September, 2020

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#Disgusting#Ending

Wednesday, September 30th, 2020

I’ve decided to end my discussion of the following book with this post. First, I am not sure it serves much good in reviewing this book. While many who are involved in the church in a more “official” capacity might find the book important, I’m not sure the “rank-and-file” folks will. Those who read here seem to be more of the latter. Second, I found a much better and much more concise review here. Tim Challies is a much better writer and analyzer than I am. So I suggest you read his review.

Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

But, for what it’s worth, here are some of my thoughts from the latter half of the book:

#1- I had to stifle a gag reflex as I read the chapter on “Our Sexual Utopias.” I don’t blame Ms. Burton. She was “writing as she sees them.” But what she says is happening and will probably happen was enough to make me gag. I felt dirty when I was done. The acceptance of polyamory is chilling. (I have only one to keep happy. I can’t imagine having more than one…in the same house!!)  Polyamory calls our culture the “toxic monogamy culture.” WOW! I wonder what God thinks of that? A 2015 poll shows 25% of American adults find polyamory acceptable and that number skyrockets to 58% among adults who consider religion “not at all” important.  Adults interested in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism) find it acceptable. Kink is in. Open marriage. You can say “thanks” to Fifty Shades of Gray for popularizing the whole kink thing.  Their philosophy is “If we had a god, that god would be consent.”  But one little line says it all: “My number one relationship is with myself.” (p.161)  Gag reflex subdued only by coming to the end of the chapter and taking a break.

#2-The whole influence of Silicon Valley on the grand scheme of things. Politically and financially potent this mostly godless climate has run amuck on traditional values. Just ask FB, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and others. Disagree and you are wiped clean as if you don’t exist.  And, oh yeah, let’s not forget #Black Lives Matter, the Marxist organization whose goal is to ruin families and our country. Too bad a good message (by the way..all lives matter) got hi-jacked by godless, Marxists who want nothing more than to tear apart our country.  The rise of “social justice”-the idea that American is at its core built on white supremacy, patriarchy, repression, and hatred- is the hot topic of the day. Even in churches…churches which have lost their focus on Jesus and the Gospel.  They (feminist utopians) see “white men as banks just giving money to fund their s***…Everything would be female, queer, Black, trans art…Every club a drag bar.”  (King Princess-p.179)  Can I gag now?

#3- Atavism (nostalgic, masculinist vision of animal humanity). It is largely an agnostic faith, with little time for gods beyond nature.  In a nutshell to the new Utopians (Unitarians fit this), atavism  is a reimagined, renewed world in which human beings transcend our moral and physical limitations.  The atavists are looking backward.  New atavists are followers of Jordan Peterson and others like him.  Nietzsche disciple, Julius Evola, condemns Christianity for fostering a religion based on womanly qualities like emotion.  Follow that thinking and you have Hitler and Mussolini to name a few. Welcome back Fascism.  Not that all of Peterson’s advice is bad. In actuality, some of it is good: “Stand up straight. Clean your room. Avoid people who drag you down. Treat yourself with dignity. Live for something.” (p.217) Alt-right atavism-unlike its more conservative Petersonian incarnation- is a religion of meaninglessness, one that worships violence and destruction for their own sake. Makes you wonder if we are watching that on our streets and TV’s at this very moment.

#4- New Thought/New Age garbage. AOC even released her birth time to eager astrologers-and the mainstream media breathlessly covered it (surprise surprise). This is called Remixed spiritualism. Norman Vincent Peale, Joel Osteen, the health/wealth proponents all figure in this mix as well.

The church needs to be aware of the struggles it will face in the future due to the shifting cultural stance toward God, the Bible and the church in general.  Reading this book gives a chilling picture of what has been and will continue coming down the pike.

