Isn’t it strange how secular society seems to get the Gospel so much better then the Church does??? We seem to only get this:

So much that the rest of society seems to be down on their knees screaming:

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican’s representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is “more correct” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,” said Tomasi. His statement is backed up by a report commissioned by the US bishops that found that in the overwhelming majority of cases the clergy involved were homosexuals, with 81 percent of victims being adolescent males.

Ok, I’ve been waiting weeks for someone to finally go public with this reality: it’s not often I find myself supporting much that comes out of the Vatican — but this is brilliant — and, perhaps, hope for change…

(Yes, I fully recognize this guy is gonna get roasted alive for sheer political stupidity — but it’s not like I can’t relate to being such a driven truth-teller that I end up looking like a bull in a china shop myself. Yes, I realize that the latter part of the article is a whiny and pathetic attempt at deflection — but HE’S STILL TELLING THE TRUTH in the first part.)

Here’s what he is saying:

Accusing the Roman Catholic clergy of Pedophilia is actually letting them off the hook. The majority of the offenders are really gay and, in addition, they seem to lack the ability to relate even to other adult gay males.

Let me translate that for you:

The RC Church has, through celibacy, created a situation where men who struggle with sexual orientation seem to be inordinately selected for the clergy. It selects them simply by creating a place where they easily find that their lack of desire for members of the opposite sex will not come under scrutiny and will even be applauded.

But, it’s beyond even that…

The RC Church, through a system of alienation from normal society, has also created a situation which attracts those who are unable to properly relate to adult sexuality.

Ephebophilia is an attraction to adolescents or people in puberty. By itself, it has NOTHING to do with gays, or even men. Thus, what is really happening is that the RC Church has created a system which not only selects for Homosexuality, it also further down-selects for those who, largely, could only see themselves as exercising such towards 11-16yr old boys (and, thus, do not simply ignore the rules of the RC Church and have sex with other men.) In other words, a very rare breed indeed.

Ok, first, let’s get a few things on the table:

(1). His popeliness is in this — and in it up to his eyeballs:

The future Pope Benedict XVI took over the abuse case of an Arizona priest, then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood, according to church correspondence.

Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that in the 1990s, a church tribunal found that the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., had molested children as far back as the late 1970s. The panel deemed his behavior — including allegations that he abused boys in a confessional — almost “satanic.” The tribunal referred his case to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005.

But it took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.

As abuse cases with the pontiff’s fingerprints mushroom, Teta’s case and that of another Arizona priest cast further doubt on the church’s insistence that the future pope played no role in shielding pedophiles.

An abuse hotline set up by the Catholic Church in Germany melted down on its first day of operation as more than 4,000 alleged victims of paedophile and violent priests called in to seek counselling and advice.

The numbers were far more than the handful of therapists assigned to deal with them could cope with.

In the end only 162 out of 4,459 callers were given advice before the system was shut down.

Andreas Zimmer, head of the project in the Bishopric of Trier, admitted that he wasn’t prepared for “that kind of an onslaught’.

(3). In the first article, the following statistics were published:

The vast plurality of Protestant churches in the US, numbering more than 224,000, including thousands of independent non-denominational groups, make the kind of organized tracking and recording of individual abuse cases as was done in the Catholic Church all but impossible. Nevertheless, some of the sex abuse cases in other religious communities have been documented piecemeal.

In June 2007, the Associated Press revealed that three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in the US said they receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., which insure 165,495 churches for liability against child sex abuse, emphasized that their figures did not always specify which cases were against minors and added that not all allegations were followed by convictions or even investigations.

National surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies, has also issued a report that found that child-abuse allegations against American Protestant churches averaged 70 per week since 1993, with a slight downward trend starting in 1997. The same report also found that among Protestant churches, volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers.

Basically, the 70 per week number is meaningless headline mongering as no insurance company in the world would touch that sort of risk and 3 of them obviously have. But, we can trust the 260/yr figure — the insurance companies in question have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy of those statements.

