In another post, bestselling author Anne Rice told you her story – how, through historical research, she became convinced the facts support a real Jesus who rose from the dead. She explains how and why she left atheism to embrace hope.
Then, in 2010, she left the church. She said:
“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian … It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”
Many have asked my thoughts about Anne Rice’s departure from the Catholic Church. Let me tell you my own story of struggling with quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious church people.
When I was 12, my mom went “bipolar.” Manic depressive with mild schizophrenia.
Except that for a year and a half, nobody knew that’s what was wrong with her. We just knew she was impossible to live with.
The fights, the arguments and contention would start as soon as I got home from school every day and stretch past bedtime.
Our entire family was bedlam for a year and a half.
Mom would swing from being your best friend to your worst enemy at the slightest provocation. I’d come home from school and find she’d tossed boxes of my stuff in the garbage. She’d say embarrassing things to my friends.
She insisted dad wasn’t really her husband. She said he was a man who looked just like Bob and she was sentenced to live with him until the ‘real’ Bob came back. When he came home from work she would hurl accusations at him. My brother and sister and I would complain bitterly to him about how she was treating us.
It was almost impossible to not get sucked into some kind of conflict every day. Home was the most dangerous place a kid could be.
My dad was taking her to doctors and counselors but nobody seemed to be able to arrive at any conclusion. Meanwhile, people watched us with a judgmental eye.
My dad was an associate pastor at a very large church in Nebraska, 2000+ members. Dad started getting heat from his boss, the senior pastor, Mr. G, who didn’t like the fact that one of the pastors’ wives was “out of line.”
Mr. G quoted the scripture that says a pastor should be in control of his family and told dad if he didn’t straighten out mom’s problem, he might have to leave.
Dad pursued answers and eventually got mom to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed her with a chemical imbalance and bipolar disorder.
That trip to the psychiatrist was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Psychiatrists and psychologists, in Mr. G’s opinion, were the new high priests of a secular order that would dismiss all human ills as curable illnesses. Psychiatrists didn’t have the courage to call evil by its real names – SIN and DISOBEDIENCE. They existed to give people like my mom an alibi. Mr. G declared Mom insubordinate and rebellious.
Literally on the same day the diagnosis came back, Mr. G and Mr. J, the pastors of our church, visited our house to deliver the news. We all sat in the living room as they announced, “We’ve asked your father to resign from his responsibilities. He’s no longer qualified to be a pastor.”
I listened without much comment. I was 13. My older sister, however, was livid. At 18 she’d formed definite opinions about what had transpired. She started sobbing and retorted angrily to Mr. J: “If people knew what YOUR daughter does when she’s out at night, they’d be forcing you to resign too.”
Mr. J said, “We’re not here to talk about me or my family today, Robin. We’re here to talk about you.”
Earlier that day, dad had been brought before the Board of Elders to hear their final verdict. One by one, they agreed with Mr. G: “Bob, you’re not in control of your family. We’re sorry, you have to step down.” Mr. G demoted dad and announced to 2,000 people the following Sunday that dad had “resigned” so he could “attend to problems with Betty and the family.”
The next months were painful indeed. Few knew the real story. Some gathered around us. Most only knew something disgraceful had happened though and kept their distance. We felt like pariahs.
Dad couldn’t hang with his same friends anymore. He wasn’t invited to lunch at work. They shut him out of staff meetings. They hadn’t cut his pay, but he did lose a tax deduction. Less money to go around.
A couple months later I got into a fist fight at school. Came home with two black eyes. Bad report cards and complaints from teachers. All this added to the mounting case against dad.
He would come home from work every night and sit on the couch and sob. Mom told him it was all his fault for being such a cruel tyrant.
Dad followed through with the psychiatrist’s advice to get her on a prescription drug. Literally within a few days, mom transformed from defiant and combative to quiet and cooperative. The bizarre behavior stopped completely. Not only that, she went from being angry and defensive to feeling deep remorse about her erratic behavior.
Soon it became clear that Mr. G torpedoed dad simply because mom had a medical problem – a chemical imbalance – and that mom’s behavior wasn’t “sin” or “rebellion.” It was a well-understood mental illness. She couldn’t help herself.
Dad was hurt and humiliated and felt abandoned. He desperately wanted to bail. A lot of people told him he should quit his job, especially our relatives who understood the scope of the situation.
