about. This week we are going to start that journey by talking about guilt, shame and condemnation and how that unholy trinity keeps people doing stupid things that will never satisfy. Bring what you have been conned into believing is your own dirty laundry at 11am and we’ll see if Jesus can do the stain removal you never could even get started on…

Ya, I know — never mind…[SIGH]

John Eldredge: December 2008:

“omething profound takes place in the soul of a person when they know they matter; when they know they are prized. It changes them. All questions of tit-for-tat are swept away; there is no longer any room for fear in the relationship. They know they are loved, and it evokes love in return. Someone who is recued has a deep and profound gratitude to the rescuer. ‘You would do this for me?’ But if their rescuer said, ‘I did not do this for you; I did this for me. I did it to prove my greatness. In fact, your complete unworthiness to be rescued is part of my plan to show my greatness.’ Could you imagine the relationship having any sort of future?  ”

This is an incredible Christmas article regarding our true worth even BEFORE Jesus took away our/the sins of the world. It is about relationship/knowing Him not beliefs/religion. May it be so for all of us.

John Eldredge: Finding Church:

“They do not actually teach people how to be intimate with God, or hear his voice. Intimacy with God is not promoted; most folks don’t know how to find it. We’ve spoken to a number of good people, mature believers who sincerely love God and dearly want to join him in his battle for this world, but who have found church to be an exercise in frustration. The number of these folks continues to grow; it is a very significant trend. These are not simply malcontents, who really just want to sleep in on Sundays. These are sincere followers of Jesus and they want a genuine place of church; they just don’t know where to find it. So they ask us, ‘What do you do?’ Let me first say what we have done – we have been a part of many different church expressions, from liturgical to conservative Bible to charismatic. And we have benefited richly from all of them. God can be found in many different expressions of ‘church.’ Most recently we have found the house church model to be particularly focused on what we believe are a few of the absolute essentials. Read the various urgings toward ‘church’ in the epistles, and ask yourself, ‘How could this take place in an hour on Sunday morning in a group of 500 or 5,000? How can we pray for one another, really? How can we encourage one another, really? Bear one another’s burdens?’ It can be a rich experience to worship with a large group of people, and hear the word of God taught by a gifted teacher. But there is simply no way that the fellowship urged in the Scriptures can be expressed without involvement in a small group.”

This is a good reminder article. May it be so for all of us and the world so we only do what God is in, not try to be Him for all. I pray we do nothing in our own strength to remain in peace.

:

“”

Awesome article from Breakforth 09!!! May it be so more clearly for us until we can rest in faith.

The Denver Post

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

Ya, ok, not so much… (To say nothing of the idiotic delusion of reparative therapy being completed in three weeks…)

ap.org

Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard – a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

But of course, the church is clearly living out their commitment to a transparent, open reflection of a new life in Christ… We think… Ok, maybe they are mostly covering it up better then even Haggard himself and even paying hush money…

Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.

Boyd said a Colorado Springs TV station reached him Thursday to say the young man was planning to provide a detailed report of his relationship with Haggard to the station. Boyd said the church preferred to keep the matter private, but it was the man’s decision to go public.

But no, of course it’s not hush money — it’s just compassionate assistance… Um, no wait…

“It wasn’t at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd said. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know what’s what everyone will want to say because that’s the most salacious thing to say, but that’s not at all what it was.”

Boyd said the church will not take action against the man if he tells his story in the press.

“We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to,” he said.

Yep, compassionate assistance — with a Non Disclosure Agreement. I’ll bet the church also makes patrons of their food bank sign one though so I’m sure it’s all standard procedure…

It isn’t often that Evangelical Christendom manages NOT to make me ashamed to be associated with them — this is not their lucky day…

2 Alberta children treated for meningococcal infection:

“Meningococcal disease can be spread through close contact, such as coughing, sneezing or kissing. An infection can cause sepsis, a serious infection of the blood and other parts of the body. It can also cause meningitis, the inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord, which can be fatal. Since 2002, Alberta has vaccinated children against three of the most common bacteria that cause meningitis, including meningococcus. ‘While very effective, the vaccines do not protect against every strain of these three bacteria,’ the Alberta Health Services release said. Alberta sees, on average, 20 cases of meningitis each year, of which about four are fatal.”

Steve McVey:

“emember that there is nothing wrong with the Law of God. God’s Law was given to open the eyes of the self-righteous to their own unrighteousness. The fact is, though, that you and I have been released from the Law (See Romans 7:6) through our death with Christ on the cross. By His grace, we saw our own unrighteousness and, by His grace, we repented of the folly of our sin and turned to Him in faith. At that moment, we were born again and now have no connection to the Law whatsoever. (Read Romans 7:1-6 for the biblical explanation.) If we don’t realize that we have moved out of the bondage of Babylonian captivity, we will still live under the terroristic threats of legalism. But you have been delivered from Babylon. You aren’t under the Law anymore. The religious Al-Qaeda have no rights or authority over you anymore. Your Liberator has set you free “

This is a good brief article on the law vs Jesus. I see repentance as a change in thinking from the Counsellor/Sprit.

Times Online

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

Ok, this is so striking it just screams out for a comment. One of the foundational rules in statistics is the law that, “Correlation does not equal causation.” In other words, just because you can prove that the rising or falling levels of one thing (Say the number of rum runners in Boston during prohibition) are exactly linked to the same in another (Say the number of Baptist Ministers in Boston during prohibition), you have NOT proved that they actually have ANYTHING to do with each other (No, all Baptist Ministers are not rum runners — they are all a function of population growth).

Oh yes, every researcher on the planet is taught this fact.

So, then we have this genius — Dr Thomas Pollet claims that because he can link the success of a man giving a woman an orgasm with his success in making money, women must be biologically programmed through some strange evolutionary adaptation to like sex (And therefor have better orgasms) with men who have money.

Of course, there’s a problem with this — Ros has had the same number of orgasms from our lovemaking today that she had when I was a starving grad student living on student loans. Shouldn’t her sex life have improved dramatically since I started earning a living?

Or, perhaps men who can make a decent living tend also to be educated men — men who are willing to get off their butts and read a book about sex — men who are willing to learn from someone smarter then Hugh Hefner…

Naw, couldn’t be that — gotta have something to do with a woman’s vestigial primate tendencies to be a gold digger…

Just remember this the next time someone says, “But Science says…”

London News

A man has been told he cannot adopt a child because he is overweight.

Damien Hall was told by Leeds city council that his weight – 24-and-a-half stone – made his morbidly obese.

The council told him his body mass index, BMI, was more than 42 and informed the 37-year-old it would have to drop to below 40 before he could be considered a potential parent due to risks he could become ill or die.

Just for a little entertainment, let’s swap, “Fat,” out and replace it with, “Functionally rotating five way polyamorous union currently consisting of two women, one post-operative transsexual male who self identifies as a lesbian and two bisexual men.”

Wow, look at all the politically correct masses lining up to decry the obvious absence of stability in this one — oh wait, ya… Never mind.

Isn’t political blindness correctness entertaining? It can actually maintain a straight face as it determines that this dude who, (Fat or not) has a pretty good chance of living for the next two decades, offers a less stable home for these children then the above…

Yep, clearly it’s all about the children…

Libertarian thought has been right here all along: Governance should always be handled by the lowest order of organization capable of managing it — because as soon as it rises above that level, it’s taken over by ideologues and nitwits who really should be told to just crawl back down their holes and shut up…

Steve McVey:

“When Jesus said that the Scripture in Isaiah had been fulfilled that very day, He was revealing that He was the personification of the anointing of God. The anointing has come to us in the person of the Anointed One! Because Jesus Christ lives inside you, you have everything you need to do anything that God has planned for you to do! Paul wrote that, In [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete (Colossians 2:9,10). If Jesus Christ lives in you, everything you need to succeed in life resides within you. You have need of nothing else. God’s grace within you is the anointing you need to accomplish everything He has planned for you. Grace equals enablement! You have miraculous, supernatural, God-given, enablement. That sets you apart from others whose dreams depend on their own ability. The early church grasped this fact and accomplished miraculous results. The same is possible for you. John reminds us, ‘But you have an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). Notice that he doesn’t say you still need it, but that you have it. He further notes, ‘As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you (2:27). The word here means continue to be present and not depart. In Jesus Christ, you already have all you need to have to do all that you need to do to accomplish God’s plan for your life. Do you understand your ability? Like the anointing of Aaron, you haven‘t been given a small dab of ability. It just isn’t His nature to give sparingly. When He gives, He really pours it on! You are drenched in divine ability to do all that He has planned for you to do.”