Posted in Book Review, Christian living, Church, Doctrine, Faith, Opinion, Story | 4 Responses »

#Storms#SinkorSwim

Friday, September 25th, 2020

Several days after an earthquake hit the San Francisco area, the story is told that a young boy was seen rocking and swaying on the school playground. His principal asked him if he was okay and the boy nodded and said, “I am moving like the earth, so if there’s another earthquake I won’t feel it.” He was trying to prepare himself for what he thought was soon coming again.

Don’t you wish you knew when the next storm would hit?  Not weather. Life storms.  We have an old cliche’ which says, “Into every life some rain must fall.”  Have you ever felt snarky enough to say, “Yeah rain.  But this is a storm! A downpour with lightning and thunder accompanied by a monsoon!” I think it is relatively safe to say that storms affect us all…to some degree. Some seem to always be in a storm, while others seem to skip some major ones.  There is no doubt we have been and are still in a storm called Covid-19.  I think the fear caused by it which has resulted in a shutdown of our economy, our work, our churches, our schools, businesses, and in some ways our whole way of life, has led to multiple other storms.

Sunday I am continuing my Q & A series with the question What about Storms?  (Bet you didn’t know that did you?) 🙂 I’m going to talk about some storms which were chasing David and then why that makes Psalm 13 such a rich chapter for us to study. I’ll show you in another post how every one of David’s haunting questions is answered by a solid answer.

Join us if you would like to. The church has a FB page and also streams on YouTube.  I’d love to have you join me/us.  And I’d appreciate it even more if you would commit to praying for us.

Posted in Christian living, Doctrine, Faith, Just Wondering, Opinion, Preaching, Sermon Series/Topic, Story, Truth | 6 Responses »

#JesusMovement#Laurie#JesusPeople

Monday, September 21st, 2020

I was born in 1952 (that puts me at a soon-to-be 68 for those counting. October 9 to be exact. Money accepted. 🙂 )  so I was in my teen years in 1965-1970. I wasn’t very world savvy (translation: not at all) so I knew very little about what was going on in Vietnam. I did not follow the hippie movement; Haight-Ashbury; LSD and the pharmacy; Nixon; Woodstock; Altamont; nor any of the movement called the Jesus Movement (JM). My music at the time was Tommy James and the Shondells, Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, mostly bubblegum music. But then Tommy James did Crimson and Clover and Crystal Blue Persuasion (still my all-time #1 song). My senses began picking up vibes of another world. I began working and heard about Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Still I had not heard of the JM or the Jesus People. I came from a pretty conservative church. I knew of the One Way sign and once flashed it to a military vehicle in front of us and promptly got back a middle finger. I’m not sure if he thought I was giving him one or if he was letting me know what he thought of Jesus. A rude awakening for sure. I had never heard of Larry Norman, Barry McGuire Chuck Girard and Love Song, or any of the other seminal artists in what was then a fledgling Christian music genre. And I for sure had never heard of Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel, or one of Chuck’s protege’s, Greg Laurie. Too bad. But even then that was West Coast and I lived in PA.

This book, Jesus Revolution, by Greg Laurie and Ellen Vaughn was a great way to do an interstate tour through a state route roadway. I learned about Greg’s early involvement in drugs and the counterculture, but also with JM/JP after God got a hold of his life. But I also learned far more. I love history and man this book gives a breezy, Clif Notes version of the JM. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane-a lane I have no memory of…except some of the world events (which I now know about). But I loved hearing about history and how the JM intersected the world; how Chuck Smith opened his neat ‘n tidy church to the young hippies who were seeking meaning to their emptiness. Chuck pointed them to Jesus. One of those burned out people was Greg Laurie. It was fun reading of Greg’s “rise” from a 17 y/o hippie to preaching at Riverside (an effort blessed and encouraged by Chuck) at the age of 19. God began to use Greg to where they eventually had to begin meeting at the Riverside Municipal Building with no A/C! It was nicknamed the Riverside Municipal Microwave Oven.

This book included stories of Greg; his marriage to Cathe (which is about 8 months shorter than mine); his “rise” as a pastor; his influence in people’s lives; the tragic and untimely death of his son, Christopher, in a car accident; the renewal of his son, Jonathan as a result of the accident; his Harvest Crusades and his move back to Orange County to start a church. It also included some great round-ups of world events during the ’60s-’79.