Dad thought about pulling up stakes, moving elsewhere. He decided to stick it out. To argue his case and vindicate himself.
Few men had the balls to stand up to Mr. G, but dad did. As mom’s condition improved, he said, “Mr. G, you made a wrong judgment and you need to apologize to my wife.”
Furthermore dad made Mr. G write her a letter of reconciliation, because by this time mom had become terrified of Mr. G. He had, after all, the ability to singlehandedly destroy dad’s career.
Nine months after dad had been demoted, he was reinstated.
Two weeks later dad was diagnosed with cancer.
Had dad cut and run, he would’ve been in a newcomer in some new environment, maybe even starting over in a brand new city, surrounded by strangers.
But since he’d stuck it out and vindicated himself, we were surrounded by a faith community that lent us help with dinners and financial support and prayers and encouragement.
Dad had major surgery. He was cancer free for a year and a half, then it came back. Treatments were unsuccessful, and as it became clear that he wasn’t going to make it, Mr. G secretly mailed a letter to everyone else at church. He explained how this summer might be Bob’s last and it would be really nice to raise some money, so Bob can take a trip to the West Coast.
$10,000 came in. In 1986 that was enough to not only take dad to California, a place he’d always longed to visit, but it was enough to get all of us to Alaska and Hawaii too. Dad experienced a 5 week “last hurrah” with his wife and kids that July.
That October, he died. I was 17.
I can’t tell you how many things I’ve wanted to quit, and didn’t, because dad wouldn’t throw in the towel and walk away from a bunch of quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous people.
And say what you want about ’em, when you’re in the oncology ward with terminal cancer, those are the same people that will probably be with you as you pass from here to the other side.
They will still have their faults and you will have yours, but… blood is thicker than water.
A faith community can become just as close and even closer than your biological family. It’s why they can hurt you so easily.
But there’s no such thing as a real community, or even a real relationship, that isn’t vulnerable. Painfully so sometimes. During our special vacation to California, dad told me that getting rejected and blamed for a mess he had no control of had been worse than dying of cancer was now.
Peter asked Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times?
Jesus said, “Seventy times seven. That’s how many times you should forgive.”
What do you forgive people for, anyway??
For being quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14-15.
After the potluck dinners have ended and people start throwing chairs at each other, it’s so easy to pull the plug and run. So many marriages don’t work out, it’s so easy to just live with someone and see how things turn out.
It IS easier.
It’s easier at first.
But when a series of relationships fail, they rip your heart to shreds just as much whether you were married or not. It just seemed like not ‘committing’ yourself lessened the risk. If your “common law wife” leaves you after 10 years, how is that any less painful than if your legally married wife leaves you? Just because it’s ‘unofficial’ doesn’t make it less perilous.
I’ve had to make multiple passes of forgiveness about Mr. G. A few years later when more fiascoes erupted, I had to let go again.
A few years after that, it occurred to me that my dad might not have even gotten cancer in the first place had he not endured two years in such a toxic, unsupportive, humiliating environment. That’s speculation, but still I had even more forgiveness I had to do.
A year ago I realized I needed to confront yet another layer of unforgiveness within myself. I had made a conscious choice to let go of the past, when I suddenly felt God saying to me, “The Father’s Heart is going to be poured out over Mr. G and his church.”
The day you forgive anther person is the day new blessings get released into their life. The day you forgive another person is the day you stop being a victim of whatever they did to you.
Dear Anne Rice, I greatly esteem your writing and your scholarship. I commend you for your adroit case for the historical Jesus. I appeal to you as a brother and member of the imperfect body of Christ, that to exit and publicly denounce them is to embrace quarreling… hostility… and public disputes.
From an individual view it’s all justified. But isolation makes islands of all of us. When we who were mistreated gather together in opposition to those who did us wrong, we inevitably become like those whom we judge.
A few years ago I visited an old college buddy in Washington DC. He was an exquisitely smart, seminary educated man who’d been a pastor in a Protestant evangelical church. He’d recently converted from Protestant to Eastern Orthodox.
Eastern Orthodox??? Most Americans don’t even know what that is.
I was dying to hear his explanation. “I don’t know what Peter’s going to tell me, but it’s sure gonna be interesting.”