We often think we do not see miracles very much anymore. Is it because we are doing things in our own strength rather than allowing Him to work through us? May just the Divine in us show.

6 Reasons to Drink Green Tea:

“6 Reasons to Drink Green Tea The steady stream of good news about green tea is getting so hard to ignore, that even java junkies are beginning to sip mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You’d think the daily dose of disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants — long linked with heart protection — would be enough incentive. But wait . . . there’s more! Lots more. “

This is from Dan Allender’s book — The Healing Path — which I read years ago. (One of my clients was just so incredibly gracious as to type out and email me the key part this evening…) It’s been the foundation of my thinking with respect to activism for years.

What are the basic principles of the world? They are the lists of dos and don’ts that rule most every social engagement and establish the boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They are the conventions of respectability that announce you as a full member in good standing or, in their absence, mark you as a philistine, a poseur. Whether we are in third grade, at a trade convention, in the foyer of a church, or on a tennis court, we hate to wear the wrong clothes, say the wrong thing, or be dismissed for being different.

We all know that the rules are seldom (if ever) written and announced. The most powerful rules are unstated and assumed. We long to fit in. We feel awkward when we are outsiders and shame when we were once inside but now are no longer accepted. What gets us in and keeps us inside? Following the rules – approving of those who are impeccable in their performance, viewing with derision those who are not. As long as we align ourselves with the power base of whatever group we wish to enter, we receive the benefits of membership and avoid the liabilities of being a stranger. But as Christians we are called to follow our father Abraham and by faith depart from our country, class, race, subculture, and family. We are to be in the world, but not wage life according to the basic human principles that determine good and bad, in and out.

“In but not of” requires we belong while always retaining an awareness of our first loyalty. Does this involve a “leaving” that calls us to give up our very identity as constructed in the matrix of citizenship, class, race, subculture and family? Yes. Does loyalty to Christ call us to be prophetic and disruptive to every group and person with whom we engage? No. We are called to a particular time, place, group, family, and person. Without an ability to enter the world of the particular others God has placed in our lives, however, we will never gain access to disrupt them and offer them a taste of the bounty of Christ.

We should strive to “fit in” almost every way that gives us access to those we are called to love, but without ever buying into the basic rules required to be a full-fledged, 100-percent, card-carrying member of a particular group. We should never blindly support any group or person – no matter if what brings the group together is a theological flag, moral issue, counseling orientation, or church denomination.

Why? There is something wrong with every culture and group, and to affirm any as the basis of identity and the substance of life is to find a home rather that to live as a sojourner.

In my mind, this is one of the most eloquent declarations of war ever written.

It’s a covert war — a guerrilla war — of the highest order. Its mission, to infiltrate every aspect of society, to learn its ways, to understand how it thinks so clearly that you appear to be one of them — while always waiting for the moment to strike a lethal blow destroying the fabric of evil that places the minds and hearts of its members in bondage.

Its goal? No, it’s NOT to make them stop sinning. Its goal is to replace their legalistic bondage with that which terrifies both religion and society equally: a double punch of real live intimacy with the living God and the all-inclusive liberty He died to make their inheritance.

Oh ya — reread the above. What is Dan implying is its first target? That’s right — so called, “Christian culture,” and the rest of what passes as the Church.

What if Starbucks marketed like the church???

It’s nausea inducing — and it’s starkly true.

What is even more disturbing is that this video is itself actually a marketing tactic for a company that MARKETS CHURCHES called BeyondRelevanceDotCom. (No, I will NOT provide a live link to them…)

I’m not sure which is more nauseating…

Perhaps, instead of marketing churches, we could fix them so they don’t need to be marketed??? Perhaps we could actually introduce people to a Life Changing Power so dramatic that their friends will want to come and see? Perhaps we could look at the mess that makes up the church and the broken hearts that cause such so that it’s real love that greets people as they walk in the door?

Unless this is an admission that it can’t be done — that both this company and the churches it works with really are permanently beyond relevance and marketing is their only hope…

(In that case, we really have a problem because it’s not like the general public hasn’t already figured out that if you need to market it, it’s likely garbage…)

Got this emailed to me today — and I have to post it.

…Is there anyone in our midst who pretends to understand the awesome love in the heart of the Abba of Jesus that inspired, motivated and brought about Christmas? The shipwrecked at the stable kneel in the presence of mystery.

God entered into our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable glory but in the way of weakness, vulnerability and need. On a wintry night in an obscure cave, the infant Jesus was a humble, naked, helpless God who allowed us to get close to him.

The Bethlehem mystery will ever be a scandal to aspiring disciples who seek a triumphant Savior and a prosperity Gospel. The infant Jesus was born in unimpressive circumstances; no one can say exactly where. His parents were of no social significance whatsoever, and His chosen welcoming committee were all turkeys, losers and dirt-poor shepherds. But in this weakness and poverty the shipwrecked at the stable would come to know the love of God. The shipwrecked at the stable tremble in adoration of the Christ child and quake at the in breaking of God Almighty, because all the Santa Clauses and red-nosed reindeer, fifty foot trees and thundering church bells put together create less pandemonium than the infant Jesus when, instead of remaining a statue in a crib, He comes alive and delivers us over to the fire that He came to light.

The shipwrecked at the stable are the poor in spirit who feel lost in the cosmos…finding it not only tacky but utterly absurd to be caught up either in tinsel trees or in religious experiences. They have been saved, rescued, delivered from the waters of death, set free for a new shot at life. … what are the shipwrecked saying? Let go of your paltry desires and expand your expectations. Christmas means that God has given us nothing less than Himself. Don’t order just a piece of toast when eggs Benedict are on the menu. Don’t come with a thimble when God has nothing less to give you than the ocean of Himself. Don’t be contented with a ‘nice’ Christmas when Jesus says, ‘It has pleased My Father to give you the Kingdom’. ..Anything connected with Christmas that is not centered in Christ Jesus–tree, ornaments, turkey dinner, exchange of gifts, worship itself, is empty gesturing. Blessed are the shipwrecked for they see God in all the trappings of Christmas and experience a joy that the world does not understand.

Don’t be so preoccupied with the purity of your heart. And once you’ve turned to Jesus, don’t turn back and look at yourself. Don’t wonder where you stand with Him. The sadness of not being perfect, the discovery that you really are sinful, is a feeling much too human, even borders on idolatry. Focus your vision outside yourself on the beauty, graciousness and compassion of Jesus Christ. The pure of heart praise Him from sunrise to sundown. Even when they feel broken, feeble, distracted, insecure and uncertain, they are able to release it into His peace. A heart like that is stripped and filled–stripped of self and filled with the fullness of God. Holiness is not a personal achievement. It is and emptiness you discover in yourself. Instead of resenting it, you accept it and it becomes the free space where the Lord can create anew. To cry our, ‘You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord’ that is what it means to be pure of heart. And it doesn’t come by your Herculean efforts and threadbare resolutions. Simply hoard nothing of yourself; sweep the house clean. Sweep out even the attic, even the nagging, painful consciousness of your past. Accept being shipwrecked. Renounce everything that is heavy, even the weight of your sins. See only the compassion, the infinite patience and the tender love of Christ. Jesus is Lord. That suffices. Your guilt and reproach disappear into the nothingness of non-attention. You are no longer aware of yourself…even the desire for holiness is transformed into a pure and simple desire for Jesus.

For the shipwrecked, becoming a little child means accepting oneself as being of little account. When Jesus tells us to become like little children He is urging us to forget what lies behind. Children have no past. Like little children the shipwrecked don’t bring the baggage of the past into the stable of the present moment…the single most important consideration during the sacred season of Advent is intensity of desire. An intense inner desire is already the sign of His presence in our hearts. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit. The only explanation of why the shipwrecked exist is the personal magnetism of Jesus and only he who has experienced it can believe what the love of Jesus is. You could more easily catch a hurricane in a shrimp net than you can understand the wild, relentless, passionate, uncompromising, pursuing love of God made present in the manger. The shipwrecked preserve the meaning of Christmas in its pristine purity–the birthday of the Savior and the eruption of the messianic era into history.

by Brennan Manning

Think about it — no, meditate on it. It’s the Gospel in it’s most straight and simple form — so simple, in fact, that Evangelical Christendom usually misses it entirely. It’s not a cute little prequel to a morality tale — it’s the savage annihilation of any lie that told you that the God of the universe could ever do anything but love you. It’s the God of the universe laughing at the idea that you could ever do anything about what separated you from Him and the the cosmically insane plan He hatched to make sure nothing in the universe could ever separate Him from His kids again.

