“How beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news…”
Photoshopped? Perhaps. I don’t know. But can you deny the power of Baby Samuel’s grasping hand? High-five, little buddy!
Archive for the 'Culture' Category
16
Jun
What You Can’t Have
I imagine Jesus called him or her up to the front and the little person approached, perhaps sheepishly and skittishly, but obediently. His or her countenance surely reflected openness and readiness, eyes widened for whatever the Master had in mind. Also, I am sure everything in Billy’s or Sally’s body language resonated with humility, don’t you think? Can’t you just see the child feeling uncomfortable beneath the stares of the throngs and don’t you imagine their heartbeat quickening with each uneasy step?
I also picture the child having hesitated, not because of her weighing whether or not to go—indeed she wanted to go for all she was worth!—but wondering if she should go without her parents. The child looks back at his parents hoping to have them go as well but Jesus’ reassuring words allay all that. It’s all right, child, you can trust Me. Come to Me.
Obediently. Trustingly. Humbly. That’s how it’s done!
Then Mark’s narrative offers a handful of scenarios showing what many try to carry into the kingdom. These are things you cannot have.
Scenario #1: A wealthy man “RAN” (Mark 10:17) to Messiah and fell to his knees and asked the Savior how he could solidify his place in heaven. This is the only time in Scripture where we see someone kneeling before the Lord but leaving in worse shape after such an act of deference. Should we see a parallel between this and what happens in modern day church gatherings? How many ‘posers’ are there on Sundays at 11:00 in the morning who have head thrown back, eyes upward, arms extended but heart empty and self-serving? Or, how many like this young man who came to Jesus, are truly sincere in their piety but far from the kingdom because they are not ready to make Jesus everything through the week?
You know this vignette well, I suppose. Jesus touches on the one thing that blocks this young seeker’s way into the kingdom: his riches, yes, but more importantly, who reigns? (see note following) Messiah even tells his disciples afterward, “How hard is it for the rich to enter?” It was a foregone conclusion to all in that ancient culture that the rich were “shoo-ins” with regard to the kingdom of God. In the day’s thinking, obviously the rich were highly favored by God on the evidence of their wealth so their hallowed place was a no duh.
But here Jesus turns this notion on its head and says, “Not so!” Riches can be an obstacle to faith, He reasons sadly. This tragic story tells us that one cannot BUY their place at the King’s table—yea, the turnstile onto the narrow road permits no luggage. He must be given Lordship over everything or we have no claim to eternal life. Check all at the door, if you will.
(NOTE: I am not saying all rich people are going to hell; the issue here and everywhere is the reign of Christ. Do not miss the obvious: I don’t think Jesus was merely testing the young man to see if he would sell his possessions as I have long thought. Could it be that our Lord was commanding him to do so—and he refused? This is the so-called ‘faith’ of many today: Lord, I believe, but I still want to manage my own life. Fat chance that heaven sees this as saving faith!)
Scenario #2: A few verses down (Mark 10:41-45) the disciples have been having one of their epic tiffs with one another over which would have the higher place in the kingdom. Jesus quickly diffuses it with a sound bite on authority with God, that authority is given to those who are servant-hearted, who are willing to sit at the kids’ table. One cannot muscle their way into the kingdom. The kingdom is for those who will be made weak (as a child).
Scenario #3: The last treasure found in this Markan trilogy of childlike faith is about a blind man who calls out to Jesus for healing. The man has no name. You say, yes he does! It’s clear as day his name is Bartimaeus! And you’d be…wrong. That’s not his name. It’s how he was known in the community: “Son of Timothy.” He couldn’t even rate a name, his situation was so pathetic! Here is something else we cannot have in order to lay claim to the kingdom of God: a name.
We are so busy trying to make a name for ourselves, to be recognized, to grapple for influence and status, but this nameless blind beggar who “got in” tells us that we must lose our names if we will wear the namesake of God. “Son of God” should be our response when someone requests our name.
So there you have it. Three things we cannot have if we are to come through the turnstile onto the narrow road:
- Treasure on earth. (in the stead of giving God its ownership)
- Personal power and status.
- A prestigious name we make for ourselves.
We must have the heart of a child: obedient, weak, humble, empty-handed and dependent. To such the Lord offers His lap and eternal life.
15
Jun
800 Pacos
He was a man’s man. A tough guy.
He lived hard, fast and free, with no discernible moral restraint or conscience.