Of the approximately 350,000 churches in the US, only 5 per cent are Catholic. If we use the same reporting period (52yrs) the Catholics are using, scale by capita (in other words X .5) and then use 40% of that number to separate the actual numbers of Protestant clergy/staff abusing minors from volunteers/parishioners, we end up with a per capita comparison of 2740 : 10,667 of Protestant to Catholic abuse victims or 389% higher rate of abuse by Catholic Clergy. Protestant circles apparently have, per capita, even less VICTIMS then the RC Church has ABUSERS!!! (And few abusers only abuse once…)

The RC Church can rant all they like about this not being a problem of celibacy — but, apparently married people seem to not score as homosexuals with ephebophilia anywhere near as often as the celibate…

In other words, It’s already a huge problem, it’s been suppressed from the top and the lid (judging from their call center crash) is about to blow off of thousands more victims. There are only about 400,000 Catholic clergy worldwide. “1.5-5 percent” is not much of a defense – it’s actually a completely damning figure. Their own numbers really mean 6,000-20,000 abusing priests world wide — the majority of which their own stats say they have done nothing about. The occurrence of homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia in the general population is a tiny fraction of that. Honestly, if the Vatican decides to sell stock, I wouldn’t be buying any for the next few decades as the payouts are going to be mind blowing…

But, here’s the interesting part of all this — the hope inducing part:

For years, the general public has been screaming for the RC Church to do something about the problem of Pedophile priests. And, the RC Church has been responding with statements about how it is unfortunate that positions of power attract Pedophiles and with statements about plans for addressing that problem (And real action). That’s blatant denial. It’s the equivalent of saying: “We have a weasel problem in our hen house and all of our chickens are getting eaten. We need to erect an electrified bear fence to keep out large predators.”

What this rather whiny but still highly placed Vatican leader is really saying here is that the Church finally gets it, is admitting it and, hopefully is going to do something about it. Now, what is going to be interesting to see is if they attempt to put in place some band-aid screening test for homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia or if someone at the top is finally going to grow a set of them and admit that the only sure way to select for non-homosexuals who are attracted to and can maintain healthy sexual and romantic relationships with adult members of the opposite sex is to make sure the priests are married — you know, kinda-sorta like Paul’s idea…

It’s not like we DON’T know that around 20% of them are already married and doing just fine… (Which, by the way, makes that 6,000-20,000 number all the more extreme…)

The actual transcript of what he had to say:

“It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.”

There’s two aspects of this that grab me:

(1). Once again, a clever marketer uses the insulted outrage of Evangelical mouthpieces to make himself millions — and they still are too dense to figure out they are being used.

(2). He’s so dead right.

You know, here’s a mind blowing, revolutionary and never-before-thought-of idea for the entirety of Christendom: How about we take this guy’s advice? Let’s stop doing our required whining to make these people money, stand up and tell the truth about what it means to be free to really live the life Christ died to give us and then get in the faces of the religious right that would continue to preach a gospel of rules or raw stupidity (Or just kowtow to this silliness) and cease living lives of reactionary humiliation.

You know, sorta like that Jesus guy did???

Can you imagine if Jesus actually showed up for that service? The first-century Galilean apocalyptic radical is somehow transported through time and space ala Bill and Ted’s phone-booth, and he can understand English and has a social context for the gathering “in his name”…I imagine him fashioning a whip and driving people out of their seats saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of retards.”

Hopefully, after his mini-sermon Jesus mounts one of the mimes and beats him into submission… ’cause that would be awesome!

Ok, a client just gifted me this site today. My abs and throat already hurt from laughing and I’ve only been at it for 1/2 an hour.

What Evangelical Christendom most desperately needs is another 500 sites like this — sites run by people who stand up in what the true prophetic calling of Christ and His Church really is: the call to truth in the face of that which is SO overwhelmingly and pervasively, yes, “Retarded.”

Then, just maybe, the general public will start waking up, cut off the funding that keeps these people on the air and demand a real relationship with the living God.