If you’ve ever wondered if anyone out there wants you, you have your answer.

Steve McVey:

“The new Christian who has all along been glorifying Christ through his behavior without even thinking about his behavior now stops focusing on Christ and starts focusing on his behavior. The face of Jesus fades into the background and a list of religious rules emerge as the focal point of the new Christian’s life,”

This is a good brief article on starting in faith as you began. Our continued victory can only be received by faith not by following rules. In marital conflict when feeling powerless/blamed/afraid/shame and needing control. Wait, relax, vent to Jesus, and focus on His control/power/blamelessness/promise to make a way through grace, in us believers. Give truth, after receiving His perspective when it can be heard/let it surface, in us believers.

Steve McVey:

” know you’re expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase.”

This is an excellent commentary on the role of conflict/protection in the Good News. Father make it crystal clear to all of us.

Steve McVey:

“it is only when you understand how deeply you are loved that you will be released to pour out agape on others. 1 John 4:19 says ‘we love because He first loved us.’ We don’t just love Him for that reason. We love everybody for that reason. When my grandchildren visit our home and dip their beach pail into the Gulf of Mexico, the pail can’t contain the Gulf so the water spills over the edge on every side. That’s how it is when we have received God’s love. It’s just too much for us, so everybody around us gets wet too. This is where grace becomes practical. When we have fully experienced the loving grace of God, we will faithfully express it. As He is, so are we in this world. Jesus loved. He loved the down-and-outers (the Samaritan woman) and the up-and-outers (Matthew). He loved the unrighteous (Zaccheus) and the self-righteous (Saul of Tarsus). He loved the rogues (Peter) and the religious (Nicodemus.) He loved the horribly immoral (the woman taken in adultery) and the highly moral (the rich young ruler). Jesus just loved. He said, ‘I and my Father are one’ (John 10:30). He shares the same DNA as the One who is love. What else could he do? “

This is an excellent reassurance that unconditional grace will motivate/move us, especially to love as Jesus.

Steve McVey:

“As Jesus said, the greater our understanding of forgiveness the greater the love. The obstacle that most people have trouble getting past in accepting the reality that all their sins have been forgiven is the idea that future sins could already be dealt with, even before we commit them. I remind you though that when Christ died for our sins, He died for all of them and we hadn’t even been born yet. If Christ could take every sin we would commit upon Himself at the cross before we had committed a single one of them, why couldn’t he forgive them in the same way? He can and He did. Your sins are forgiven. Not just some of them, but all of them. What if every sin of our lifetime is already forgiven? What difference would that make in how we lived from day-to-day? I can tell you the difference: it would free us to take our eyes off ourselves and put them on Christ and on others. It would deliver us from self-consciousness and sin-consciousness. The fact is that our sins have all been forgiven. That won’t cause anybody to run wild. The Apostle Paul answered that objection when he said, ‘If all this about grace is true, does that mean we just sin like crazy because we know it’s all covered by grace?’ He answered his own question, ‘God forbid! How can we live in sin if we have already died to it? Or don’t you understand that every one of us who have been placed into Jesus Christ were with Him when He died? The reality is that when somebody dies, they are free from sin and we died!’ (See Romans 6:1-7) We can relax when it comes to the fear that grace will cause people to sin. It won’t do that. Instead it will cause those who understand the scope of forgiveness to love Jesus more and to take their eyes off themselves and live freely in grace.”

This is an excellent discussion of the looming question, fear of license, and vision for us. May it be so.

Grace Walk Resources – Company Info:

“Each member of the Grace Walk team has a passion to share the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, not only for salvation, but for daily living. We have each experienced the bondage of legalism but have been transformed by coming to understand our identity in Christ and what it means to walk in grace. Consequently, He has given us a burning desire to see the body of Christ growing in grace as well.”

This in an excellent introduction to the discussion.

Steve McVey: March 2008:

” all our sins have been paid for (see Colossians 2:13-14); why would the Holy Spirit call our attention to them now? Hebrews 10:1-2 says that when we know we are cleansed, we lose consciousness of sins. Make no mistake about it. Your sins have been put away. What the Holy Spirit does when we now sin is to convict/convince us of who we really are. He shows us that we are able to live like the righteous child of God He has made us to be. He motivates us to live like that and, in the process, we will abandon the sin that caused us to stumble in the first place.”

This is an clear explanation of the reason we do not call attention to sin. We let Jesus tell us who we are really are now with Him inside us and the truth.

Steve McVey: March 2008:

“Let’s face it – the grace walk so contradicts the way many of us grew up believing was the right approach to the Christian life. It may even contradict what we’ve believed up until this moment. So, when the Holy Spirit ‘starts messing with’ our belief system, it’s a little scary. After all, we’ve lived in the security of our beliefs for a long time and to have somebody come along putting forth views that contradict what we have believed is unsettling. We don’t want to be led astray and besides that, grace is downright scary after living in legalism for a lot of years. It’s scary for one reason: it leaves us totally out of control. We can no longer be in charge of our Christian walk, knowing that when we do this, then that will happen. In other words, we stop being able to control things, including God. And nobody likes that on the front end. “

This is an empathetic article on the fear with the Spirit challenges us about the truth of our beliefs. May He allow us to rest that Jesus is in control. The try harder/rededicate yourself approach doesn’t work, only Jesus/His Finished Work is the answer.

Steve McVey: May 2008:

” The sails on the boat can be a metaphor for our lives. The wind (Christ’s Spirit) must fill us in order for us to move forward toward our destination. 2. The tell-tales let you know when the wind is moving across the sail in the most efficient way. The tell-tales in our lives are joy and peace. When Christ animates our lives, these will both ‘line up’ together. 3. Sometimes one tell=tale will be horizontal, showing that the wind is moving across the sail in the best way at that place, while another tell-tale will be jumping around in every direction -showing that part of the sail isn’t getting optimum wind flow across it. It is possible that we are appropriating the sufficiency of Christ in one area of life, yet still may need to submit another area of life to Him. 4. Sanctification is the ongoing work of the spirit (wind) increasingly showing us areas that we still can yield to His control (the tell-tales showing how the wind can be trimmed for maximum efficiency). “

This is an excellent illustration for understanding what it means to do something in our own strength. I pray we sail through life’s challenges.

Steve McVey: September 2008:

“I put this online a long time ago, but enough time has passed that I want to use it again. What do you see? This sketch has been around since the late 1800s. It’s a picture of both an old woman and a young woman, depending on your perspective. If you’re having a hard time seeing both — the necklace on the young woman is the old woman’s mouth. Beneath the necklace of the young woman is the old woman’s chin. The ear of the young woman is the old woman’s eye. (If you can’t see it from those descriptions, it’ll take divine revelation for you to see it The Lord spoke to me through this picture a few years ago when I was struggling with a situation that looked very ‘ugly’ to me. He showed me that it wasn’t the picture that needed to change. What needed to change was my perspective. Since that time, the situation that I initially thought was ugly actually turned into something I see now as beautiful. Our Father’s plan is often not to change our circumstances, but to change how we see and respond to those circumstances. “

This is the timeless illustration of the way we can see things according to the physical/flesh/law/sin or the spiritual/love/appearnace of sin/Jesus. I pray we always see ourselves/other/the world according to Christ’s, and His victory from the cross. May God allow us to rest/stand in our righteousness of Him in us and not on our own.

GV July 2007:

“Christians are those who have become one with God through Jesus Christ. Everything in our lives is intimately associated with Him through our relationship to Him, thus making it sacred. Because Christ lives through you, all that you do becomes sanctified (made holy) because He is the One doing the work through you.”

This is an excellent definition of a Christian! I pray we genuinely show it. It also talks about what sanctification really means to a believer.

