Things I Think…
1. I will be first in line to speak out that our society and and our culture is badly broken, corrupt, and defiled. What I won’t do is offer a remedy other than Jesus…
2. I have family members who struggle with anxiety and mental illness who have been convinced by the media and others that the remedy is to defeat the political enemy…that electing the right people will restore decency and normality to their world. This is a lie from the pit of hell because not only is it a false hope, it means that everyone who doesn’t see things this way is the enemy…even if the “enemy” is people who hold them dear.
3. Our lives are being crushed by these lies…our family splintered and broken. We are not ideologues…we aren’t invested in any particular political party or ideology, other than prayers for a good and peaceful life. But because many in the church have replaced the Biblical means of warfare and the ways of Jesus for strident militancy, we are losing our grip on the family itself. I move between anger and despondency as everything crumbles around me…destroyed in part by those who claim the same faith I do…
4. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to be a young person today. The intentional confusion of personal sexuality, the forced acceptance of the same, the penalties socially and professionally of accidentally using the wrong pronouns when you greet someone, the inability to trust any authority or institution…the continual rage all around you…the economic and relational chaos…all conspire to confuse and confound…yet the adults in the room refuse to stop the foolishness and instead promote more confusion and more anger under the delusion that their side will eventually win …and that God is on either side…He’s not…and now we’ll all dangerously close to losing everything…
5. People are being trained to believe that all things must be viewed through a political lens and all people divided into political tribes…it’s a way to try to make sense of the world, but it is anything but a biblical worldview. Political crises can be solved by political saviors…but the Christian understands (or should) that the problem is sin and there is only one Savior…anything else is an impotent idol created to draw you away from Him…
6. When the primary tool the church focuses on is political, it becomes idolatrous and denies the power of God. When we believe the life of Jesus lived through us is not sufficient to change the world, we become practical atheists and cheat the fallen world out of the the knowledge of the one true and living God…and chaos reigns in the church and the world…
7. Saying that “Jesus is the answer” easily becomes a cliche without definition…it is defined throughout the New Testament in myriad instructions on how we are to live in the world and what our attitudes and actions are to look like in contrast to the world…we’ve lost these imperatives..and I don’t know how to get them back…
8. If we win every social battle and lose our love for the lost and our brethren…we’ve lost it all…
9. “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4 ESV)
10. The reason I write this is not just to vent my own pain…it’s with the knowledge that ours is not the only family that has been broken by all of this…and the upcoming holiday season will be a time of mourning for many over relationships that once were precious, but are no more…and in hope that others understand…and may want to start a change…
All good thoughts – IMNSHO
Thanks, Em…it’s not easy these days…
This was very good Michael. It looks like a list of 10 items, but the themes you wove throughout them were quite profound and connective!
Thank you, Steve!
Michael,
Really good thoughts! In my case, all the “spiritual” stuff makes my family say that Christians are crazy and they’re not interested. We do have a MAGA minority, but they were never religious to begin with, except when it comes to gun rights. But, I have Christian friends with divided families, and there is sometimes tension at my church. We’re always too conservative or not conservative enough. After a big “oops” during COVID that led some long-time members to leave the congregation (too much focus on government “persecution” regarding COVID protocols) the elders re-examined some policies and began to moderate their messaging, particularly of one of the pastors. It has helped. Some old-timers have returned, and new people have come.
The political division isn’t just a church thing as you all know. I can’t find the link, but yesterday CNN had a read about the division amongst everyday people and friendships.
Over at The Christian Post there is a definite political divide among commentators to the articles.
I found this post by Jerry Sittser to be a thoughtful reflection regarding the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of evangelicalism: https://www.jerrysittser.com/blog/evangelicalism
If you’ve never heard of Jerry Sittser, he has quite a story.
PH,
That was well said…
I mentioned on another thread that we Westerners have to work thru some bad preaching. Concepts spoken of in the scriptures that are stripped out of it’s context and used to communicate something spiritual and relevant. The problem is it can be misleading.
Michael asked me to share some examples. I laid out two or three. But I was listening to a well known preacher on the radio today. He was sharing from the gospel of Mark how Jesus was sleeping on a boat while the disciples navigated a severe storm. ..”the disciples woke him and asked, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ “He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
The preacher used the passage as a platform to explain how Jesus is in our storms, and how he would get us thru them.
Well that’s all well and good, I guess. But I think the reason Mark included that story, along with His other miracles, healing sick, raising the dead, etc., was to force the audience to ask “Who is this Man Jesus?”
Who is this man who can put eyes in a man’s sockets where there were none before? Who is is that can speak to the wind and the elements in such a way as cause a storm to cease? Who has the ability to change the molecular structure of water to wine?
Who is this man! That’s the overriding question the miracles should force us to as and answer. The conclusion is, only God has the power to perform those miracles.
The problem with using the passage as a way to teach about storms is ok, I guess. But it may not be true. As I have gone thru “storms” in my life, God has, at times, seemed no where to be found. He doesn’t always “calm” them, but uses them as tools to make me more like Christ.