Some very scary s**t is going down in Texas. Scarier than usual. “Repent Amarillo” is a rabid group of religious nuts—homegrown religious extremists of the conservative Christian variety—and they’re not just going after the gays.

But, then again, Pat Robertson is actually starting to look rather normal, sane and on page with Jesus — at least when compared with, “Repent Amarillo,” where ministering the love of Jesus now includes stalking and terrorizing swingers in Amarillo, Texas (until the group disbanded) — and now is about erasing the Episcopalians…

Ya, getting them all fired is certain to bring the gentle, kind and love starved swinging community to the real love of Jesus and the healthy community of believers they so deeply need…

The American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum Tilly, the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal:

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” Exodus 21:28

However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture, But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time,

“the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” Exodus 21:29

SeaWorld has no plans to execute Tilly.

And, we all hoped they would learn from Pat Robertson/Haiti…

But, I for one vote for it… but, they have to stand in the tank while throwing the stones…

Steve McVey:

“‘My feelings were aroused for him’ (5:4). That happened to us all when Jesus swept us off our feet and we trusted Him.

Don’t think it irreverent to view Christ in a romantic way. He is the One who calls us His bride. He is the One who wrote to us in terms of passion and romance. We simply respond to Him. ‘We love Him because He first love us’ (1 John 4:19). We didn’t initiate or set the pace for this relationship. He did. We have simply responded to His irresistible charm, affirming by faith, ‘My beloved is mine and I am His’ (Song of Solomon 2:16)! Like every new bride, our profession of faith in Him is nothing less than the thrilling realization that, ‘I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me’ (7:10, emphasis added)!

I didn’t imagine the idea of the dance as a literary metaphor to describe your relationship to Him. That is how He described it. In Zephaniah 3:17, the Bible says, ‘He will exult over you with joy’ (emphasis added). Strong’s Concordance defines the word ‘exult’(sometimes translated ‘rejoice’) in the following way: ‘To spin around under the influence of a violent emotion.’

One character quipped, ‘I grew up in a church where we were taught that premarital sex was wrong because it might lead to dancing, and now you tell me that the Lord dances over me??’ It’s true, He does. The love of Jesus Christ for you is not just a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ kind of love. It is a love filled with passion. It is a love that caused your Prince Charming to wield His sword (of the Spirit) and fight the dragon (the devil, see Revelation 12:9) for you!

His love for you is great! One might say that the love of Jesus for you could be X-rated, not because of impurity, but because of intensity. Does that idea make you feel uncomfortable? It shouldn’t, because He really does love you with an intensity beyond human comprehension. You are the pearl of great price for which He paid everything He owned in order to possess you. (See Matthew 13:45-46)

I pray this love for us/clients/schools/the world in all our intimate relationships, especially receiving it from our Father/Mother God.

“Relax, and enjoy your journey. Rest in your Father’s sovereignty. Your life is an adventure, planned and performed by Him. We grow weary when we try to do what He alone can do. It is through our trials that He will lift our controlling need to be in charge. We must see that we are not in charge, but God alone determines and controls the unfolding of our destiny. Control is an arena for which we are not suited. Our Father, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for that role. So let go. Lay down your life for His sake and you will find it. Cling to your own life and you will lose it. Zoe (an authentic, abundant life) is yours. Don’t forfeit it for bios (biological life, mundane existence). If that is your deep desire, join in heartfelt agreement with this prayer: Father, move in me and through me to lay down my agenda and my control and trust You alone. Thank you that You will complete the work you have begun in me. I yield my circumstances to You and ask You to teach me to trust You more through all of it. Bring me to maturity, according to Your plan.”

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL ARTICLES!!! I PRAY WWHEN WE, OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, CLIENTS, SCHOOLS, AND WORLD FEEL BROKEN HEARTED THAT WE REST to feel content in all circumstances according to HIS PLAN.

” until we receive glorified bodies, we each possess the power of indwelling sin in our bodies. (See Romans 7:21-23) As we trust Christ at each moment, His life empowers us to walk in victory. However, when we fail to depend on Him, we yield ourselves to the power of sin.”