GV Jan 2008:

“Control freaks – that’s what we all are when we try to be in charge of our own lives. God never intended for us to be in control. Controlling things is His role, not ours. ‘My life is out of control!’ people have tearfully said to me at times in the counseling office. What they really meant was ‘My life is out of my control and I don’t like it!’             Imagine a baby holding a pair of new shoes in his hands. He is playing with them and happy they belong to him. His parent reaches down to take the shoes and put them on the child’s feet. All the child sees is that his shoes are being taken out of his hands. He doesn’t like it. He wants to control them and keep them in his hands, but he will never walk in them that way.             The parent takes the shoes from the hand of the child and the baby begins to cry. He is overwhelmed with anger, confusion and regret that his shoes are being taken from him. He screams. He kicks in protest. He is losing control of the thing he loves and wants to hold. He doesn’t understand what his parent is doing. But the parent understands and does what is necessary to enable the child to walk – whether the child likes it or even understands.             The goal is to enable the child to enjoy the shoes to the fullest by walking in them. The parent knows that if the shoes are used for their designed purpose, the child will truly benefit and not simply be amused by them.             Only a baby thinks the highest pleasure is to hold them in his hands. He doesn’t see the whole picture. So the parent overrules the baby’s wishes and does what is needful. Eventually the child will understand. When he does, he is thrilled, and more important than that, he walks. Do you want to walk? What are you holding onto that you need to release? Let it go. God knows what He is doing.”

This is an excellent article for parenting and dealing with the crisies of life. I pray for this rest and openness to genuinely let go of our way after working through the emotions individually/together with others.

The New Yorker

But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection.

The gulf between sexual belief and sexual behavior becomes apparent, too, when you look at the outcomes of abstinence-pledge movements. Nationwide, according to a 2001 estimate, some two and a half million people have taken a pledge to remain celibate until marriage. Usually, they do so under the auspices of movements such as True Love Waits or the Silver Ring Thing. Sometimes, they make their vows at big rallies featuring Christian pop stars and laser light shows, or at purity balls, where girls in frothy dresses exchange rings with their fathers, who vow to help them remain virgins until the day they marry. More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse.

The stats just keep rolling in — Evangelical shame and Catholic guilt once again just doesn’t seem capable of arresting the misplaced human teen’s longing for love. Whatever shall we do???

Perhaps that might be a reason to offer it to them some other way — like maybe just being fathers and mothers to the fatherless and motherless???

Or, we could just launch another purity ball instead…

LiveNHim:

“You don’t need to have a kind of ‘in your face’ grace approach exclaiming your freedom to those who ‘just don’t quite get it’. Now, there may be a time where you do need to take a stand on God’s grace and freedom in the church, but I’m talking everyday life here. The general rule of thumb when it comes to personal relationships with those who do not understand God’s incredible gift of grace for living is simply more ‘grace’. What does that look like? We’re to act ‘in love’, even to the point of refraining from a freedom we think is perfectly fine to protect our relationship with other believers. It’s a humble, accepting and encouraging approach to those who might differ with us. Limiting your freedom on behalf of another is not a compromise of grace but more a sacrifice of love. Allow Christ to love through you…at times, it will be a sacrifice.”

This is a great article on extending grace when we differ about our beliefs.

LiveNHim:

“God gave us an incredible gift in the human body and brain. Every action, thought, desire is recorded on the human hard drive of the brain. The ‘old self’ or nature is dead (that’s what happens when you get crucified…you don’t typically recover) and you have been raised up a brand new self or nature. Those old desires, habits and behaviors have been recorded and can and will resurface…that broad term ‘flesh’ or old ways of thinking and behaving will set its desire against the Spirit but the truth is, you are ‘dead’ to that stuff! There is no real power to make you act or think in the ‘old way’, in fact, quite the opposite. You have the omnipotent power and Life of Christ in you to think and live a brand new life. “

I agree with the majority of the article I see “choice” as openness to it. Believing is not works. I pray He gives us all His understanding of it.

reportonbusiness.com

It’s the beginning of the end for Windows Vista.

Today, Microsoft Corp. kicks off its marathon pitch about life after Vista, and even though the next evolution of Windows won’t be ready until 2010, at the earliest, the company doesn’t think it’s too soon to start prepping for a bug-free launch.

Otherwise, despite the fact that Windows’s toughest challengers – Linux and Apple Inc. – remain bit players in the operating system game, Microsoft risks suffering in the arena of public perception, again.

The world’s largest software company will speak publicly for the first time today about what’s in store for the next evolution of Windows, dubbed Windows 7, at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

Ok, let me just say what so many are thinking: “Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God!!!!”

Enough said…

mdolla.

Here’s a new [prayer] machine [that] can be found on the streets of Orlando.

I just don’t know why but it kinda reminded me of something…

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:5-6)

We still just don’t get it…

Understanding the Inspirational Personality Type : Lifetime Guarantee Ministries:

“Personality Traits Ambitious Charger Confident/Determined Intuitive Persuasive Spontaneous Adaptable Responsible Flesh Type & Traits (Over-bearing) Pushy/Ready-Fire-Aim Domineering/Intimidating Egotistical Restless Insensitive Undisciplined Over-bearing Can’t say no”

This is a fascinating personality chart. We are to encourage the personality/spirit and ignore the flesh traits. This is because sin does not come into play anymore, beyond the fact it just brought death in the first place. May it be so.

What is of paramount importance is the content of what truth is:

“With my wisdom firmly placed in Him, I can enjoy fellowship with others who are in Him and who may understand some truth differently than I do. I can desire to know the ‘what’s’ and the ‘why’s’, but be at rest. I can also live perfectly at peace with my lack of knowing. I no longer expect of myself or others to understand all about ‘truths’. Jesus, who I am ‘in’, understands it all. This is what abiding is about. My life does not independently contain all that it needs to live. The truth is in Someone else- Jesus.”

This is an excellent brief article on searching for truth, but also being at rest not knowing until it is revealed to us. May it be so for us.

globeandmail.com.

“There are millions of people around this world praying to their god – whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah – that his [McCain's] opponent wins. … And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens.” – Arnold Conrad, pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church, delivering the invocation at a John McCain rally in Davenport, Iowa, last Saturday.

You know, some articles nearly say it all — the once strong and vibrant God of Evangelicalism clearly is now barely surviving, on life support and down to His last best strategy — saving the world (or at least his own branding rights) through a trigger happy fighter pilot and an even more trigger happy moose hunter. (And, apparently, He might not even be capable of pulling that one off given that the public has finally figured out the moose hunter is also more then just a bit of a dimwit…)

Back in their day, the Roman Catholic response to Protestant heretics was to burn them at the stake. Surly some of the technology involved was documented or there is at least some expert in the Catholic Church who could be freed up to lend us a hand for a few days… This has now become an emergency — somehow we’ve gotta cleanse the Evangelical gene pool before this order of ignorance reproduces…

Abiding:

” second reason we do not understand abiding is that our humanness does not want to. The heart of abiding is dependence. Dependence is the mortal enemy of self (our flesh). Our flesh screams out against dependence. We like the idea of improving ourselves ‘for’ God. We are drawn to ways that increase our strength, wisdom and abilities ‘for’ Him. This is why we can not relate to Paul when he says, ‘Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Cor. 12:10) We long for love, acceptance, value and identity; but we want it the old fashioned way- we want to earn it and deserve it. You can not understand the concept of abiding (let alone live in it) until you are willing to recognize that living the Christian life is not about you getting better or working harder. As Christ said, ‘you must deny yourself’. You living the Christian life, in fact, is impossible. You must be convinced that only Jesus within you can live the Christian life.”

This is an excellent article on resting in our completeness because of Jesus rising from the cross. We can be at peace. May it/this, His wisdom be so for us.

Libertarian Party of Canada:

“There are many generous Canadians who give to charities they are most concerned about, even now with high taxes. Think of the possibilities for giving in a society with extremely low taxation. People are concerned about providing for their own families and living responsibly and they need to be free to make their own decisions with their money. Most people in our daily lives are good most of the time – otherwise society wouldn’t function – we trust people enough as equals. However, the more power we give to others, the more skewed things become. As Lord Acton said, Power corrupts.”

Although I do not agree with everything this party stands for in Canada, it does seems to promote the freedom Christ died to give us.