I wasn’t disappointed. We sat up late three nights in a row exploring his decision. I don’t have time for the whole story now, but one of the points he made was this: “Protestants have ‘splitting off’ in their very DNA. As soon as they disagree, they leave First Baptist Church to go start Second Baptist Church. Then some of those people split off and form Third Baptist Church and on and on it goes.
“Catholics and Orthodox people don’t automatically do that. They prize unity. I have a bishop over me and he’s like a father to me and my wife. We live in community and in covenant together. He’s responsible to look out for us and we choose to be in a trusting mutual relationship.”
Whether you’re Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox… or if you’re on the outside looking in… I want to encourage you: living the nomad life is less demanding in the short term but lonelier in the long term.
As you make forgiveness a way of life, when you choose to live in community, you earn a kind of compound interest of grace. Months or years do not always reveal the fruit of that. It grows evident over decades. Community is the only place where you truly learn to forgive and learn to love.
The only way we exorcise our demons – both figuratively and literally – is in committed relationships with other people. Those around us are mirrors. They show us our faults, and we theirs. As we bathe those faults in mercy and forgiveness we become the people we aspire to be.
Perry Marshall
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I understand Anne Rice’s dilemma. And Percy’s reply rings true as well; up to a point that is. And I have read some of the comments. All of which leaves me with a lasting question:
If one truly wants to follow Christ, can you turn a blind eye to the distractions and ill influence of the “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group” of “believers” that you find around you in many churches? Will Jesus forgive me for being in the company of “believers” where so many of the “fellowship” flagrantly ignore the most basic principles that He taught and died for?
What is my duty as a believer; to just remain static, trying to grow in an orchard where, on the face of it, many trees bear evil fruit? Or should I heed the warning of Our Lord:
Passage Matthew 7:15-23:
15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
16 By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Or maybe my duty is to search for another, also flawed but more committed community (another of the 20000 to 30000 rumoured “other orchards”) where I may grow and bear good fruit as commanded by Our Lord? Even if I am labelled by many, even if I possibly find myself alone on the narrow road?
Thank you Anne Rice for your honesty and courage. God is certainly infinitely more important than Christianity.
Belinda
Belinda: In my own experience I overstayed in the bad orchard. When it reached a point where I realized I could no longer remain there, I figured I’d just find a good church and move on. Unfortunatly, by that time I reached a point where I had lost all trust, “This seems to be a good church, but how can I be sure, the last one was good for a while?” So it was 5 years before I ventured back into Christian fellowship. As it turned out the next church were I became a member had some very serious problems. There I did not have the choice of just going down the block to a different church. BUt by then I had learned that my fith was not founded on having a perfect church. Overall, I’d say it is best to ‘get while the getting’s good’. (Leave the a bad orchard) sincerely, dale
If Jesus did not mean for the Bible to be our guide why did He say over and over , Have you not Read and It is Written? Jesus Christ used the Bible to rebuke religious people who erred and even Satan himself.
If the Bible is not what Christ said it was then He is not God and salvation is a myth. Those who reject the Bible don’t like its standards and are unwilling to live by them.
God divided the earth by language to prevent just what most here are promoting. Of course you dismiss the Bible even though the Jesus you claim to worship said it was infallible , could not be broken. The Bible says the word was true from the beginning and it would never pass away so those who claim it is irrelevant are worshipping a different God , a God of their own understanding. They are worshipping a god they created, not The God who created them.
I fully agree with what you are saying. In an earlier post in this same comments section I made the point that it may be time for us to redefine what our conception of ‘Church’ was. That is because I am a ‘foundations man’ and want to get back to basics, not because I am trying to create something derived from my own flights of fancy, hence the emphases that getting back into God’s Word should accompany this. Just as in Jesus’ day, the religious leaders of our day are by and large not reliable guides in this matter. There are exceptions, just as there were in Jesus’ day, but I am speaking in general.
Psa 119:9 ‘How can a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your Word.’ (Message)
A certain Bible teacher did me a great favour when, some years ago, he challenged me to ‘get back into the Word.’ The Word, he said, is like an onion – you have to peel it back in layers, so the first one or two casual readings does not reveal the real treasures hidden within it. And the more you study it you realize that it tends to unlock itself by and large hermeneutically, but you have to keep chipping away at it until the whole meaning unveils itself. The conversion of the Logos – the dead letter of the word – into the living revelation of God’s Rhema. And this is not something you can lazily gain secondhand from someone else considered ‘more expert’ than yourself, though I am not against receiving input from them, but you are still saddled with the responsibility to go and check it out in God’s Word for yourself.