The is a very good article on God revealing healing. However it needs to be read in light of Jesus taking away sin and it’s power by us being open to it/Him by faith. May it be so that we depend of Jesus every moment to experience the victory.

“hen we feel nothing, God’s grace shines brightest. It’s one thing to trust Him when everything is going our way, but when circumstances close in on us, trusting Him is evidence of supernatural grace flowing through us. Do you find yourself not feeling the ‘joy of the Lord’ the way you want? If so, be assured you’re at a place where the current of grace can run deeper and wider than usual in you. Whether you feel His presence or not, just trust Him. Be assured that He knows the path you are walking and He is quietly walking it with you. Cling to Jesus and know that the Sun will shine again for one simple reason – Great is His faithfulness.  ”

I pray the spirit would teach us/the world the comfort of His grace in our painful times.

At least nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, says a new report. And premarital sex isn’t new — the high rates include the sexual habits of women born in the 1940s, challenging the idea that sexual behaviors used to be more restrained.Sex has apparently become something of a young American habit. “It’s hard to stop the evolution of that urge,” said Judy Kuriansky, a sex therapist, media personality and adjunct professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.The report, published by the private Guttmacher Institute in New York, challenges the thinking behind government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

So to summarize, everyone is having premarital sex. All the Christians are having premarital sex too — even those subjected to purity balls and purity rings. In fact, it matters not at all what race, sex or religion the persons hold, they are all having every sort of sex and the only reason they are not having babies all over the place is that, in spite of the US government and abstinence education, more and more of them have figured out contraception.

Oh ya, and 5% of Americans apparently lie on anonymous surveys about having sex…

“Do you say too much, too often? If so, pray for God’s grace to flow through your actions in such a way as to cause you to know when to say nothing and then enable you to do it. Sometimes grace never looks better than when it enable us to simply shut-up.  ”

This is a great article! After being frustrated with not being able to communicate and completely know the truth of Jesus taking away our/the world’s sin now, I told God. He said I do not have to say anything, IT IS JUST HIS SPIRIT!!! “Well then Spirit teach and enable me/other believers to sense when to Shut Up!!!”

On Wednesday, an Ottawa official named Athanasios Hadjis quietly announced that section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, popularly known as the hate-speech law, will no longer be enforced.

The law prohibits the transmission on telephone or Internet of “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” on the basis of “race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted.”

Mr. Hadjis is an adjudicator with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which rules on discrimination cases. While he is not a judge, and therefore can’t strike down a law, he is the main gatekeeper for the hate-speech law, and his decision was bold.

“I have concluded,” he said, that the law is unconstitutional under 2(b) of the Charter of Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought, opinion and expression. As a result, he declared that “I will simply refuse to apply these provisions” to the hate-speech case he was judging, and by extension to any future cases.

Suddenly, the place known as the public sphere looks very different. For the past three decades, Canada has tried to keep it clean and neutral by preventing the appearance of the sorts of words and images that are linked to discriminatory actions. Kathleen Mahoney, a University of Calgary law professor who advocates such laws, boasts that Canada has more laws limiting harmful speech than any other country.

But there is a strong sense, even if Mr. Hadjis’s decision is overturned by the Supreme Court, that the era of hate-speech laws is coming to an end.

First, in practical terms, hate-speech laws have failed. Attacks on people based on religion or skin colour remain rare but occasional crimes in Canada, but their prevalence hasn’t been affected one way or another by outlawing hateful speech.

So very seldom does anyone connected to anything of government manage to get anything right, even the slightest touch of reason deserves to be applauded. But this, this is so far beyond just a touch of reason!!!

The psychology under it is actually very similar to claims of school uniforms eliminating gang violence in schools. If you actually look at the violence stats before and after the requirement of uniforms is in place at an institution, you find the exact same levels of violence — but no one can identify if a perpetrator of violence was a gang member or not. Thus the violent act is simply listed as violence and not attributed to a gang.