Philosophy of Ministry:

“he Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.’ It is interesting to me that when referring to his life before Christ, Paul said, ‘as to the Law found blameless’. In describing his life as a believer, he said, ‘For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do but I practice the very evil that I do now wish.’ “

It offers a good compilation of the verses of the real reason for the law.

HURRICANE KATRINA, MEANS OF JUDGMENT OR OPPORTUNITY FOR HOPE:

“d not the death of Christ deal with the root cause of sinful behavior:  sinful hearts?  For me, a pat answer of God’s judgment merely raises many many more questions. We are tempted to be deceived into believing that grace is too light on sin.  However, my heart yearns to testify that it is true grace alone that exposes sin for the subtle dead lie that it is.  Apart from grace, sin is limited to negative-looking behaviors.  Apart from grace, we are tempted to see the need for more of God’s judgment, in addition to the cross.”

This is an excellent article on allowing God’s trust in us because of the 100% sufficiency of Christ as our life. May the Lord replace our fears with the revealing of His security/courage/peace/Finished Work.

A TALE OF TWO MIRRORS:

“ven though my new mirror did not yet need cleaning, I still tried different things to dress up the frame out of habit. After trying everything to dress up the frame, one day I sought to clean the mirror.  Surely the mirror needed cleaning by now. So, I peered into my mirror, saw my reflection, and reached to clean the surface of the mirror…and to my amazement… …to my utter amazement, the mirror had no surface, nothing to separate me from my reflection, and… …and I…I…I touched the face in the mirror!  It was then when I realized I had touched the very face of Jesus!”

A TALE OF TWO MIRRORS:

“ven though my new mirror did not yet need cleaning, I still tried different things to dress up the frame out of habit. After trying everything to dress up the frame, one day I sought to clean the mirror.  Surely the mirror needed cleaning by now. So, I peered into my mirror, saw my reflection, and reached to clean the surface of the mirror…and to my amazement… …to my utter amazement, the mirror had no surface, nothing to separate me from my reflection, and… …and I…I…I touched the face in the mirror!  It was then when I realized I had touched the very face of Jesus!”

I had a miraculous experience reading this revelation article!!! I increasingly deeply felt Jesus as my heart!!! It was as if I could feel more of the revealing of my healing/the veil being removed!!! May it be so for all believers.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:

“don’t understand much about the ‘why’ of this tragedy, but this I do know: God makes a person brand new in order to give him the life of His Son…and Christ’s life is sufficient for any situation! During this national distress, we will be tempted to do something to appease God’s wrath and to reclaim His favor.  But the truth is that Jesus Christ has already borne ALL of the Father’s contempt for sin and ALL of His divine judgment on the cross…for us!   God loves and adores each of His children by His amazing grace, not by what we do. ”

This is good brief article that highlights one of the defining moments of our history and our/Jesus response to it. May God reveal it to all.

ONE IOTA OF DIFFERENCE:

“Adam and Eve fell for the temptation to believe Satan’s one iota of a difference regarding the truth about God, and as a result, a division resulted between man and his relationship with God.  All of us inherited this division, this separation.  Jesus the Truth came (John 14:6) to eliminate that division by exposing all iotas in order to make us one in relationship with God (John 17:21). Believing little iota changes in God’s truths can subtly and significantly impact my relationship with God.  The following table presents some examples from my life.  Most often the difference is only one word.  God’s revealed truth nurtures my genuine communion relationship with Him.  However, just a little iota of difference in the truth tempts me to view myself as separate (divided) from God…tempting me to relate to Him as a separate Helper rather than my intimate Life.  When I fall for this temptation, stolen from me is the joy of experiencing the intimacy (oneness) that my relationship with God really is.  The undivided truth sets me free to genuinely, not religiously, relate to God and others (John 8:32, 36).    THE ONE IOTA OF DIFFERENCE   A temptation that steals the joy of my fellowship with God The truth that reveals the joy of my fellowship with God Foundational Biblical Truths God wants me to do good. God wants me! Jesus said, ‘If I am lifted up from earth, I will draw all men to Myself’ (John 12:32). I’m on fire for the Lord. I’m on fire with the Lord! You are light IN the Lord. Walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). I just hope for the best. I already have the best hope! The Lord Jesus Christ IS our hope (1 Timothy 1:1).”

This is a great article on the importance of truth rather than the temptation to trust a lie! One is doing it in our own strength the other is just Jesus as the truth of our heart. I agree we do not strive for victory. However I believe we rest in Jesus the victory in us. Our identity is not that we are sinners. We really are saints because Jesus is our heart and that He rose on the cross. We have Him as our new nature. I pray we know it as believers.

My Personal Psalm 23:

“…I shall not want (lack). I used to fall so short in my self-efforts to achieve goodness and happiness (Romans 3:10-12). But now the Lord has given me His righteousness as a gift (Galatians 2:20-21) and His life as my joy (Galatians 5:22, John 17:13). I am now complete in Christ and, therefore, I lack nothing (Colossians 2:9-10)!   He makes me to lie down in green pastures… God makes me lay down my self-efforts (Philippians 3:8).  The pastures where I then rest are lush green, and full of life (John 15:5). God nurtures me there in my true identity and life in His dear Son (Romans 8:16, John 6:51).   …He leads me beside the still waters. God then leads me to a quiet place to assure me of the finished work of His dear Son through the cross for re-creating me (Galatians 6:14-15). He leads me beside still waters to show me my reflection is now a reflection of Christ Himself (2 Corinthians 3:18)!    He restores my soul. This truth restores my soul (mind and emotions).  God turns my focus from temporal things to the indwelling eternal life of Christ (1 John 5:11-13). My mind is being renewed and my emotions are being healed by beholding the glory of His presence (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:20-24).   He leads me in the paths of righteousness…  God delights in ordering each of my steps (Psalm 37:23)… the unique ways Christ expresses His life through me (Colossians 1:29). Christ leads me in His righteous paths, not an external guide, but as my very life (Colossians 3:4).”

This is an incredible personal interpretation of the most common reading of the Bible at funerals for comfort/peace! It reveals we have so all of His LIFE/spirit in us if we just allow it show and not try. I pray we let Him have this control of our lives.

John Fischer

We’ve got to do something about Jesus. Tone Him down somehow. Make Him fit more into our idea of twentieth-century spirituality. Maybe it’s these new translations that are causing the problem. King James’s English kept Him comfortably distant, slightly removed from reality; but the new translations make Him appear so . . . well, so cringe . . . human.

If He was really human, then we have a big problem — then we, too, have to grapple with our humanity. Oh no, please Anything but that. Save me. Heal me. Sign, seal and deliver me, but don’t make me deal with real life. Don’t tell me my everyday is a spiritual experience. Let me keep my spirituality separate from my humanity. Let me keep it in nice, neat devotional compartments so I don’t have to think about how I live.

That’s what is beginning to bother me about Jesus. He was so normal. Take His first miracle as a case in point. He kept a party going. He saw the wine was giving out, so He changed 180 gallons of water into wine. It almost looks like He enjoyed people having a good time. That’s downright unspiritual. Christians aren’t supposed to be at parties like that in the first place, much less providing the wine. I’ll bet people were even dancing. This is very disturbing.

Another quote from one of my favorite heretics…

UNION WITH CHRIST:

” However, God doesn’t just want to help me! J  Oh how He wants to live through me in the life of His dear Son to minister to others (Galatians 2:20)!  These two attempts (at-temptations!) at ‘living’ are based on the subtle deception that I have a separate identity from Christ – that I have something in me that can do something of real value.  I do have a unique personality, but it is truly manifested only when Christ lives through me. ”

This is a good brief article on doing in our own strength vs Christ doing it through us. I disagree with the interpretation of the OT verse.

Michael Moore.

“I’m giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use ‘Slacker Uprising’ in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It’s completely free — I don’t want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it’s to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words — it’s yours!”
- Michael Moore

Ok, love or hate this guy, you definitely have to watch it.

BEHOLDING CHRIST:

“true transformation comes not by doing anything, but only by beholding Christ.  Trust Him to reveal what this means.  Following  is my personal paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 3:18: Your need for striving by the law has been removed!  You are now free to be intimately one with Christ!  Look in the mirror.  When you see your face, see also the face of Christ!  It’s true!  I don’t understand it either – we will spend eternity savoring this!  So as you behold Christ now, you will be transformed on the outside to what you are completely like on the inside!  And because all of this is by grace through the Spirit, and not by your works, God is glorified.  Wow!  ”

These are fantastic one one-liners to encourage resting/not doing anything in our own strength.