Once you start doing that, you will not be so susceptible to every changing wind of doctrine that come your way, nor will you be so dependent on ‘church leadership’ to show you the way; God himself will lead you – in short you will start discerning the difference between ‘Churchianity’ and ‘Christianity’ more and more clearly. You will not be led astray so easily and you will not become bitter when it does happen, for you will realize that it was your own fault that you did not check things out for yourself in the Bible first before you set out to follow this or that doctrinal error.
The real difficulty is gain ‘tabula rasa’, to the get the slate wipe clean from all the doctrinal errors that came down to you through having been brought up in your particular denomination. I cannot begin to tell the readers how often I come accross some snippet of belief I held, and as I examine it in the light of the Bible, it is as if God says to me ‘Who told you that?’ and I have to admit, it wasn’t God or the Bible, but the church I grew up in.
That is why I am against denominationalism. Denominationalism is for people who are too lazy to do their own homework to acquaint and avail themselves of God’s Word first hand. Thus you have not right to be angry or bitter when you get taken for a doctrinal ride – in a sense you deserve what you get.
Oswald Chambers clarified this issue for me magnificently: he asked the question ‘What is the test of a sound and true preacher?’ He turned to John 3:30 ‘He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease.’ Jesus must become more and more and the preacher, his charisma, his personal opinions and agendas and eloquence must fade away.
And that only happens when you let the Jesus of the Bible speak for Himself. Thus I would rather seek fellowship by doing Bible study with a few simple seekers like myself, than being swept up by all the theatrics of denominational ritual, liturgies, music and architecture.
I hope this helps.
William, it is so true that we need to know Jesus and follow Him, helped by the inspirations of His earlier followers in the Bible. However, I think you need to investigate liturgies, which are “theatrics” with a significant purpose. Do you know that each liturgy is not only song and “ritual” but basically Bible study? Yesterday’s Mass, for example, in addition to the three large readings dealing with Jesus’ teaching on the Law and the Prophets, had numerous other short Scripture verses throughout. The sermon then is meant to expand on the theme. Over the course of three years those who participate are introduced to a very complete view of the Bible, especially the Gospels and Paul’s letters, but also the psalms, the prophets, and Old Testament history. The whole experience is one of listening to God’s Word and responding in prayer and song. Try it some day.
Hi Joan,
I’m of a somewhat different opinion. Firstly, why do I have to attend Mass for that? Systematic Bible study in the comfort of my own home, using concordances and digital aids like e-Sword enables me to do the same thing first hand. Going to Mass gives you a version of it that has been filtered by someone else. I have a fundamentally different view of what ‘the congregation of the saints’ ought to be: it is not so much a place you go to to go and get something, it is more a place where you go and give something – namely the insights and revelations you have gained during the previous week (or any other period) in your personal time you have spent with the Lord and with His Word. That correlates exactly with 1Co 14:26 “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.” It is not the clergy, that’s supposed to be doing the edifying. We are! Each one of us, if we have a living relationship with God, receives inspiration, revelation, knowledge and insight during the week if we spend enough time with Him, and in the right way. We then go to a meeting ‘where two or three [are gathered in His name
Sorry, that got posted prematurely by accident! (Sorry) So let me finish what I was saying:
‘…where two or three [or more] are gathered in His name’ I bring what I received to the meeting, partly to build other people up and partly for verification. The latter prevents me from straying unduly. I guess what I am trying to put across can, by way of analogy, be described as being the difference between ‘formal education’ and ‘autodidactism.’ I can speak from first hand experience when I tell you that often, in such a setting, because every believer is led by the Spirit, and He is a Spirit of unity and not of division, we find that the Lord had been giving us the ‘same thing’ or different aspects of the same thing. It is like each brings a puzzle-piece to the meeting and when you put it together it all fits, and everyone goes away greatly built up and inspired because of it, because we all have experience God’s hand at work supernaturally yet again.
Like I said in a previous post, once you have experienced something like that it’s like the difference between honey and syrup. Once you have tasted honey, you will never again be satisfied with syrup again.
Remember, Jesus was talking about the Old Testament, and the one that hasn’t been re-written by our all powerful Vatican.