His colorful life ran the gamut from fighting bulls and running with them to being one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. His resume popped and sizzled with entries like lion hunter, globe-trotter, war hero, womanizer, Hollywood celebrity, expert fisherman and he could drink you under the table. For a time he was the most well-known figure of the last century and though his oeuvres are canonized in modern literature, his philanders were legendary.
If I told you the man I just described was a miserable wretch, would you believe me? Before you answer, consider these plaintive words, spoken autobiographically:
“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”
Alcohol-related depression plagued him and he received shock therapy to reduce the depression and paranoia. Tragically, the therapy caused him to lose his memory and thusly, his writing skills. He left Mayo Clinic one day in the middle of treatments and returned to his home in Ketchum, Idaho. In the early hours of a July Sunday, Ernest Hemingway, the man who had lived such a storied life, decided living was too painful, so he rose from his bed, went to his basement and carefully picked out a shotgun among his collection. When he returned to the upstairs foyer, he found a place to sit down and placed the barrel of the shotgun between his teeth and blew the top of his head off. It was just a few weeks before his 62nd birthday.
What is rarely known about Mr. Hemingway is that he was born to parents who were devout in their relationship with Jesus Christ. He was raised in a home that could adequately be characterized as evangelical. His dad, a doctor who practiced in the suburbs of Chicago, was a personal friend of D.L. Moody, and young Ernest was himself a dedicated churchgoer into his youth.
After leaving home to join the war, Hemingway abandoned his earlier professed faith. So much death and debauchery challenged his thinking about God and his rebellion showed in his writing. His earliest works so horror-struck his parents they returned the volumes to his publisher and all ties were severed.
It is interesting that one of Hemingway’s short stories The Capital of the World hints at the autobiographical. The story deals with the falling out between a father and his teenage son and the son’s resultant flight from home. Over time, the father was so distraught over the broken relationship he searched all over Spain for his boy but to no avail. Finally, he took out an ad in a local newspaper with the words: “Paco, Meet At Montana Hotel Noon Tuesday. All is Forgiven. Papa.”
On Tuesday at noon, as the story goes, over 800 Pacos showed up, looking to be restored to their father. Each had hoped the message was for them.
That story gets me on so many levels. Of course, it can address what Eldredge’s Wild At Heart calls the “father wound” that is found in so many men and boys in today’s society. It is true that men are tragically estranged from their fathers and consequently from the fullness of their own manhood. But in the context of this post, and my futile wish that the story of Ernest Hemingway could have played out differently, I wonder if “Papa” (his nickname) saw himself throughout life not as the main Paco of his story so much as the 800 Pacos who would not be given the satisfaction of forgiveness.
The demons he lived with were unpardonable tyrants. He saw no way out.
And so he reached for a shotgun.
And the blast could not drown the cacophony of 800 plaintive wails released from his dying soul with the single pull of a trigger.
I realize the whole of my limited readership are those who follow Christ but every once in a while someone stumbles across this page who has no idea why they did. Perhaps, just maybe (especially if you’ve read this far) you are not here by some random improbability. And so, before you click off, I want to say…
…Cry Out To Jesus.
Believe me, you are being lied to. That bottle sitting by your bedside. That strange woman you are bedding. Or want to. That next fix you are dying for. The invitation you received to that wild party. Even your vain philosophy. The code you live by: I’m the Captain of My Soul. The estrangement from your family. The penthouse, the pearls, the pools. The porn, the booze.
Lies. All lies.
Remember what this so-called modern man said of his own piteous life?
“I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”
You feel like that, don’t you?
You will never find what you’re looking for until you give yourself completely over to the One who can silence the inner cries of your 800 Pacos and set them free. He will set you free and make you a son, a citizen of a new Kingdom. Until you allow the Son of God to reign over your life, you are subjecting yourself to the reign of another, and that is called bondage. Stop kidding yourself. You keep chasing the wind, you’ll reap the whirlwind.
Turn to Christ, not to religion.
Do it now.
800 Pacos are waiting.
14
Jun
She’s Right
Her uncle had a dream but she wants us to wake up. Dr. Alveda C. King, niece of the late Dr.
Martin Luther King recently commented on what she calls the ‘consequence-free’ mindset that has sickened a generation. Citing the cases of Paris Hilton, recently jailed for violating parole from an earlier drunk driving rap, and Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year old student athlete from Douglas County, Georgia (my home) sent to prison for ten years because of having criminal consensual sex with a minor, Dr. King says the issues raised by each, though not similar in scale, are nonetheless telling in today’s society.