This was a wonderful book!! If you like history, especially contemporary church history, you will want to get this book. You will not be sorry. It makes me want to read more about the JM and more of Pastor Greg’s books.  And just to be clear: this is not a book going on and on about how great Greg Laurie is. I suspect he would eschew that in the highest order.

Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today

Posted in Book Review, Church, Faith, Family, Jesus, Opinion, Religion, Story | 10 Responses »

#SticksandStones#Words

Friday, September 18th, 2020

There is absolutely no doubt, and I mean NO DOUBT, that words affect us. Call someone a name and it sticks.  We used to say the old adage to make people think we weren’t affected by their words: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”  The only way I want to respond to that ditty is “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Someone has said the average American speaks about 700 times per day. If that sounds high, chop it in half (350). If that still sounds high cut it in half again (175). Face it, there are very few things we do 175 times a day, at least voluntarily. I’m sure I blink or swallow or breath more than 350 times a day but that is all part of God’s magnificent creation called the body.

Harmful words damage relationships and reveal a heart out of tune with Jesus.  Physical wounds often heal before emotional wounds. There are words said to us in the past which still haunt us.  Our heart flutters and our stomach turns when we hear them or think about them. Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue holds the power of life and death.”

This Sunday my question is What about Words? (as if you couldn’t tell).  Prayers would be appreciated for this Sunday. Consider this quote by Ben Franklin: “A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.” ‘Nuff said.

Posted in Christian living, Leadership, Opinion, Preaching, Sermon Series/Topic, Truth | 6 Responses »

#Forgiveness#Childhood/AdultTrauma

Sunday, September 13th, 2020

I’m going to take a break from my posts on Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World to do a far more enticing and exciting book. There is one thing for sure about old age: unless you write something down you are sure to forget it. It isn’t that earth-shattering but I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I saw this book for the first time. I don’t know if I was reading a book and it was mentioned, or was just passing by it on Amazon but I stopped, read the short blurb on it and decided to get it. Or I may have seen his book on The Uniform of Leadership, decided to buy it and saw this one right beside. No matter. 🙂  I just want to say one thing: GO BUY THIS BOOK!!

Live to Forgive: Moving Forward When Those We Love Hurt Us

Jason Romano is with a Christian sports magazine called Sports Spectrum.  He also has a podcast that I have started listening to.   Before that he was involved behind the scenes at ESPN for close to 17 years. Before that he was an abused child-mostly verbally abused (never physically) by an alcoholic father.  It is quite a story.

I’m not going to tell you the nuts and bolts of the story. It is much too involved than I have time to get into here, but I will tell you that this is Jason’s story of struggling with his father’s alcoholism; his own response to it because of his Christian faith; and moving forward when those we love hurt us the most.

This is a FANTASTIC book for you or anyone you know who is struggling with forgiving someone who has hurt you/them in the past by their behavior or even continuing to do so.  It took Jason lots of years to finally forgive his father and…well I can’t tell you how it changed things or if it did.  I guess you will have to read the book to find out.  🙂  Since I’m a sports fan, I enjoyed some of his stories of Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden and their candid talk about their drug abuse and how it ruined their careers.  Both have found Christ and are doing their best to warn others of their path. But I want to make this clear: you do NOT have to be a sports fan to read this book.

I am buying an extra copy of this book to have in my office to hand out. I am that sold on this book.  By the way: have I told you that you ought to get a copy of this book and read it?  Warning: you may need some tissues handy.

Posted in Book Review, Christian living, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Opinion | 4 Responses »

#ThrowingStones

Friday, September 11th, 2020

Have you ever played darts?  I have played at it but have never played it for “blood.” I know there are tournaments all over creation for dart throwing, but I also know that just throwing darts can be big time in small venues, i.e. bars, etc. The goal, of course, is to hit the bullseye. But as you can imagine there are those whose aim is slightly worse than terrible. One dart may hit the round target but then the next one might be the wall or the floor.