Pete,
Anyone familiar with Old Testament scholarship knows that the idea that the Vatican re-wrote it is nothing more than a silly urban legend. The only people who have re-written the Bible with any degree of success are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their version reads substantially different than all the others. All the other versions, give or take a few books (Jewish vs Catholic vs Protestant) pretty much say the exact same thing. The Catholics included MORE books – the apocrypha – they didn’t delete stuff.
Hi Perry.
Okay I read your message about the Bible not being rewritten. Really?? In my own lifetime I have studied The King James Verion, The Revised Standard Version, and The Good News Bible (I didn’t like that one I missed the flowing languge of my childhood esperience). Besides that there are at leat two times in history as I remember that the Bible was rewritten. If you need me to I can reearch the subject and provide enough proof to convince anyone.
Beverly,
Those versions aren’t rewrites, they’re just different translations. The Watchtower Bible is a rewrite.
Every other version says the same thing +/-5%.
The OT Jesus quoted wasn’t Hebrew it was the Septuagint. Which itself is a translation from the Hebrew into Greek, translated in Egypt, as follows:
(often written LXX, i.e., “seventy”). The oldest extant Greek translation of the Bible. It got its name from the story of the 70 elders responsible for the translation, as related in the “Letter of Aristeas,” in the Talmud, and in the works of Philo and Josephus. There are disagreements about when the translation was made, but it is agreed that not all the Bible was translated at the same time and that, except for the Pentateuch, it was not the product of a single major project. According to the “Letter of Aristeas,” it was composed in Alexandria. Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BCE), who was a bibliophile, heard from his librarian, Demetrius, that the Jewish Bible was worth translating for the king’s archives. The king wrote to the High Priest in Jerusalem, asking him to send scholars who would be able to translate the Pentateuch into Greek. The High Priest sent 72 wise men, whom the king lodged in a building on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. Each translated only a part of the Pentateuch and after 72 days, at the conclusion of the work, the Greek translations were read before the Jewish community and before the king. All lauded the Jewish Bible and its wisdom and praised the work of the translators.
The Talmud (Meg, 9a) states that all the elders translated the entire Bible. According to legend, each made his own translation and when these were compared they were found to be identical. It is now thought that the project was initiated not by the king but by the Egyptian Jewish community, which needed a Greek translation for its own requirements. In fact, it may have emerged through oral tradition in the synagogues of Alexandria. The entire Bible was translated by c.100 BCE.
The word “Septuagint,” applied at first only to the Pentateuch, was later applied to the other books as well. The internal order of the books is different from the Hebrew version. In addition to the books of the Bible, there are a number of apocryphal works (see Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha), such as Maccabees and Ecclesiasticus. Various changes and errors are the result of later additions and deletions made to accord with Christian theology, such as the addition of the Hebrew word equivalent to “from the cross” in Psalms 96:10, the incorrect translation of the word alma (“maiden”) as “virgin” (Isa. 7:14), and others.
The style of the translation is not uniform, because of the different translators involved and the different times of the various translations. The Septuagint is noteworthy for its popular, limited, and simple vocabulary. It was because of the Septuagint translation that the rest of the world became aware of the culture of the Jews and, according to Philo (Life of Moses 2:7), the Jews of Alexandria held an annual celebration on the island of Pharos on the anniversary of the completion of the Septuagint.
The sages of Erets Israel, on the other hand, regarded the translation as a real danger to the Hebrew language, which they feared would be replaced by Greek. In addition, the translation began to be used as the basis of the allegorical sermons of the Hellenistic Jews, and the Christians, too, began to utilize it in their polemics against Judaism. The sages therefore announced: “The day that the Torah was translated was as terrible as the day that the [golden] calf was made” (Sof. 1). The last chapter of Megillat Ta’Anit states: “On the 8th of Tevet the Torah was written in Greek during the time of King Ptolemy, and darkness came to the world for three days.”
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/septuagint#ixzz1Drluot8u
In a message dated 2/13/2011 06:30:13 Pacific Standard Time, noreply@coffeehousetheology.com writes:
There is a new comment on the post “Anne Rice Quits Church”.
http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/anne-rice-leaves-the-church/
Author: Pete Onni
Comment:
Remember, Jesus was talking about the Old Testament, and the one that hasn’t been re-written by our all powerful Vatican.