“They seem to be examples of an attitude that’s at the root of society’s problems,” she says. “Too many of us feel we can do what we know is wrong and not have to face the consequences of our actions.”
Then the good Doctor made this startling observation: “I believe that a generation’s having grown up with legal abortion is a big reason for the consequence-free mindset that plagues our young; after all, if a culture says you can kill a baby to ‘fix’ unwanted pregnancy, how serious could it be to deal with other problems you cause? We need to pray for our children. We need to monitor the media they absorb. And we need to teach them — if you want to avoid the rude awakening of painful consequences, don’t do what’s ‘right for you,’ do what’s right.”
Preach it, sister!
12
Jun
What Would YOU Say?
You’ve seen and heard it. A rock star or actor stands at a podium and before a global audience
thanks all the little people for their award then adds the obligatory nod in the direction of the “Big Guy” for making it all possible. In the sports arena an MVP or grateful champion might want to “first thank God” for their hard-fought victory.
Immediately after besting the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI, Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said before all the world, “I’m proud to be the first African-American coach to win this, but again, more than anything, Lovie Smith (Bears coach) and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord’s way. We’re more proud of that.”
In fact, it was Lovie Smith, the losing coach who said of the Super Bowl that it was the “perfect stage” for the coaches to confess their faith in Jesus Christ. In a USA Today ad both coaches took out days before the game, they stated, “We’re pro football coaches, but we are also men of faith. A faith that defines who we are. It comforts us in tough times and produces hope in the midst of adversity. It is through our common faith in Jesus Christ that we have individually experienced God’s love and forgiveness.”
That’s pretty clear.
But, there are other cases when a cultural icon has elsewhere professed faith in Christ (not mentioning names) and been given the perfect opportunity to speak for Christ on the world stage but muffs the chance. No witness whatsoever. So, in the interest of all that is at stake, let’s pretend you are given a mike and a platform with an audience of almost every breathing human being looking in.
What would you say?
29
May
I’m Older Than I Think.
I just found out that I should’ve been born seven years earlier—or that I act seven years older. Either way.
You Belong in 1953 |
 You’re fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! |
Going to see Captain Jack this weekend?
Arrrrrr! Better read about it here first. Savvy?
And from a consistently better trilogy…
I AM FRODO!
You are most like Frodo. You’re very friendly, and you have a great personality. Although you like to have fun, you can also be pretty serious at times. It’s pretty hard to get you mad, but once you’re mad…everybody better look out! Keep that temper under control and realize that you’re better off than you may think.
 |
| What LoTR Character Are You? |
22
May
One-Sided Dialogue
Ever been in a conversation that could’ve gone on without your presence?
I get the feeling that is what the Sovereign Lord bemoans when He enters into dialogue with His church. He’s wanting the church to ‘zig’ with Him but all she seems capable of doing is a nice little ‘zag’ maneuver and then au
daciously pats herself on the back thinking the Lord Christ is wowed by her suaveness (yes, it’s a word) and dexterity. The things that are on His heart have not seemed to be captured in the weekly homilies coming from our pulpits. We’re on a whole ‘nother plane altogether (as in: get your seat cushions ready, we’re in a nosedive) and though God is wanting to talk about His Kingdom, we want to checkmate Him with ours.
So there I was on a recent Saturday night, while all other pastors are on their faces begging God for a sermon or on the internet getting a “ready-made” one, I was taking a different tack altogether. Because I had the Sunday “off” I thought I might see what the religious channels might be serving up (warning, heavy satire ahead). First up was a pastor from the midwest and he was talking about “seed” and “prosperity.” I actually heard him say this:
“Wouldn’t it be great if all we had in our church were millionaires and billionaires?”
Okayyyyy…that’s quite a dream you got there, sir.
And then:
“I’ve always taught that God wants you to be wealthy, but now I’ve changed that. God needs you to be wealthy.”
So, God has fallen on hard times? Hey buddy, can you spare a dime? Guess that’s to be expected after millennia of blessings pouring out of the windows of heaven. I mean, really, just how long can His coffers hold out? Let’s be serious…
“It’s been true that the wealth of the nations is laid up for the righteous,” he continued, ramping up his argument because, obviously, papa needed a new set of golf clubs, “but that is changing. The wealth of the nations is now in the hands of the righteous!”