Laws intended to stop the speech of those who are inherently criminal will do almost nothing to arrest their behaviors (and it is almost always the behaviors that pose the threat.) All silencing them does is hide them from view. The problem is that, then, those same laws are used to also silence those with no criminal intent.

If there is ever a set of otherwise useless laws that have been used to suppress truth and cancel debate, it’s hate laws. They have been used to fine religious leaders speaking out against abortion. They have been used to destroy therapists who would treat politically correct disorders some do not want healed. They have been used to force religious institutions to hire those who do not support their views and they nearly canceled the degrees of hundreds of teachers who believed homosexuality should not be promoted. That’s not the elimination of hate — that’s reverse discrimination — politically correct hate against those who would stand in the public square and speak..

Personally, I WANT every wack job, hate monger, lunatic and predator to have the right to stand on the public street corner of the internet and shout their vile proclamations at the top of their digital lungs. It’s when your enemy goes silent that you know you are in trouble anyway and I WANT to know exactly where the problems are…

I want to watch them stand there toe-to-toe with every other idea and have to defend themselves from all the other people now free to speak and/or call them idiots…

I also WANT the ranks of the politically correct to have to stand up and defend the oh-so-sacred ideas they hold dear (Because I’m gonna to enjoy watching a lot of them start looking pretty silly..)

By some miracle, even the human rights commission agrees that we’re finally big enough boys and girls to be able to talk to each other — or at least have the right to go make some popcorn and watch the fireworks go down.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire

Voltaire APPLAUDS

Christian parents who objected to their children being taught about other religions in a mandatory new Quebec school course have suffered a serious setback with a ruling this week that the teachings do not infringe their religious freedoms.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Guy Dubois dismissed a bid by parents in Drummondville, Que., who said the course on ethics and religious culture introduced across the province last year was undermining their efforts to instill Christian faith in their children.

“In light of all the evidence presented, the court does not see how the … course limits the plaintiff’s freedom of conscience and of religion for the children when it provides an overall presentation of various religions without obliging the children to adhere to them,” Judge Dubois wrote.

Step #1: Schools and the governments that back them all over North America throw their lot in with secularization and toss religion out of schools. The backing belief is that our society needs freedom of religion — and such freedom demands a secular state that supports all religions equally and promotes none of them.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You have taken God out of the classroom and our children are becoming secular humanists.”

Step #2: Those same school systems and governments realize that religion is a critical part of society and the ability to understand those religions usually means less killing of the members of such. As such, they introduce a fair and balanced program that promotes none of those religions but simply teaches the facts about them.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You are indoctrinating our children with other religions…” (Then they sue the school board…)

Step #2: Judge comes back with a well reasoned response saying that learning about world religions is not the same thing as promoting them — and tells them to go away and shut up.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You are infringing on our rights to form our children’s faith development and we’re gonna sue you some more…”

Humm, so, let me get this straight: The only way a free society which values general human rights can avoid treading on your specific rights is to teach every student in every school only about your religion… Thus, your snowflake’s little minds can remain properly ignorant I mean pure, undefiled and Godly.

Sounds to me like the veil just got ripped back on a plan for a totalitarian theocracy — not the freedom Jesus died to bring.

It may actually be rather pivotal though… We finally get the chance to see Fundamentalist Evangelicalism and Catholicism admitting their hatred of that freedom and acknowledging what they really wanted all along:

Control.