Jesus never mentioned the Bible, outside of the Old Testament scriptures,because it hadn’t been written yet in His day. Neither does the Bible mention itself anywhere. Even if it did, “the Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true” is as flimsy a basis for faith as “the Koran is true because the Koran says the Koran is true.” I think it’s important to go to the source (Jesus) rather than second-hand accounts.
You said “Those who reject the Bible don’t like its standards and are unwilling to live by them.” Such as:
Exodus 21:20-21: “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.”
Exodus 21:7: “21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.”
Ezekiel 9:5-6: “Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children…”
Do YOU live by these standards?
Hi David,
We find examples of God being exceedingly merciful and lenient in some parts of the Bible and then acting incredibly harshly in other parts. It is quite confusing isn’t it? Like God is acting a bit schizophrenically. As Andrew Wommack put it: “Will the real God please stand up! That is, until you begin to view God actions in the right framework.
Instead of giving you a very lengthy exposition of what I am talking about, I would rather refer you to an excellent article written by Andrew Wommack called The True Nature Of God on precisely this subject that will hopefully clear the matter up for you and others:
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/nature_god
I hope it helps.
Regards,
Willem
You read the text, but can you hear the music?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06khEqzGEsc
David, As I scroll down from you previous coment and looking at your coment above it becomes clear that you believe that the Bible is false. There was a time when I assumed it was nonsense. When I learned of all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in His first coming and many other details wherein the Bible was correct I came to realize that the Bible could be taken seriously and that is how I came to believe in Jesus. To be explicit, I came to believe in the Jesus of the Bible. I have met Muslims, Mormans, Hindus, etc who believe in Jesus, but it is in those cases a different Jesus. If the Bible turns out to be true, it is critical that we have faith in the right Jesus. sincereely, dale
No, I don’t believe the Bible is false, and I believe in Jesus as the divine Savior, not as a “wise teacher” or a “prophet”. I believe that the Jesus described in the Bible is the Savior of all who believe, not because I read it in a book, but because a personal experience I had with Jesus confirmed the basic truth about his identity, decades after I first read the Bible. However, I don’t believe the Bible is 100% free of error, which it would have to be if God wrote it. The Bible is not the truth, it is a witness to the truth, and witness testimony is not 100% reliable. An analogy: If I read the book “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” and found an error in it, it wouldn’t mean that the entire book is false, and that there never was a Roman Empire in the first place. It would just mean that the book was not error-free, that’s all. We get taught in church that “You must either accept the Bible as 100% accurate, or reject it entirely.” That’s a false dichotomy. A question: Have you experienced Jesus personally? After all, even if you read “A Brief History of Time” 100 times and believed every word of it, it wouldn’t mean that you knew Stephen Hawking. It would just mean you knew *about* him, which is something different.
It is true that the Bible has Jesus quoting the Old Testament Scripture, even to the devil. To my mind, that must be taken into consideration when trying to understand the status of the Bible.
Dear Perry,
I am Buddhist by belief, but have been following your blog for some time. Your article on Anne Rice’s repudiation was touching and poignant. Most important, the point you make about catharitic vale of forgiveness comes through very well.
Gopinath Nagaraj
I would like to run the entire article by Perry in our newsletter and I am seek your permission to do so. It was so touching and powerful.
Sincerely,
Pastor Miller
Messiah Lutheran Church
Brownsburg, IN 46112
By all means, go ahead.
The ONLY way out is to put our faith in Jesus WHATEVER the opposite argument, as it may SEEM logical, convincing and just, is always and only a Satan’s lie, he hates us and wants us go to hell (= to stand bad) in the Hereafter and in this one life. Pray and fast with all your heart, with emphasis and approach to God as you never did before, and he will CHANGE your life. If will not change your problems, for sure will change the way in which to address them. You will be co-winner with Christ, no longer a victim. In other cases, God will heal quickly your problems. Who you away from Jesus is always just a LIAR who is LYING. Who says that the Bible is unreliable and is always just a LIAR who is LYING. Who do you propose other way out is always just a LIAR who is LYING. If you reject Jesus, you lose the ONLY chance of blessing that you have available, and the devil laugh at what you’re stupid and how he keep you under his control. Get up and in the Name of Jesus takes possession of your life!
But isn’t God encouraging people to sin by ordering them to keep slaves, sell their daughters and murder innocent children?
If I don’t verbalize these kinds of questions, they’re still going to echo silently in the minds of Christians and non-Christians alike.