Really, now? Tell that to the little old lady who has given fifty percent of her fixed income to the Lord for years and keeps the carpet in her prayer closet warm with her arthritic knees for missionaries around the world. I found it interesting that as the camera panned over the crowd, many of the faces it found were puckered and tired as if this dead horse had been beat on one too many times. Time to go… Continue reading ‘One-Sided Dialogue’
09
May
The Miracle of Margaret
America? It’s like we’re living in 1930s Germany. Rising fascism, suppression of Christianity, hate crime laws, euthanasia and a climate more open to the prescribed disposal of the ‘undesirables’. Case in point, prenatal testing is now pushing parents to see the abortion of a disabled fetus more their duty and not just their right. Ethicists even go so far as to say it is a parent’s “moral obligation” to terminate pregnancy if the child is deigned disabled. Poor child. Why subject them to a life of inconvenience? That would be morally reprehensible. I suppose it’s better to just torture them slowly by pulling them apart, cutting them up, shredding them, scraping them out, crushing their skulls, burning them alive or suctioning them to pieces.
Tragically, it is estimated that as many as 90% of those babies who have been prenatally tested with Down syndrome are aborted. But there are some miracle stories out there and thankfully, Margaret is a living testament to the compassionate mores of her parents. Patricia Bauer, Margaret’s mom and a former writer for the Washington Post, has written a stirring article addressing some of the cultural roadblocks they face as a family and we as a nation.
She writes,
Imagine. As Margaret bounces through life, especially out here in the land of the perfect body, I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her cohort, and have found their lives to be not worth living.
To them, Margaret falls into the category of avoidable human suffering. At best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society. That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.
This view is probably particularly pronounced here in blue-state California, but I keep finding it everywhere, from academia on down. At a dinner party not long ago, I was seated next to the director of an Ivy League ethics program. In answer to another guest’s question, he said he believes that prospective parents have a moral obligation to undergo prenatal testing and to terminate their pregnancy to avoid bringing forth a child with a disability, because it was immoral to subject a child to the kind of suffering he or she would have to endure. (When I started to pipe up about our family’s experience, he smiled politely and turned to the lady on his left.)
While there are less and less children with Down syndrome being born today—not because of the miracle of medicine but because of the narcissism of man—Margaret is alive, beautiful and productive, and a high school grad who is attending college. Just imagine what this family—this world—would have been like without her.
And what of America? Not so much the land of the free anymore, and, as it turns out, we gotta be a lot more brave just to make this our home these days.
07
May
A Final Toast
I ran into a chum tonight quite by “accident” and both took time to update each other’s lives as it had been a long arc of time between connections. My friend is in real estate and purchases old homes, fixes them up and resells them for a tidy profit. He was telling me about a house he had just closed on, its previous owner obviously a buyer of fine wines based upon the stash he found. The man had passed and his daughter was needing to sell it and my buddy was only too happy to oblige, considering the price of said home too good to pass on.
Going into its basement, he found it stacked and stocked with fine wines, each one gathering dust from years of neglect and non-use. The owner, he had learned, had traveled the world visiting some of the finest vineyards and purchasing huge draughts of wine. My friend also found receipts among the ruins where the old man had run up some pretty serious tabs pursuing his life’s passion. Trouble is, the old man is dead and the wine lies in state, corked and wearing coats of mold and dust. Untasted. Suddenly it hit my friend: this could have been what Jesus had in mind when he said, “What profit is it for a man, if he should gain the world and lose his soul?”*
Of course, we know nothing of the man’s spiritual standing in life but how sad it is to spend your life and coffers on transitory things whose undignified ending is to occupy a place in a cold dark cellar, unseen, untouched and untasted.
On the drive home I heard that we Americans are spending less time sleeping, working longer hours, stalking the “dream” at the expense of our families, our bodies and our souls. We’re giving away FAR less, building our barns bigger** so we can sit around, I suppose, bragging to the Joneses that our barns, for pete’s sake, have vaulted ceilings, wrap-around decking, eight-tractor garages, bonus rooms, dormers, atriums, finished basements, plasma TVs in every stable, spreading manicured lawns, high palatial walls to keep out the riff-raff and that we’re working on drawings for further expansion. Our ‘barns‘, mind you.