No. To me, the story is a reminder that God is over the storm, the elements of nature and they must bow to His will.
Officerhoppy.
I think one can make multiple applications to most passages.
My church knows who God is…the question I have to help them answer is why it matters to them…
#4
That is hyperbolic hogwash. I tried to explain before that you perceive a catastrophe that simply does not exist, and that it is emphatically Christianity that causes the fear you seem to project. What you hear is a very loud minority of people that I have never met, or found. These people that are supposedly destroying everything, causing you to “losing everything”, they tend to agree that “forcing” these changes on humanity is arrogant and combative. They just want to live and live like everyone else. Nobody is forcing you or your son to be a trans gay “they/them”. Christianity makes this crap up. They don’t have impact on your lives, white straight PC social justice Karens who have some sense of guilt for being homophobic/racist, and are somehow profoundly transformed now, “woke”, and think everyone else has to change too, this is what you see and hear. To gay or trans person is a threat to you. You only perceive it.
To be clear, I don’t draw lines between myself and people over this. I have known and loved way too many types and cultures of people, including freaked out Christians, to divide over such nonsensical issues. But it becomes tiresome hearing Christians run around on fire screaming the sky is falling because some Trans Man said something. It leads to legislation. Abortion was overturned, next it will be “deviants”. You will vote for people who will MAGA this nations way back into outright bigotry. You are louder.
Anecdotally, I had a pretty fierce argument with one of these white straight PC SJW woke Karen’s at my new job while on lunch break. They have canceled sooo much stuff that they have to watch what they saw as hard as they watch others, and they slipped up three times according to the cancel code. I ended the argument with this, “Because you know someone who is gay or black or Muslim now is no justification for becoming a militant advocate. These people would tell you to shut your damned mouth.”
Reubens, I’m not sure how your comments go unchallenged on this site. We are not talking about grown adults, we are talking about our youth as young as kindergarten or first grade that are being groomed with drag queen storyline hour at public schools and the like.
That’s just your fear Steve. You actually prove Reuben’s point.
Has your child ever been forced to go to a drag queen story time?
Do you know any child that has?
In the places where these story times have taken place, what has been the outcome? Has it made a larger number of the children turn trans?
Its just fear.
Fear+ hysteria = a really bad brew with unsavory outcomes.
As to #4…I emphatically stand by what I wrote as I have to deal with it every day.
While a great amount of the fear and anger is driven by the extreme right, the extreme left has provided fodder for some actual reason to briskly resist.
#4 was not simply about the perversion of sexual norms…but if you think the sexualization and mutilation of children isn’t going to have long term consequences, you are deceived indeed.
Here’s hoping your Christian Government saves you. Hope the fire on your head goes out at some point. I am old and prude. Straight and white. A political “deviant” to be sure, but I read Christians who have no attachment to the woes they shout, and I am in the midst of the LGBTQ etc. people Christians fear. I do not see any problems. Schools here don’t have drag queens teaching children, I don’t know a child who has been mutilated, sexualized, or converted. I do know straight kids with same sex parents, I do know people who have transitioned in their late twenties and thirties. Most have not had a “mutilation” surgery. In fact I can only think of two, and I know a ton of them. This is fear based ranting over nothing that has not existed for thousands of years, we are just now starting to acknowledge it. Let god burn the nation if it’s that bad. Apparently he did before. He also mandated sexually mutilating children long before we existed. This is not amusing.
Reuben,
You well know that I’m the last person who would ascribe the word “Christian” to any of the government .
I could care less about what adults do in their personal lives…I care a great deal about what children who do not yet have mature emotional or physical selves are exposed to,
This is just one part of my concerns…teaching children to be constantly angry and tribal will do us in more quickly than deviance…
Perhaps it should be a Christian Nation, as Muslims have taken over government, Christians can too, and follow suit by slaughtering people who don’t fit the religious norm. Better that than a Tranny being around my kids…?
I agree on how kids are being taught to be angry divisional rats, but it’s our generations that taught them to do so.
Josh, I have a young daughter. My motivation is not fear or rage but wisdom. You are naive to not see what is going on in our society. I fully support Michaels comments on this. And I agree with Michael that the government is not the answer . I respectively disagree with both you and Reuben that Christianity is to blame. Infact, only Christ offers a solution to the problems.
“You are naive to not see what is going on in our society.”
What is going on in our society? People who are different from one another have the freedom to live how they see fit?
“People who are different from one another have the freedom to live how they see fit?”
If you think people have the freedom to live anyway they want, than we have a different definition of freedom. Our society is deeply divided, enraged, angry and deeply immoral. To not see that is being naive.
It’s rocky terrain to navigate in reering a child. There are pitfalls on all sides, I’m not afraid as I stated before but I am on guard more so than ever. I’m with Michael that I really could care less what adults do in their personal lives but when it affects children who are still maturing physically and emotionally, it’s quite a different story.