I’ve been thinking lately about the stretching exercises God puts us through. Street evangelism, working with the handicapped, prison visits, and talking to the “weird” people after Sunday services. I’ve decided that He must know what He’s doing…’cause I sure don’t.

I’m from a fairly conservative theological background…not quite Pentecostal, but on that side nonetheless. In that environment I felt like the liberal of the group, based on my views pertaining to things Scripture doesn’t speak on directly. At the time I felt like God was stretching me to remember that Jesus was radical. He ate with prostitutes, tax-collecters, and “sinners”. I always thought it was funny that there were always quotes around “sinners” (might just have been my Bible). It’s like he was looked down on for associating with people who were considered sinners, whether they were or not.

Anyway, I always felt like I was supposed to let people know that the old way isn’t automatically the best way just because it’s old. I mean, for us the old way isn’t even the old way! Just a couple centuries ago our way didn’t even exist. And a few hundred years before that the way we separated from didn’t exist, and so on and so forth. New isn’t necessarily better, but neither is old.

Well, I now feel the pull in the opposite direction. My new church is not the most liberal Christian denomination in America, but they are moving towards that end. Politics aren’t a concern for me within the church, but theology is. And as time passes it seems that people are moving farther away from the basics and giving less and less authority to Scripture. Now I feel the need to stop and say, “New isn’t better just because it’s new!”

Just because something is socially acceptable doesn’t mean it’s morally right. And always remember, if you go to the Bible and something doesn’t seem right, it’s probably you.

Keep the main thing the main thing.

That’s Original God, not gangsta.

I’ve been reading some forums lately that worry me some. Well, they don’t so much worry me as make me aware of the depth of human limitation and it’s contrast to the heights of human pride. As a human, I am immune to neither, and have my bouts with both; I just want to share my thoughts on this particular subject, because it’s way too important to back off of.

I’ve been reading about Open Theism. For the record, I think it has some serious problems, not the least of which is that God is held hostage by the future. Open theism limits God in a number of ways based on the human attributes ascribed to him throughout the Bible. To be sure, God cannot be limited to a human scope, or even a magnified human scope. He is so far beyond the bounds of humanity that we probably can’t even see his range, let alone figure it out.

I was at the Christianity.com Forums tonight and I was reading some pretty seething remarks. I don’t post on there very often, but I was compelled to do it this time. Here’s my post, opened with a quote from one of the more subdued and thoughtful posts already on the board.

quote:ORIGINAL: WesSavedByGrace

There are so many threads going right now in which people place limitations on God. I am going to try to put a thought in here that may help someone (hopefully!) see that God is not constrained.

Time is a creation for man to define the things he knows and to help him relate to all that is. God does not need time for any purpose. Since God is not constrained by time, would it not be easy to think of Him as existing in every moment past, present, and future? The year 2007 is not in God’s future. He is not constrained by future or any other dimension that we are relegated to.

The Lamb was slain before the creation, and that was possible because God already knew. He could see the crucifixion then! He does not choose not to know. To take that view is to keep Him constrained to existence in the here and now. Remember: He is the Alpha and the Omega. His existence is eternal in both directions!

I agree that God is not constrained to time the way we are, and that he exists in every moment at the same time. But since we are made in God’s image that means that He experiences emotions as well. Not the same way we do, because we are infinitely inferior, but emotions. If He planned every detail of every moment of an eternity that is laid out before him, moment by moment, how would he experience emotion? How could you be angry at the puppet you control? How could you be grieved by something you made happen?

Many of you will see this as putting limits on God. But aren’t you limiting him as well? What you have framed here is a discussion that has only two possibilities: Either God knows nothing about the future, or he planned every second of every person’s life. While the latter is possible, and the former is definitely unscriptural, aren’t we talking about the God of infinite possibility?

We often talk about the “unfathomable” God, but then we break him down and try to make him fathomable. But, what if the unfathomable God was able to know and not know at the same time? To say that he might choose not to know doesn’t constrain him to anything. He would be choosing not to know, and therefore free to know if he wanted to. What if he put up markers, major events in past, present, and future without filling in every moment? That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how that space will be filled in, he knows, but maybe he didn’t force it to happen. How does God make decisions if everything is already planned out? If you take this concept to it’s logical conclusion, God doesn’t even have control of anything because he would have planned out all of eternity before he even began to plan it in the first place! Doesn’t he have the ability to change his mind, or to let people have free will?

I know this is confusing to read, it’s confusing to write. But that’s the point, isn’t it? We don’t have the capacity to understand God, and we never will. That’s the mystery of the faith. We’ll never understand how or why he does the things he does, and maybe we shouldn’t try so hard.
Doesn’t the presumption that we can figure out how God works seem just…well, human? How ridiculous would it be to think that we could understand the mind of God, who created us and everything else in existence? What ever happened to the idea of mystery? Why must we systematize and categorize everything into bits and bytes? Can’t we just say, “God is great!” and live our lives for him? I’m all for scholarship and fighting to understand scripture, because we are called to do that. I don’t want to be feeding on spiritual milk for a lifetime. But sometimes it seems like people are tring to eat nails, thinking they’re fries.

The O.G. was beyond our understanding. And he still is.

I will begin this post with a public service announcement: I had a higher college GPA than the President, and not by a little bit (Sure he was at Yale, but it still disqualifies him for the “Smart Enough To Be Prez list).