How much wood can a woodchuck chuck? Forget that. How about: how much wine can a connoisseur drink? And for that matter, how much is too much or more than enough? Tolstoy wrote a short story on that very subject entitled, “How Much Land Does A Man Need?” and here is its summary as found in a Wikipedia entry:
“After slowly accumulating more and more property, a greedy Russian named Pahom hears that the Bashkirs, a minority race in Russia, are practically giving their land away. He decides to visit them and they offer him as much land as he wants, provided he can walk its perimeter in one day. Pahom agrees and goes out on his trek, but when the sun starts to set, he finds he has walked too far. Running back, Pahom collapses at the starting point just as the sun disappears behind the horizon. The Bashkirs try to congratulate him, only to find him dead. In answer to the question posed in the title, the Bashkirs bury him in a hole six feet long by two feet wide.”
What’s left of a man who chases the illusive wind of transitory pleasure? In this case, a dank, dark cellar littered with unused magnums of wine. And we call that living.
28
Apr
Did You Know?
Did you know…
- if you are ‘one in a million’ in China, there’s 1300 others just like you
- the 25% of the people with the highest IQs in China is more than the total population of North America
- China will soon become the largest English-speaking country in the world
- In roughly five minutes, 60 babies will be born in America; 244 in China; 351 in India
- According to U.S. Dept. of Labor, high school grads in America will have 10-14 different jobs—by age 38
- One out of four workers in America is working for a company for whom they have been employed by less than a year
- the top ten jobs in 2010 will not have existed in 2004
- we are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies not yet invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet
- 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online
- there are over 106 million MySpace users (9/06); if MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico)
- there are over 2.7 billion searches done on Google each month—to whom were these questions addressed before Google?
- the number of text messages sent and received each month are greater than the total population of the planet
- there are 540,00 words in the English language—5 times as many as during the era of Shakespeare
- today, a week’s worth of information found in the NY Times is more than was available during the lifetime of a person living in the 18th century
- it is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 x 10 to the 18th power) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year
- that number alone is more than all the information generated in the previous 5,000 years
- the amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years
- this means that for a student beginning a four year technical or college course of study, half of their education will be outdated by their third year of study
- it is estimated that by 2010, it will double every 72 hours
- predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain
- by 2023, when today’s first graders will be 23 and beginning their new careers, it will only take a $1,000 computer to exceed the human brain’s capability
- by 2049, it will take a $1,000 computer to exceed the capabilites of the collective brain of the entire human race
Source: Cynthia Ware; see more in her highly informative video @ Digital Sanctuary
29
Mar
It Must Be Armageddon
I found this on Wittenburg Door’s website. And, in the interest of public decency I will not be posting ANY accompanying photos…
By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. restaurant chain Hooters, known for waitresses in low-cut blouses and short skirts, will open its first branch in Israel this summer, in the Mediterranean seaside city of Tel Aviv.
“I strongly believe that the Hooters concept is something that Israelis are looking for,” Ofer Ahiraz, who bought the Hooters franchise for Israel, told Reuters Monday. “Hooters can suit the Israeli entertainment culture.”
At Hooters, waitresses the company calls Hooters Girls serve spicy chicken wings, sandwiches, seafood and drinks.
Ahiraz said a specific location in Tel Aviv, Israel’s most cosmopolitan city, had yet to be chosen, but he said it would not open restaurants near large religious populations, and they would not be kosher.
He said his plan was to open as many as five Hooters restaurants in the next few years, including one in the southern resort city of Eilat.
The Tel Aviv version of Hooters is expected to mimic most of the chain’s other 430 restaurants in the United States and in 23 countries including China, Switzerland, Australia and Brazil.
Ahiraz said, however, he expected some minor modifications to meet Israeli tastes since U.S. chains have had a mixed response in Israel. Food chains such as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Hard Rock Cafe failed, Kentucky Fried Chicken closed many locations, while others such as Burger King and McDonalds have thrived by altering their offerings to suit the Israeli market.
“It shows that if you are flexible and listen to your customers you can be a success story,” Ahiraz said.
The opening of Hooters in Israel is part of the chain’s global expansion. Privately held Hooters said it planned to open 17 restaurants in Colombia, Dubai, Guam, New Zealand and India in the next two years.