That is a perfect picture of the way we throw stones at each other. Verbal stones have the tendency to hit all over the place. Sometimes they are deadly accurate, but sometimes it makes you wonder, “Where in the world did that come from?”  In today’s world, and even more sadly in the church, this idea of throwing stones is far too common.  It is almost like it is seen as “sport.”

The Bible is very clear how we are to treat each other, how we are to talk about others. In my new series (this is week #2) called Q & A, this sermon is entitled What about Stones? My Scripture is Ephesians 4: 25-32. The outline is extensive but simply follows Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus.  When I was in college I had never heard of a man named Francis Shaeffer when I read a little booklet written by him called The Mark of the Christian. His whole premise is that love was that mark. May that be true of us, especially in our words.

I would appreciate your prayers for me, for us, as we worship and study. Thanks.

 

Posted in Christian living, Church, Love, Opinion, Preaching, Sermon Series/Topic | 2 Responses »

#SoulCycle#Wellness#Prosperity(un)Gospel

Wednesday, September 9th, 2020

I’m continuing with my discussion on this book:

Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

Today’s installment is a bit more understandable than the last one here.  One of the most famous phrases used in today’s world is “It’s all about you.” “Seek your goals. Strive for the best. Do your thing.”  Now, understand I am not against setting goals and reaching for a dream. On the contrary, I think it is important to have goals and a place you want to strive for.

But I hate to be the bearer of bad news: IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU.  No matter what an advertisement may say. No matter what an exercise lifestyle may tell you. Hence, the mention of SoulCycle. It is much more than physical transformation. It is more like a double whammy: material improvement and spiritual transcendence.  You aren’t just pedaling a bike to lose weight and become healthier in the process, but you are pedaling to become a better person. Their moniker: You are a Renegade, a Hero, a Warrior.  That sounds all well and good until SoulCycle begins to be seen as an emotional and spiritual outlet. Yeah…”God is a woman, and she’s a SoulCycle instructor.” Say what?

But it is more than SoulCycle. It is the whole Wellness Culture. Their philosophy can be summed up in a war between the authentic, intuitional self-both body and soul- and the artificial, malevolent forces of society, rules, and expectations. We are born good (Ahem!), but we are tricked, by big Pharma, by processed food, by civilization itself, into living something that falls short of our best life.  Hmmm. Maybe they can get Joel to teach them about their best life being now.  (Yeah…that is snarky…but true).

Folks, if there is ever a sense of hypocrisy, it is in this scene. They tell you things like “You are you.” “There is only one You.” “You are beautiful just as you are.” But then they turn around and offer you tricks (and I might add expensive ones) to better yourself, to make yourself more beautiful (at least according to what they think is beautiful).  The author gives so many different examples of this C**P that I can’t keep it straight. And, of course, neither can anyone else. If this one doesn’t work, I can always try something else. Then I can say, “Hey, I’ve tried multiple diets and they didn’t work. I found myself being like a yo yo until I tried Product XXX.”  And please don’t get me started on WW and its spokewoman! (I’ll reserve what I really want to say).

This whole scheme is what is called New Thought. But like many things,  New Thought is not new, nor is it thought. It’s a bunch of gobbledy-gook dressed up as intellectualism. It is called Transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau, and others).  It found its way into religion (I hesitate to say church) through a man named Phineas Quimby until one of his patients and disciples, Mary Baker Eddy,  founded a “church” called the Church of Christ, Scientist (aka Christian Science).

And here is where New Thought gets really warped or is that wrapped into the church world. Ever heard of a man named Norman Vincent Peale? One of his disciples: Robert Schuller?  And then a plethora of others:  Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, the Bakkers, Benny Hinn, and other Word of Faith false teachers; and now the current batch of false teachers (Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Todd White, Bill Johnson (actually all of Bethel), ad infinitum, ad nauseum).