That being said, he’s just a guy–a 70-watt bulb in a 100-watt socket–who is trying to do the best thing for us and for some other people. Because of his drawl and his inability to correctly pronounce the word “nuclear”, he’s an easy target. But he’s no Nazi. We hear so many exaggerated and charges about things that can’t even be alluded to, let alone proven, that I’m used to it: He just wants the oil, he’s trying to make Halliburton rich, he’s a cowboy, loose cannon…whatever. But I draw the line at comparing him to sociopathic idiots like that. Seriously, Hitler? He had a mustache…

Well, today I got the double whammy: not only did Bob over at I Am A Christian Too compare Dubya to Hilter & Mussolini, but he said that Conservative Christians are oblivious morons. Ok, those are my words, but his aren’t much better

These psychological studies developed a profile of the type of person likely to participate in immoral actions merely because a strong leader tells them to. These authoritarians tend to be submissive to authority and in favor of punishing the declared enemies of the authorities. Authoritarians conform to conventional behaviors, are hostile to minorities, and view themselves as more moral than others. They also aren’t very self-aware; it’s difficult for them to see their actions from outside the context of the authoritarian structure.

As you might expect, conservative Christians tend to score highly on this scale.

Then he goes on to exegete and analyze two out-of-context Scriptures very badly. He first takes a shot at Promise Keepers for saying that husbands should be the head of the household (Eph. 5:22-33). He cites Mark 10:28-30 as proof that Jesus isn’t “interested in this hierarchical chain of command.” But Jesus statement had nothing to do with a “chain of command”. It had everything to do with the fact that Peter was freaking out because Jesus had just told him that “For mortals it is impossible [to be saved.”(10:27) Jesus was reassuring him that everyone who gave up their lives (read “lifestyles”) for Him would receive the blessing.

Then he says this, one of the most ridiculous things I have heard or read from a Christian in some time: “The Holocaust showed us that Paul was wrong when he he told the Romans that ‘whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed’. Instead, our role models should be Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis for his resistance to Hitler. Or Martin Luther, who risked his life by defying the Pope. Or better yet, Jesus Christ himself, who defied the authorities by submitting himself to them, thereby redeeming the world.”

Paul was wrong? No Colonel Sanders, YOU’RE wrong!!!! If you ever go to the Bible and think that it’s wrong, you need to come at it a different way. What the Holocaust teaches us about following authority is that you follow God first, and if the authority wants you to do something that is against God’s will, follow God. Paul wasn’t wrong to tell us to obey authorities. He was right. He didn’t tell us to blindly follow authority. He said follow the commandments, and obey the law (little “l”). This statement doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it exists within the framework of obeying God over all things.

Now on top of this, he’s saying that Conservative Christians are blind and dumb for supporting President Bush, as he is this maniacal would-be dictator. But what would he and his progressive brethren have us do? The would have us give stuff to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il so that they’ll be happy. Well, can you really be mad at us for supporting a guy who you insult by saying he’s like a dictator, when you want us to give presents to real dictators who throw temper tantrums? That’s just Il…sorry, ill.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

`Article–

`SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

`This Article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment’.

`SECTION 2. MARRIAGE AMENDMENT.

`Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.’.

Let me begin by saying that I believe God intended covenant marriage to exist between men and women. First Corinthians 7 says that each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband, unless they choose to stay single. One man and one woman should commit to each other fully, and solely, in order for marriage to work. But this just chaps my hide. The institution of marriage has been around a looooong time. It’s survived centuries of men treating women as property. It survived the dark ages, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. It survived the War of 1812, the Civil War, the two Great Wars, and Vietnam. And it has stood strong through our society’s turn towards cohabitation and parents who avoid marriage. But it’s suffering some staggering blows.The traditional family in the US has been on the decline for 40 years. It’s almost rare for a child to be raised by both biological parents. People are choosing to stay single (but not celibate), and those who do get married do it much later and with much less commitment than in past generations. Even when they’re married they have a bag packed in case they aren’t “satisfied”. The marriage bond is weakening and prenups and no-fault divorce are just making it worse.

Thank God someone figured out how to protect this sacred institution from further damage; by focusing our energy on making sure gay people don’t get married. “We can’t let the sanctity of marriage be tainted,” they say. “We hold it in high esteem and we aren’t going to let it fall apart in this country.”

My only question for these people is: are you blind? Marriage is crumbling all around us. How many divorcees do you know? I know a lot. More than I ever thought I’d meet. “I learned my lesson, I’ll never do that again.” Sure, you can blame it on youth the first time, because you were 21, but what about when the 2nd turn ends? or the 3rd?

I guess the worst part of it for me is that, when people talk about the end of their first marriage, or their second, they never seem repentant. They’re hurt, and they may still be confused, but all are oblivious to the fact that, even if it wasn’t their “fault”, it’s still a sin.

When you marry someone, your vows don’t say, “I promise to love you as long as you don’t tick me off or frustrate me, you keep me happy, you do everything I think you should in order to satisfy my wants (plus my needs), and you don’t leave the seat up.” At least mine didn’t. I told my wife I would love her and cherish her until death parts us. Not the death of romance, or finance, or sex, or good health…I promised to be there for better or worse; worse in me, in her, in us. Marriage in this country doesn’t need protection from gays, it needs protection from us.

Do you know any Marines? I have a cousin who went in, but I only know one Marine post-boot camp. He’s the only person I know who’s been through it all: boot camp, a 100-mile obstacle course, specialist training, and ten months active duty in Iraq. He’s the real thing.

Since he’s the only Marine I know, I’m not sure if my observations are true about all of them, but I think I can trust him and the movie A Few Good Men for a realistic picture (Jack was awesome, right?). And from what I’ve seen, this is how I describe them: Zealous, fervent, and passionate.

I used to work with this friend of mine, just after he finished his first tour. He couldn’t even back down from an argument with calm. I would hear him in the background two or three days a week shouting, “I’m not going to have this argument with you!!” (continue reading…)

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