“International expansion is a major focus for our company, and we are very excited to add Israel to our family,” John Weber, executive vice president of franchise operations for Hooters of America, said in a statement.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Okay, just one picture… Continue reading ‘It Must Be Armageddon’
Dan Edelen, over at Cerulean Sanctum, posted this gut-check article which he has entitled, “Big Box Altars.” The whole article is worth the read but I share this portion of it as it called to mind the sons of Aaron who brought “strange fire” to the Lord. Much of what we call worship in our 
corner of the globe is nothing more than a stained-glass charade. It’s man’s best coming to the Lord by man’s own way, by his own rules, rife with self-indulgence and self-effort. Such worship is too neat, too pretty, awfully scripted and hollow. And it fizzles.
Does our worship even come close to what is shown in Scripture? Could you fall on your face in the aisle next Sunday without disrupting the agenda? Could you dance (not you Pentecostals…I’m talking to the Methodists) like David danced without getting eyeballed like David got eyeballed? Can you weep between the porch and the altar? Can you get so lost in worship that you forget there’s anyone else in the room? Hey, here’s one: when’s the last time you’ve seen an adult run from his car to the front door of the sanctuary just because he was excited to come in to the house of the Lord?
Enough of me, here’s Mr. Edelen’s thoughts:
I’ve got to believe there’s something wrong with a Church where week in and week out there’s no weeping before the altar of the Lord. If a man can go through an entire church year without once falling on his face weeping, without soaking the church carpeting with his tears, something’s desperately wrong with his church.
I’ve got to believe that a church will never amount to much for the Kingdom if it never once sees someone get up and dance during worship. I’ve got to believe that a church filled with people who just sit and nod their heads will be asleep when the Bridegroom comes. The Holy Spirit’s missing in a church that goes through the emotionless motions.
How can an unstirred church reflect anything resembling the abundant life?
In C.S. Lewis’s masterful book, The Great Divorce, he posits a heaven so substantial that all of life this side of it resembles a vapor. Massive, unearthly Christians fill that dense heaven, giants, heroes that shake the foundation of the world with their conquests. How then can it be that so little life fills believers today? Why is it that we cannot find succor for our souls on Sunday, but instead find our hearts strangely warmed—if only for a passing moment—by a 60″ plasma display rocking with the Final Four?
Have we Christians rendered Christ so inconsequential? Have we denied the power of YHWH for the power of LG?
What happened to passion and fire?
26
Mar
Ten Ounces Of Rice
Sorry to be the fly in the ointment as we all begin our work week and presumably increase our wealth, but…
Economists tell us that nearly half the world’s population (2.7 billion) lives on ten ounces of rice and two dollars per day. Many of these are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
My fellow Americans, we live as kings! Even if you live in a lower-scale neighborhood with bills spread out on your kitchen table, you are still the “big dog” on the block of humanity. And though we have our mitts on 90% of the world’s wealth, we still opine for more. But when is enough, enough? According to the World Bank, Americans are numero quatro in the world at per capita wealth, coming in at $513,000 per adult per year. How does it feel to be a half a millionaire? And if you rub your greenbacks with your spouse’s, you can call yourselves millionaires!
But before you crack open a bottle of Bordeaux, think about this: God’s vision for His people is “that there will be no poor among you since the Lord will surely bless you in the land…if only you listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today. If there’s a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land…you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother…” (Deuteronomy 15:4,5,7).
So today, let’s give thanks. Sure, of course.
Then, let’s give.
And with what’s left over, let’s give again.
Kings can afford to do that after all.
POST ALERT: today’s post is my 100th. (cue fireworks) This translates out to 98.9 who read each post, which is small potatoes to all you veteran bloggers out there, I’m well aware, but for me, it’s kind of cool. And quite unexpected.
So, I’d like to thank all the little people out there who made all this possible…
An Anglican bishop is speaking up. Tired of his church’s perceived impotence and irrelevance while England’s evangelical roots are being duly pulled up and supplanted with seeds of tolerant inclusivism, this Jack is shimmying up the beanstalk. Bishop Michael Nazir-ali of Rochester is taking off the proverbial gloves and serving notice to satan’s dark kingdom that it is high time for England to again reassert her Christian identity. Amid a “multi-faith mish-mash” the good bishop sees the bludgeoning and erasing of his own.
And it’s just plain ticking him off.
He is calling for the evangelical population to rise and be counted, to resist neutrality and irrelevance and is even calling out Prince Charles for wanting to be known as the “Defender of Faith” (i.e., all faiths) instead of guarding the sacred trust handed down to the Heir of the Throne as “Defender of THE Faith.” Ahem, Christianity.