YOU LISTENED TO ME:

“Our ears are the foundation of any true ministry in the body of Christ if we realize…He listens through us. I’m free!  Jesus is now real to me and to others I listen to, because for one brief moment in time…you listened to me. “

This is a fantastic article on the true Counsel/Love/Grace/and Truth

A One-Word Sermon: “Paul”:

” it doesn’t matter if I make a good name for myself or a bad name for myself in this world… it just doesn’t matter one itty bitty witty bit!  All that matters in all the heavens and the earth is that by grace Christ has already made a name for me, and a name for you.  Each of us have already been made new creations in Christ…we have been made real, yes genuine, through Christ alone (Galatians 6:14-15). Whew!  I no longer have to strive to make a name for myself.  I am free to be who I really am all because of what Christ really did for me and who He really is in me.  Paul.  Yes, I love that name because it is permeated with the genuine, fragrant life of Christ!”

A good small article on God’s acceptance (self-others) because of His work.

TRUE HEALING:

” But Jesus never physically healed anyone to healing sakes.  His healing was always for His sake…to reveal the reality of His divine life — the only true life there is and ever will be. I believe the primary focus on our preconceived idea of physical healing can subtly tempt us with the lie that we are not complete.”

An excellent brief article on the revelation of the risen Christ in us for our greatest good. God’s life can still bless others regardless of our physical condition. I pray we believe it.

BROKENNESS:

“Brokenness is the loving work of God as He uniquely strips each of His children of his or her self-sufficiency so that the beauty of Christ’s life shines through.  Isaiah 33:17 promises that ‘Your eyes will see the King (Jesus) in His beauty.’”

I very good brief article on the meaning of “doing it in your own strength.”

USATODAY.com.

Now there are 1.1 million copies in print and, two weeks ago, FaithWords, a division of Hachette Book Group, signed on as co-publisher with Windblown. Hatchette agreed to a 500,000-copy press run in June and a national campaign in the secular market in July.

The Shack's success has changed Young's life — a little.

He no longer works three jobs running a manufacturer's sales office and working on websites. Kim still works at Gresham High School as a baker, but she's driving a new Honda. They've moved from the tiny rental house, where he wrote The Shack in the windowless basement near the washing machine, to a bigger rental nearby.

Holding hands and beaming at one of their grandchildren, the Youngs say they'd be fine if the money vanished tomorrow.

"Mack is me, a guy who has made a mess of everything," Young says. "The book takes him outside everything familiar, back to the worst experience of his life and lets him recognize God is so much greater."

Yet, as McVey, the minister from Tampa, says, "This pure grace of God has always divided people."

Mohler, Driscoll and other evangelicals pick The Shack apart plank by plank.

No, God can't be a presented as a woman. No, the three parts of the Trinity did not all become fully human. Yes, there is a hierarchy in the Holy Trinity with God the Father in command. Yes, God will punish sin.

Young shrugs them off. Out there in America, where only three in 10 people attend weekly worship services and millions are ignorant of the Bible, his readers struggle to find a good God amid their pain.

As for critics, he shakes his head.

"I don't want to enter the Ultimate Fighting ring and duke it out in a cage-match with dogmatists. I have no need to knock churches down or pull people out," he says.

"I have a lot of freedom by knowing that you really experience God in relationships, wherever you are. It's fluid and dynamic, not cemented into an institution with a concrete foundation."

"But it's not about me. I have everything that matters, a free and open life full of love and empty of all secrets."

I have not read this book but I have it on order. I just discovered I didn’t waste my money…

Let’s do a brief assessment: Love of God? Check. Grace of God? Check. Freedom? Check. Fundamentalist Evangelicalism hates it? Check. The author has such freedom in the love of Christ he’s not even bothering to fight his critics? Check. Yep, it’s gotta be good.

It’s always easy to identify quality. It’s got a clear message of the heart of God — and the, “Dogmatists,” are tearing it apart. They are not tearing it apart because of the message of grace, love and freedom though — that message they claim to espouse (though their hearts are so far from it.) No, they are tearing it apart because, as a novel, it doesn’t rigidly chant a chapter and verse based perfect literal orthodoxy in telling that story and getting its point across.

The same critics that have ignored the thousands of theological inconsistencies in the allegorical work of, oh, I donno, say C.S. LEWIS!!!!!!{SIGH} Clearly they hate the message — but lack the guts to say so…

The Local

A church minister from Stockholm has been charged with assaulting his wife after an amorous threesome spiralled out of control, Metro reports.

(Note — thank the editor for the spelling on this one…)

Just a few simple questions: Why is it that we seem to only get honesty about what actually happens in the lives of the clergy via the press? Think there’s any possibility that the system they live under (and try to inflict on their parishioners) only causes hiding — rather then transformation? Maybe the hiding is actually causing the shattered nature of their lives? Think there’s a better way?

Now, if we could just figure out a way to put up with real people in the pulpit — oh ya…. nevermind…

Attack ad targets hot dogs as cancer risk:

“Their report last November said eating 50 grams a day of processed meats for several years increases colorectal cancer risk by 21 per cent. That equals about one hot dog a day or two deli slices of bologna or five slices of bacon. The duration of daily consumption linked with that higher risk is uncertain. Colorectal cancer was diagnosed between three and 19 years after the studies began, but participants could have been eating processed meats for years before that, said dietitian Karen Collins, nutrition adviser with the American Institute for Cancer Research, a group that analyzed the studies. For a U.S. adult, eating one hot dog daily for several years would increase the average risk of getting colorectal cancer, which is 5.8 per cent, to 7 per cent”

a good clear article

Hujonwi’s Place

Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness. We seek your direction and your guidance. We know your word says, “Woe to those who call evil good.” But that’s what we’ve done.

We’ve lost our spiritual equilibrium. We have inverted our values. We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We’ve exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We’ve neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, oh, God, and know our hearts today. Try us. Show us any wickedness within us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of the State of Kansas, and that they have been ordained by you to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule. May their decisions direct us to the center of your will. And, as we continue our prayer and as we come in out of the fog, give us clear minds to accomplish our goals as we begin this Legislature. For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Ok, I just had this once again forwarded to me. It’s time for a response:

You could put it this way:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says that if we, in your name, rebuild what Christ destroyed, then we make Christ into, “A minister of sin,” but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values such that the things that matter the least now seem to matter the most.

We have stood in our systems of ethics and called it holiness.

We have stood in our systems of judgment and called it wisdom.

We have stood in our systems of control, and called them propriety.

We have ignored our call to teach others to hear Your voice so we could instead exploit them, and then called it respect for Divinely appointed authority.

We have created a Body of Christ that lives in dread of You, and called it the fear of the Lord.

We have created a system of public humiliation and rejection unto conformity instead of the love based transformation God really intended, and called it purity in the Church.

Then we have taken the illusion of real results from that broken system and used it to moralize against and sideline the leaders You put in power for not being like us, rather then loving them as You command.

Forget searching our hearts God — we already know we are Pharisaical and WE LIKE IT THAT WAY!

Yep, let’s hail this guy and send his prayer all over the internet. All he did is spew out the same little talking points the Evangelical right has been pounding for the last 50yrs — and forever alienate him from those who he should have been befriending and loving in such deep ways that their hearts changed. All this when he CLEARLY already had an open door there. Bravo!!!

Note: The effectiveness his, “Prayer,” was immediately apparent — a significant number of Legislators walked out in protest during it.

globeandmail.com

His own research has concluded there are five foundations, or systems, that people use to construct their morality.

These foundations can be compared to five colours on a palette. Liberals tend to rely only on two, while conservatives tend to use all five.

The first two, favored by liberals are:

Harm: whether someone is harmed or harm is reduced.

Reciprocity: whether something is fair and treats people fairly and justly.

The rest, which only conservatives give weight to, include:

In-group: whether something betrays the group.

Hierarchy: whether something is respectful of authority and superiors.

Purity: whether or not something is disgusting.

In a sense, liberals are color blind to conservative concerns because they tend to paint problems in terms of only the first two daubs on the palette: whether things decrease harm and increase justice, fairness or autonomy.