Pivotal, because at least truth provides a foundation for change…

“As is God¡¯s customary way of working, He began to show His answers when I came to the end of myself. I had wanted Him to show me how to motivate the people. He had other plans. He had been wanting to do a deeper work in me which would transform first my own life, then my ministry. This night of despair became the doorway through which God brought me to bring me into an arena of grace like I had never known. In the days to follow the Lord began to reveal truths to me about walking in grace which radically changed the way I understood and did ministry. Before my church became a grace filled ministry, it was necessary for God to cause me to become a grace filled pastor. That began to happen as a couple of truths were deposited deeply into me by the Holy Spirit. ¡ö Christ is life, not ministry. For 17 years, if you had asked me who I am I would have answered, ¡°I am a preacher.¡± My sense of identity came from my role. In reality, that isn¡¯t who I am but is only what I do. Who I am is a child of God who shares the very life of Jesus Christ. This may sound like a minor distinction, but beginning to see myself first and foremost as a man consumed with Jesus caused ministry to flow from me in a way I had never known. Focusing on ministry produces religious activity, but understanding our union with Christ will cause one to experience an outflow of divine life. ¡ö Success comes through a Person, not a performance. I believed that success in ministry meant measurable progress. While there is certainly nothing wrong with results which are measurable, I have come to believe that real success comes as we abide in Jesus Christ and allow Him to continually express His life through us. That may or may not always produce results which look impressive. Was John successful on Patmos? Was Paul successful while in the Philippian jail? Was Jesus successful when he hung dying on a cross? God measures success differently from contemporary society. Grace Filled Churches As God continued to work the truths of this new grace walk deep into me, I began to see a change in the life of my church. As I changed, they began to change too. It wasn¡¯t unlike what happens in a marriage when God begins to do a deep work in the husband and the wife responds as she sees the Holy Spirit work in him. Church life began to be different in two ways.”

This is an incredibly inspiring article on the way motivation really occurs, esp in churches. I disagree with some of the “trying” words, but it clearly says the leader/counsellor is Jesus. May it be so for us, our families, friends, our practice and the world.

A set of resources definitely worth noting.

All but Richard Rohr are relationship focused New Covenant theologians. (Rohr is more of a mystic in search of experience but he does, to some level, get grace.)

Steve McVey is very good and I’m rather fond of hijacking his quotes — but needs to be read carefully as he still has some thinking about sin that needs transformation…

This guy should also be added to the list — thanks Kathy!

The power of Eternality:

The man/woman who stands with no fear of death is the most dangerous being alive. The entirety of the system of this world rides on the ability to take a life from another. When death ceases to terrify, control is lost.

The power of Absolution:

This world — especially the Christian side of it — stands in the constant fear of guilt. It stands with heads hung in shame while playing roles designed to prove to those who hold this weeks rating scale that they do, indeed, measure up. The teachings of Jesus have been so bastardized and bent by the keepers of religious power that it actually seems reasonable when that-which-formerly-was is again brought as a means of enforcing the awareness of our guiltiness and pinned on Jesus. But, we didn’t get a Bandaid for our sins — we, with Christ, died to them — and were raised to a new life that doesn’t relate to them. Our heads can never again hang low — because the standard which judged us (The law) can never again condemn us — no matter what.

The power of Love:

So many people live in the fear that if they ever gave God control of their lives, He’d bring out massive pain and torment (and a few plagues from Egypt too) to finally hurt them enough to change them. Yet, Jesus made it very clear that to see His heart was to see the Father. It’s a heart that will never lead through shame, fear, guilt, condemnation, coercion, punishment, torment or wrath. It’s a gentle heart that works quietly inside — when we are ready — to call us to life.

The power of Life:

Almost every aspect of our world is focused upon dying. We have drugs — they keep us emotionally dead. We have TV and entertainment to keep us distracted until we die. We have disassociative meditative techniques that are used to attain the peace of the grave while living. We run from shame, fear, guilt and the paralysis that comes from feeling trapped and bound and this drives that seeking of death. Through canceling all of that, the Gospel not only reawakens the desire to live, it legitimated the call to live and unlocked the creative energy to drive such.

The power of Freedom:

Wanna know why our bricks and mortar churches are emptying by the droves? People heard that Jesus came to set them free — and something deep within them intuitively knows that a list of rules isn’t what He had in mind. The message of the Gospel isn’t less rules — it’s TOTAL freedom. “When a man finally grasps grace, he suddenly finds himself standing, naked and trembling, in such a wide open space that he can do naught else but reach up for a hand to hold — for a guide to lead him through.” Anon

The power of Intimacy:

We can reach up for that hand to hold and that guide who will lead us through. It’s safe now. The cross is critical to this for it proved that not only is God good — but it proved that who He is IS GOOD. The human race unleashed the very worst it had to offer on the one being in the universe who could have annihilated them with a thought — and He loved them so much He let them kill Him and then came back to love them even more. To love ME even more…

The power of Faith:

Faith isn’t belief — faith is Christ in you, the hope of Glory. The Christian life has nothing to do with trying harder or trying period. It’s about surrender to that new life which has been created in you to enough of a degree that you can stop trying and literally get the hell out of the way. It’s about a surrender to a wisdom so much greater then our own that the foundations of this sick and corrupt system of control we call life begin to get blown up — not just for yourself, but also for those you love.