Nazir-ali’s England now embraces “rooms for reflection” instead of hospital chapels and spaces previously set aside for Christian worship are known as “multi-faith venues.” The Bishop of Rochester is from Pakistan and knows well the price to be paid for being born Muslim and converting to Christ. It’s not for the faint of heart. And he knows all too well that too much blood has been spilled in the soil of his adopted homeland and the hallways of its history still echo with the voices of brave and gallant warriors of the faith.
Time will tell if his co-mingling voice will fall on deaf ears. There is more. A law may soon be passed making it illegal in England to refuse any kind of service to gays (are you paying attention, evangelical America?). If one’s moral and spiritual code compels them to refuse to rent a room to a gay couple at their bed-and-breakfast, the government will shut them down. If a pastor refuses to marry a gay couple, he will be fined and imprisoned. If a church school refuses to include curriculum that endorses the homosexual lifestyle as a viable alternative, there would be recriminations.
I guess the point of this is: what might God be stirring over there in the stiff-as-a-board Anglican institution? Bishop Nazir-ali is not alone. Other clerics are now joining ranks and crying from the rooftops. Could it be that satan has awakened a Sleeping Giant? Is a Wesley right now stomping the sleep out of his legs? Is a Wilberforce now rising to challenge the status quo? Is a Cranmer ready to cast off compromise and offer his hand to the fire? Is there a new Latimer begging to be lit on fire for God? Is there a William Wallace itching to “pick a fight”?
We can only pray.
20
Mar
No ‘Gangsta’ In This Rap
When David called for the singers and instrumentalists to make a joyful noise to the Lord in the Temple, I’m not so sure he had in mind the rapping and scratching of hip-hop in the House Band. For that matter, I’m not sure Paul envisioned the felt-needs-based, market-driven, seeker-friendly ministries emerging all over the modern landscape either. But, hey, I’ve been wrong before.
Which is why this post: when I happened upon this jaw-dropping testimony of a modern-day Christian rap artist, I had to rethink the David thing. The sweet singer of Israel may have given this guy a go on his worship team after all. Believe it or not, one of today’s most respected conservative pastors did.
Curtis (a.k.a., “Voice”) Allen, itinerant preacher and rapper, has found a way to propagate his Calvinist theology with the thumping baselines of hip-hop. One of the lyrics he belts is, “I been exposed to bright lights, the doctrines of grace, I’m elected, imputed perfected, becuz of the power of God resurrected and his gift of faith, that when we see his face we’re not rejected.”
And you thought you’d heard it all…
Don’t judge a book and all that, because Mr. Allen’s (’scuse me: Voice) true heart for Christ is seen all over this article he wrote for Boundless Webzine. I may just become a fan of the rap genre after this. “I’m a get-down preacher and a true God seeker, rollin’ with my wife cuz you know that I need her, been paralyzed for twenty-five years but ain’t no lie that He’s always been here…”
Am I white, or what?
Okay, okay, I won’t give up my day job…or maybe I’ll tackle the Arminio-Calvin genre of heavy metal, or bluegrass…yeah, bluegrass…
(if you want to see some of the actual performance at Piper’s church, with a cameo of Piper introducing Voice, go here)
I’ll probably get some stern looks and cold shoulders for posting this, but, hey, I just calls it likes I sees it, even though I didn’t write it. But I should have.
Pardon me while I go check to see if I have any guts…
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“THE NEW FAMILY TRUMP CARD” (Family Time v Church Time)
by Albert Mohler (www.albertmohler.com)
Is “family time” encroaching on “church time?” Leadership, a publication in the Christianity Today family of magazines, surveyed 490 pastors last year, asking them about church life and family. A major theme — parents are taking their kids to soccer games rather than to church.
The soccer games are only an illustration, of course, but team sports loom larger and larger in the lives of many kids and families, often leaving little time for anything else.
From the Leadership report:
The phenomenon of overprogrammed kids in the last decade or so is well documented–to the point of satire. (A recent sitcom showed an alien begging off an invasion of Earth because his kid had “a thing.”) What isn’t so well documented is the effect this legion of extracurricular activities has on church life.
The pastors we surveyed report the overall busyness of families is keeping families away from church. Asked whether people are spending more discretionary time on family activities or church commitments, 76 percent said the scale tipped toward family activities. This contrasts with the perception of 62 percent of respondents that a generation ago, free time was more likely spent on church commitments. The balance has shifted.
(Read more)
RAMs (Readers And Messages)