I’m not making this up folks.  And you may think I have an axe to grind.  I guess in a very real sense I do. I see so much damage being done to the proclamation of the Gospel and the spread of the real message of Jesus and His life-giving death on the cross that it turns my insides. Jesus  is not for sale.  He is not some magic genie who can be conjured into blessing us because we declare it to be so.

Discernment. Discernment. Discernment. And do what I John 4:1 says to do: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Posted in Book Discussion, Christian living, Church, Doctrine, Leadership, Opinion, Religion, Truth | 4 Responses »

#Magic#Harry#Fandom

Sunday, September 6th, 2020

I’m continuing my series on Strange Rites by Tara Isabella Burton. I’m wading into territory I have very little clue about with this one. I have never been one to indulge in Harry Potter (HP) or gaming.  But I’m also not one who will jump on the bandwagon and say reading HP or playing a game will make your susceptible to witchcraft or violence.  Not that it isn’t possible but I’m no expert in it so I don’t spend much time dealing or talking about it. Definitely not preaching about it.

I used to read a lot more fantasy than I do now.  The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis’ space chronicles. I liked to read other types of fantasy by Steve Lawhead. But I was never able to get into HP. One of the families here in the church really like it and they asked me to watch a movie to see what I thought. I was bored and after about 20 minutes said, “Enough of that waste of time.” I know I’m standing alone according to stats but that’s me. As for gaming, it never turned my crank. I remember the early Nintendo games. They seem to be like child’s play these days (probably because they are). But I know there are some who spend hours upon hours playing Fortnite and World of Warcraft. I have other things I’d rather do than sit and play on my TV.  But I know some use that as relaxation the same way I use cycling.

J.K.Rowling’s books blew away publication records as did the movies. {Note: she isn’t so popular anymore since she took a side against transgenderism}.  All in all though it doesn’t seem to take much to have something go viral due to social media.  In fact, much has changed since X-Files and Xena: Warrior Princess took center stage on TV. It all comes down to computers and the internet.

But within this craze is an insidious reptile.  Geekdom, bullying, role-playing games with the infiltration of fan communities like Tumblr, FB, and Instagram have blown it all sky high.  It is incredible the “weight” these sites have on pop culture. One pop culture site is HP, and interestingly enough,  after the publication of the last HP novel J.K. has become a lot less relevant. Some of that is because she dared to mess with being “woke.”  The other significant pop culture site is Gamergate.  This phenomena became increasingly more daring in its acceptance of “like” people and its disassociation with “others.” It also became more femininely hostile. I cannot even begin to capsulize its pull.

One of the things I gleaned is understanding authority is undergoing a colossal shift. I think, IMHO, we are seeing that come to fruition in the nightly news of the cities burning because of a lack of respect for authority and other peoples’ things. I agree with a Christian rock band, Lovewar, who had a song titled Keep Your Hands off My Stuff.

I’ll close with the closing illustration from the book. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson, a committed Deist who preferred the teachings of Jesus Christ to the idea of him being a metaphysical savior, created a bespoke Bible. Cutting and pasting the lines from the Gospels that he thought best reflected his vision of Christ, excising those passages (like the miracles) that didn’t quite fit, Jefferson created what might be considered the first fan fiction: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.  Now, we’re all doing the same thing. (p.90).  {My note: it is happening in culture and it is happening in the church}.

Next up: SoulCycle, the wellness culture and the rebirth of New Thought.  This you gotta read!! And here is the book I am reviewing:

Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

Posted in Book Discussion, Doctrine, Opinion, Religion | 4 Responses »

#Work

Friday, September 4th, 2020

In the late ’60s I purchased an album by Chicago Transit Authority. They had a song on that album called Questions 67 & 68.  There weren’t that many questions in the song so I had no clue why they named a song by that title. Thanks to the internet I recently found out that the song actually referred to the years 1967 and 1968.  Of course if you follow the name change and their next album, they never did learn the answer because a year or so later they asked another question: “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”  🙂

I start a new series this Sunday called Q & A. They are questions people have asked or are asking and I hope to give Biblical answers to those questions. The first in line is one tied to this weekend’s holiday. I thought I would try to answer the question “What about Work?” I think it is a fair question to ask, especially since the whole virus mess has caused many to take stock of why they do what they do.