Conversely, because conservatives evaluate issues in all five colors, they tend to put less emphasis on the first two.

“It’s as though there are five wavelengths and liberals only perceive two of them,” says Prof. Haidt, who is writing a book on morality called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

The above article will seem strangely off base for the first part of this post — but bear with me:

The conversation always sounds something like this:

Comment: More and more people are leaving our church. The numbers are remaining stable as inflow is roughly matching outflow but so few people last here. It seems we have become a place for new believers to come to Christ and then leave for other churches — or long term believers who have had it with the bricks and mortar church to stop over as they leave for the, “Emerging church.” All of them report the same problem: They are sick of the legalism, moralizing, shame based control and judgment, they believe there is nothing remaining here for them and are leaving to find a deep and personal spirituality and a relationship with Jesus. Why can’t we do something about this?

Response: Well, you know, here at First ‘Whatever’ Church we are definitely a community of grace but we have always had trouble with our small groups. It seems we just have not found the right small group pastor who can really connect with the needs of the people here but, when we do, you are going to see our church just explode as people stay here and make it their church home.

Say WHAT?!?!?!?!?

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. It’s like the conversation is being carried on in two different languages — yet everyone imagines that they hear clearly. It’s not like the above absurdist conversation is even news to anyone outside of the ivory towers of die-hard-fundamentalism, but it doesn’t seem to be changing either. Why?

A quick perusal of Emerging/Emergent church blogs suggests one possibility — perhaps the hearts of the bricks and mortar church leadership are simply so blinded by evil they can’t see the damage being done? It’s more then possible that applies to a few — but I doubt it covers the majority. I know too many full tilt lovers of Jesus who also can’t seem to think outside of the above box.

Others have simply suggested that it’s just a changing of the guard and we should fan the flames of it happening — let the institutional Church die. Again, at some level that could have truth in it. Clearly some denominational structures desperately need to die for there is just nothing left of Jesus in them — but that’s hardly the majority either. As ugly as it often is, the institutional Church is NEEDED to continue the conveyance of foundational ideas forward to the next generation.

However, possibly for the first time in history, we are dealing with an astounding monoculture of institutional church spanning nearly all denominations (Yes, including Roman Catholic and the Protestant Cults) that many see as so far off that they doubt it can convey much of anything useful to the next generation. The result has been the largest transnational exodus from the church ever recorded (other then the historical country limited example of France — Thank-you Jesuits) when one factors in both percentage and speed of departure. If it is going to communicate, then it seriously needs a revamping… Problem is, Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church is widely regarded as disinterested in even listening anymore…

The article above suggests a different possibility: Perhaps it’s a language barrier. Perhaps the distinction that the above author is applying to liberal/conservative lines also applies to Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church divisions from the Emerging/Emergent Church. If so, perhaps there is a road map for some sort of conversation there — if that’s the only problem…

Much of the Emerging/Emergent Church is profoundly pragmatic in nature. They are concerned with issues of social justice, incensed about the abuse of the poor and the violation of the rights of those who can not defend themselves. They care little or not at all about authority, superiors or whether or not anyone feels that their little fiefdom is offended. They are remarkably similar to the liberal designation — though it is without a doubt that the Emerging/Emergent Church is really quite orthodox in theological position and probably a fair bit more educated in such.

The Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church is profoundly concerned with group order, authority, the issue of sin/offense and it gives only some acknowledgment of social justice or the pain of those who endure such. While, like the Conservative designated above, they do acknowledge all five points, they differ in how little the social issues seem to be on the agenda except in so called mainline churches (i.e., United Church) that really do not fit the definition of orthodox at all.

It’s not an exact parallel but the resemblances are striking. The trick is going to be somehow managing to make the translation:

Can the damage of shame based control and the abuse of religious power be framed in terms of respect of authority?

Can a judgment and fear based Gospel ever be painted in terms that would actually be understood by the Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church as disgusting?

Can the neglect of the (oh so sinful) broken and wounded ever be framed as the betrayal of the in-group?

The above three points don’t seem impossible — but they would require a remarkable increase in Scriptural knowledge, a reclamation of ability to personally hear the voice of God, some profound transitions in theology by the Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church and a global information effort by the Emerging/Emergent Church to drown out modern reconstitutions of the Moral Majority.

In the fourth point lies the problem: While the theology is being tackled (to only name one of many) by Bob George, the increase in knowledge is being addressed by Brennan Manning and the ability to hear the voice of God is being tackled by Rev. Brad Jersak, the Emerging/Emergent Church simply isn’t organized. The phenomenon is happening — but no one speaks for it, is leading it or seems to even care about taking the job. In part, the decentralized nature of it is both WHY it’s happening — and why it’s silent.

Apparently, that’s the job of the internet for it seems to be the only place where the Emerging/Emergent Church even seems to bother speaking… But, is the Bricks and Mortar/Institutional Church even represented there? Is there a large enough population in the Bricks and Mortar church that can even understand a blog-roll generated Google page-ranking as an equivalency to a peer review or the comment section as a credible form of intellectual debate? Is that why it appears that no one is listening?

Is THAT cultural divide practically insurmountable?

Associated Press

Yearly estimates allow better recognition of trends in the U.S. epidemic. For example, the new report found that infections are falling among heterosexuals and injection drug users.

Some experts celebrated that finding, saying it’s a tribute to prevention efforts, including nearly 200 syringe exchange programs now operating in 36 states despite a federal ban on funding for such projects.

But they also lamented the CDC’s finding that infections continue to increase in gay and bisexual men, who accounted for more than half of HIV infections in 2006. Also, more than a third of those with HIV are younger than 30.

Every time you hear the claim that this is a disease that is everyone’s problem, remember the above stats: A social subgroup that represents less then 3% of a population account for more then 50% of the infections of HIV. While the experts insist that it’s not a problem of the gay community, they also see their primary means of reducing the infection rate in the heterosexual community being needle exchange programs.

They are not admitting the numbers of those on the heterosexual side that are infected through needles — neither are they separating out spouses who are infected by a partner they wrongly assume is heterosexual and monogamous. I suspect that if we factor the above in, we actually cut the heterosexual infection rate at least in half.

So many times we hear stats saying things like, “The greatest increase in infections has been seen in the heterosexual community among women.” Trouble is, we don’t stop to think about them. If you have already saturated one group, then you will always be able to claim percentage of growth in the other is high — even if it is actually microscopic in terms of the whole. (There are lies, damned lies — and then there are statistics…) The reality here is that it’s unsafe anal sex (Now just termed virus chasing) and IV drug use that is still in the driver’s seat of HIV.

“Obviously,” it’s then time to launch an ad campaign aimed at heterosexuals and based on race to scare them about AIDS…

Whether more funding comes or not, the revised estimate clearly is a “wake-up call to scale things up,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, who oversees CDC’s prevention efforts for HIV/AIDS.

Some said more attention needs to focus on prevention among blacks, who account for nearly half of annual HIV infections, according to the new CDC report.

Yep, apparently political correctness is still alive and well in the CDC…

Typology of Clergy Who Engage in Sexual Misconduct

• PSYCHOTIC & SEVERE BORDERLINES
  Impulsivity due to poor controls; sexual contact due to bizarre belief systems or theories; poor social judgment concerning actions and words; may have variety of sexual targets. Some related cases are:
  • MANIC STATE (especially when previously diagnosed; stopped taking medications)
  • ACUTE PSYCHOSIS SECONDARY TO DRUG REACTION (e.g. steroids)
  • ORGANIC/NEUROLOGICAL PROBLEM (e.g. tumor)
    
• SOCIOPATHS & SEVERE NARCISSISTIC CHARACTER DISORDERS
  Self-centered, gratification-oriented; sexual acting out varies considerably; good at manipulating & getting out of trouble; no concern for harm to others
  
• IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDERS
  Longstanding, ingrained impulsiveness, with or without substance abuse or addictions; sexual issues may be primary or secondary
  • SEXUAL IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER
    Full range of diagnostic categories including pedophilia; sexual or aggressive needs being met by actions
  • GENERAL IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER
    When sex is not the major area of acting out, but one area of abuse (e.g. Character Disorder)
    
• SEVERELY NEUROTIC AND/OR SOCIALLY ISOLATED
  Typically overly involved with clients & parishioners emotionally; sexual contact develops secondary to emotional involvement; however, this can become a repetitive pattern
  
• MILDLY NEUROTIC & SITUATIONAL BREAKDOWN IN OTHERWISE HEALTHY PERSON
  Having ruled out more serious pathologies and deficits, in these situations with a single victim and remorseful offender, the situational factors and timing appear to have played a major role — Rev. Marie Fortune calls these people "wanderers"
  
• UNINFORMED/NAIVE
  Having ruled out pathology and deficits, a lack of training and good organizational structure and supports appear to be the basis for boundaries crossings which set the stage for the involvement; this must be a non-predator, and the explanations cannot be rationalizations, excuses, or justifications; there should be remorse; sometimes person has a distorted view of the professional helping relationship or pastoral role and does not distinguish it from friendship

This is an exceptionally well thought out list of the underlying mental and emotional issues present in those who abuse. While targeted at ministers engaged in sexual misconduct (Admittedly an overwhelmingly large and growing subset) it would be a waste to limit it to this specific behavior or specific group.