The power of Holy Anger:

Jesus made one thing very clear: He didn’t come to make nice — He came to start a war. The religious leaders of the day didn’t kill, “Gentle Jesus meek and mild.” They killed a guy who they could plainly see was destroying everything about their system of religious power — not trying to start the Progressive Conservative/Republican party. Then, He turned to the disenfranchised, the broken, the humiliated, the poor, the shameful, the powerless and promised them a power greater then the world had ever seen — just before he invited them to join up and open fire.

The power of Humanness:

Look around the world — every major religion out there sees human beings as basically screwed up and disgusting. It then offers it’s prescription to fix them — if people will only tow their line. The Gospel sees people as made in the image of God and, though once broken, as currently perfect without them doing anything to fix themselves. (That’s God’s job.) He came not to destroy them — but to reverse that which was broken about them once and for all. He came to make them fully human and fully alive.

The power of Transformation:

The foundational job of the gospel is to tear back the veils that keep people from seeing the beauty and dignity of the current reality of their lives. Read that again — not to fix people, for that job is already done. The primary weapon we are given is truth — the ability to tear back the lies that have the ones we love trapped in a set of falsehoods that reduce them to that which formerly was (dead) and drive them towards a set of broken strategies which will never fulfill the deepest longings of their hearts.

The power of Passion:

The magical core of the Gospel is the call to the deepest desires of our hearts. If God made those hearts and planted those deep longings within them, then those deep longings have to be His will for our lives. All of the above was NOT done because God wants to finally get you to the point of being a well-trained-seal who will do some religious dance when told. He did all of the above so you could finally reach inside and discover that deepest place of your heart where He planted the vision He created for you to become — and then full-tilt LIVE IT OUT.

The Gospel is not seen in ethics. The Gospel is first seen when a human heart, transformed so that it both is able to hear the voice of God and longs to do so, begins to reach out for the hand of a loving father and, when finding that hand, begins to take the risk to step out and live.

The Gospel achieves it’s true 10,000 candle-power brilliance when that heart reaches out and loves, it stops and cries, it gives to another, it stands in defiance of the night, it attacks with fury, it rescues the broken, it binds up the wounded, it touches that paintbrush to canvas, it places finger to string or key, it speaks with fire and precision, it screams with the fury of Almighty God at the thought of one of His precious children living with even one chain, it kisses with passion and then it makes love with with all of the erotic intensity that only a heart set free can even risk.

It’s the captivating and irresistible master plan of liberty the God of the universe, exploding out of the passionate longings of His heart, wrote for you.

“Do you need wisdom? That’s Him. Do you need righteousness? That’s Him. Holiness? That’s Him, too. Do you need sanctification, guidance, strength? It’s all Him. What do you need today? His name is IAM. I AM what? Anything you need. All the fullness of I AM is in Jesus. ‘For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him’ (Col.1:19). All the fullness of Jesus is in you. Don’t pray for what you already have. Just appropriate the sufficiency of the Christ who is living in you. You don’t have to struggle or beg for what you think you need. You already have it. Just let Jesus be Jesus in and through you. “

This is an excellent article on just resting in the grace of understanding/knowing that we have everything of Christ in us now. May it be so.

“75 Ways To Say ‘Good Job!’”

Excellent article!

Some quotes just stand on their own.

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.

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…

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 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.

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.

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 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

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?

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…

“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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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]

“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.

“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 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…

“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.

“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.

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.

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…)

…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.

” 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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.