Speaking for myself: I love doing what I do. I love my job. I love the people I work with on a daily basis.  However, I am also aware my job is different from many.  I work for the Lord as the pastor of the church so I don’t face the daily influences many of you do.  But I still feel there is common ground we can stand on.  There is another issue we all face. Many today find it more convenient to stay home and collect than to work. There are cases where that is good, but tragically we face a scourge of laziness to just stay home and not work.  There is a difference between will not work and cannot work.

My purpose this week is to show how work has been given to us by God as far back as Genesis and there is value found in working.  I’d appreciate your prayers for me and for those who listen.  Meanwhile, have an enjoyable Labor Day holiday.

Posted in Christian living, Church, Family, Leadership, Opinion, Preaching, Sermon Series/Topic, Truth | 8 Responses »

#Religious#Intuitional

Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

I finished reading Strange Rites this past week and have struggled with how to do a review. The book is basically a “future book.” What I mean by that is not that it is a futuristic book (predicting the future),  but that it takes godlessness and shows its present but mostly future influence on our culture. Some observations the author made and included were eye-openers, while others were stomach-openers (i.e. kicked in the gag reflex and it was all I could do not to…you know).  While it is an important book, it is not a book for everyone. I can’t say it enriched my life but it did help make sense of some things. It also had me rolling my eyes (as well as my stomach). I thought what I might attempt to do is to take a chapter at a time. Give the basic belief of that particular godless system and then share how I think it will affect our culture.

I wrote about the opening salvo of the book elsewhere on this blog. You can find it here. As a further expansion of that thought it is important to add this to the mix: the author talks a lot throughout the whole book on what she calls (and I think very appropriately) intuitional religions. Not institutional. Intuitional.  She defines that as “their sense of meaning is based on narratives that simultaneously reject clear-cut creedal metaphysical doctrines and institutional hierarchies and place the locus of authority on people’s experiential emotions, what you might call gut instinct.” (p.33)  My translation: what you feel is all important.  Who cares what the Bible says or truth says; how you feel is the all-important line in the sand.  The author quoted that 3/4 of the millennials and 67% of the religious Nones now agree with the statement “Whatever is right for your life or works best for you is the only truth you can know.” (p.33)

Sound familiar? It should. It is the old “whatever feels good do it” philosophy we have had through time immemorial.  It came to the forefront when Post-Modernism hit the church in a big wave. It found its way through the attractional church model (Willow Creek and others like it).  What is interesting is how some things have shifted though and I never thought about this until I read what the author said. She wrote, “If ‘sex sells’ was the unofficial advertising mantra of the Mad Men era, then ‘spirituality sells’ is the slogan for post-2016.” (p.33)  That explains the rampant rise of spirituality as it is called by Oprah and Osteen and Rob Bell and others.

Chapter 2 (which I will skim through here) take us on a ride through intuitional religion in America.  She shows its growth and development through Deism (Someone-possibly God-created the earth then took His hands off it).  She then follows it into Transcendentalism (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, and others); to Spiritualism; to Universalism to New Thought (precursor to Peale, Schueller, and Osteen); to the Social Gospel; then onto liberalism/ecumenism.  The precise target in all of this was the Judeo-Christian outlook, which they said only offered imposed guilt, inhibition, grimness, and anti-life repression.  She finished the chapter with a sad, but scary statement: “Almost one in five Americans was raised in a religion {My note: referring mostly to Christianity}, only to leave it to join the ranks of the Nones.” (p.52)

I’ll share more in the next installment and also begin the godless religions the author includes. Hope you will join me for that.

Posted in Book Discussion, Christian living, Church, Doctrine, Leadership, Opinion | 2 Responses »