The problem of abuse is present wherever there is the presence of power. Wherever a person is granted tacit authority over a person’s life (By virtue of age, God, science or whatever), there exists the possibility of abuse. When the person/position granted that power tends to operate without any meaningful societal constraints on his or her behavior, then that position or role will tend to attract those who desire to operate in darkness. It will attract the above personality types.

The functioning of the early Church demanded accountability. The difference is, they demanded it on a far deeper level:

Gal. 2:11 ¶ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
Gal. 2:12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.
Gal. 2:13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
Gal. 2:14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
Gal. 2:15 “We are Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles;
Gal. 2:16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.
Gal. 2:17 “But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!
Gal. 2:18 “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
Gal. 2:19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God.
Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
Gal. 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
Gal. 3:1 ¶ You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
Gal. 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Gal. 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Gal. 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain?

They didn’t demand accountability at the level of naughty behaviors — they demanded it at the level of surrender to the intimate Grace and Freedom of the Gospel. They demanded that at least her leaders if not also her members stand in a relationship of profound intimacy with God and in isolation from a set of rules that would put them back under the system of judgment that previously condemned them.

While, on the surface, this demand would appear to actually create the exact behaviors that were problematic through giving license, it doesn’t. When a person is captivated by an intimate life of, To quote E. Peterson’s Message translation, a life of, “What’s next Papa,” (Romans Chapter Eight) their life, by very definition, can not be dominated by shame and fear. Shame and fear are the core of most of the non-chemical personality issues and the deepest core of the last two (The ones they don’t seem to be able to figure out).

The irony is, most of our social groupings (Evangelical and otherwise) today have it precisely backwards: We tend to look at the crimes of lust and gossip in a person’s life and condemn them (Or at least call them to account) for such. We then look at the ways they are attempting to control others, inflicting the same shame and fear that drives their own hearts on them and/or demonstrating the personal conformity to the rule of law Paul took Peter to task over and we regard it as a little slip up in an otherwise righteous life. We define it as righteous because it does not exhibit the lust (or whatever) crime we feel is so bad.

Then we wonder why the world wide Church will probably pay out well over a Billion (Yes, you read me correctly) dollars by the end of this decade in compensation for sexual abuse alone, we wring our hands and we lament over why it was never stopped. The answer is simple — we forgot about what really matters.

But, that’s hardly the real tragedy — the real one is that spiritual abuse and other missuses of power often leave much larger bullet holes in a person’s heart then a clearly definable violation like sexual abuse. And, they are so much more common.

John Fischer – Chapter 33

Fear of Dancing

The Spirit of God dances. He can’t be tamed. He won’t be contained. He refuses to be confined to a weekend retreat, an evening meeting, or even a moment of devotion. He doesn’t follow schedules, programs, or agendas, and He doesn’t wait for His name to be called.

The Spirit of God dances. He dances right under the noses of those who don’t believe in dancing; and He dances right on by those who do. He dances through the assemblies of the keepers of the dance, and right on out the door — and no one sees Him go.

And as the dancers continue the empty steps of their pantomime, the Spirit of God dances on out into the streets. He dances by the harlots in the red-light districts, by the victims of AIDS in lonely homes, by bag ladies in the inner cities, and by struggling farm families across the plains. He finds the orphans and widows and dances through the lonely pain of their lives. He dances through the camps of hungry children, through the crowded streets of the oppressed, and past the wire where the South African woman is hanging out ragged laundry as well as by the scrubbed white faces sitting in church in the nearby city.

Sometimes the dance turns to mourning, but always there’s the dance. Happy dance or sad dance….the Spirit of God always dances.

His favorite dancing places are those where the keepers of the dance don’t want Him to go: on MTV, on drive-in movie screens, or on smoky stages with microphones that smell of whiskey. The Spirit of God loves sinners and dances best where life spills out on the floor.

Occasionally He dances on the clean, sweet-smelling stages of the keepers of the dance — but not as often as He would like. He dances there when the keepers need Him: when there is pain, whenever life spills out on the floor. But usually the floor is clean and the dance is simulated, carefully choreographed by the keepers of the dance to use only those steps with which they feel secure.

The Spirit of God refuses to be choreographed. His dance is raw, new, and jerky. It’s not always pleasing to the eye, but His dance is fresh in the lives of human beings whose floors have not been cleaned up. It isn’t well-rehearsed, polished, or perfect; it slips and slides, sometimes innovative and shocking and at other times just exhilarant, but it’s always real.

Most people, even those who pride themselves in their dancing, are afraid of this spontaneous dance. They’re afraid of anything they can’t control; and His dance is wild, unmanageable, even mad. But most important, it’s vulnerable, open to criticism — the quality they fear most. So they must create their own dance of predictable steps and prescribed routines and send all their people through dance school — or outlaw dance altogether.

But this should come as no surprise. It has always been this way. The Lord of the Dance himself was here once, and it was the same way then. He danced on the keepers’ holy days and broke their holy laws. His timing — if not His whole dance — always seemed offbeat. He turned the tables on their dance in the Temple as He led a solemn dance of respect through their lighthearted nonchalance. He rode along Palm Drive atop a donkey at the head of the greatest hosanna dance ever.

He wanted to turn their empty religious movements into heartfelt, joyous dancing. He wanted them to exchange the grip of the Law for the freedom of the dance. But they thought He was a clumsy dancer, always bumping into their traditions and stepping on their pious toes. He even danced with the wrong crowd, in smoke-filled rooms and on messy floors.

Once He described His generation and declared, “We played the flute for you, but you would not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ ”

No, nothing’s really changed . . . but the Spirit of God dances on.

This has to be one of my favorite quotes of all time — especially these two lines:

He dances through the assemblies of the keepers of the dance, and right on out the door — and no one sees Him go. And as the dancers continue the empty steps of their pantomime, the Spirit of God dances on out into the streets.

He wanted to turn their empty religious movements into heartfelt, joyous dancing. He wanted them to exchange the grip of the Law for the freedom of the dance. But they thought He was a clumsy dancer, always bumping into their traditions and stepping on their pious toes. He even danced with the wrong crowd, in smoke-filled rooms and on messy floors.

Chris Sligh – Empty Me – Lyrics

Empty me of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition and the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me so I can be filled with you.

Imagine you and your husband/wife gave birth to a little girl and you loved her dearly. You held her, cuddled her, you taught her to walk, you repeated things over and over to her so she could talk and you even spent endless hours feeding her obvious desire to draw and paint such that she became a rather accomplished artist.

But then, that fateful day came when your little girl, with face downcast, walked up to you and said:

“Mommy/Daddy, I suck. I’m really an awful person. I think I’m totally filled up with evil, disgusting and terrible qualities and there’s not a thing good in anything I have ever painted. Mommy/Daddy, could you please erase me and make me like you?”

Would your heart break? Would you move heaven and earth to find psychological help for her? Would you tell her in no uncertain terms that you thought she was fantastic, wonderful and totally amazing and that you loved her just as she is? Would you want to strangle whoever it was that planted that thought in her brain?

So then, exactly what is it that makes us imagine that the God who created us exactly as He wanted each of us to be, loved us enough to die for us and moved the gates of hell to give us a new, pure and washed heart would see us singing our Evangelical self-centered-contempt in the form of, “Worship,” songs in any other way?