David: He did not order people to keep slaves. It may be that slavery is a human institution. In some instances a people who had been defeated in war might prefer slavery to being slaughtered. The Bible contained a mechanism whereby slaves could find freedom. I was begining to feel a little like a slave mayself when my taxes went up 67% last year. Try to cool down a little and give the God of the Bible a chance. sincerely, dale
According to Exodus 21:20-21, God supported the right of masters to beat slaves as long as they recover from their injuries in a day or two, and accepted that a slave is the property of his master. Also, there is no question that the Bible portrays God as ordering the Israelites to kill children. In Numbers Chapter 31, the Israelites took the virgin girls of the people they had slaughtered, and made sex slaves out of them after killing all the non-virgins.
As Christians, we need to be asking ourselves the tough questions, and keep pressing no matter how long it takes until we get answers that truly make sense. That is a characteristic of strong faith, not weak faith. People like Richard Dawkins are already be asking these questions for us, and turning many people away from Jesus that way. Militant atheists are portraying God as a genocidal maniac, and using it to discredit Christianity. Have we no answer for them?
We have very good answers for these kinds of questions. Go to any decent apologetics website and take some time and read what is there. You’ll find for example that commands to kill all the women and children were done for specific reasons and a very limited number of instances. You will find NO support for general madness and mayhem.
You also find in Isaiah, Jeremiah etc stern warnings that if people worship idols the same thing will happen to them.
You will find that what we call “slavery” in the OT assigned generous human rights to the slave, a time frame after which they would set free and it was more like employment. Again there is much literature on this topic and the Dawkins crowd argues based on a silly caricature of what the text actually says. Those guys disappear real fast when you force them to examine the context and actually have an informed analysis of the narrative.
Hi M Jordan
I’m a person who was in the Christain faith from birth. My wonderful grandfather was a minister in a protestant church and we discussed all sorts of religious topics from the time I was 3 1/2 so I had lots of practice before he was killed in a car accident.
I believe in God the Almighty who created heaven and earth and also in Jesus Christ. I find great joy in sitting in almost every church I have ever been near – especially awesome are the cathedrals in Europe.
I don’t believe in any church that takes away that joy and replaces it with fear. People do not need fear to understand God and Jesus.
The basic truths of Jesus’ message have nothing to do with fear. He preached love and joy. I believe if we had a Bible that actually reported his life we would see God in a Human form who was asking us to live a life that will give us joy and happiness. What is wrong with joy and happiness? Try the beatitudes- they are about joy. I love “Consider the lilies of the field. They sow not neither do they reap but God in all his glory is not arrayed like these.
I believe strongingly in a soul or spirit the survies beyond our earthly life. I have conversations with my higher self.
I believe in heaven although I feel the word has been used to liberally. Heaven is a spiritual place for me.
Okay Michael does that answer your question or do you have more questions? Ask
Thanks, You make me think,
Beverly
Might I say to you that all of our diffences are CARNAL, FLESHLY, and NATURAL by default….Due to the ORIGINAL SIN.
Is there something wrong with Natural or Fleshy. God created my flesh what does original sin Have to do these?
Furthermore you seem to have much more fun chastising us because we are BAD (did you know the fully capitalizing a letter is shouting?)
Your view of Christianity is very different from mine. Possibly it makes both of us ponder the subject more.
Hope your faith sustains you,
Beverly
When I was 22 years old, going to college in Montana, I woke up one morning at approximately 9:00 am to a quiet house. This was very unusual since I had a five month old daughter and a 23 month old daughter. My five month old usually had us awake ‘religiously’ by 5:30 am. Immediately, a feeling of foreboding washed over me of which the depth and dread cannot be described. I could not rush, but took slow steps down the hall to their room, hoping against the dark direction my mind was bent as I drew near the crib. All I saw was a mass of soft, yellow, nylon quilted blanket with her black hair sticking out one end. I lifted her face up to mine to see her long eyelashes sort of glued shut, her arms stayed in an upright position, her head to the side. During the night she had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Just the day before, I had taken her to the doctor for an upper respiratory infection and she was on antibiotics, seemingly doing fine. About a month later, I went to an open church to pray. I was kneeling, praying and crying. The priest, after about 25-35 minutes approached me and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and he informed me that I needed to leave because he needed to close up. I told him I needed to speak to somebody because my baby died. No offer of prayer, no offer of discussion, not even friendliness. I was a young mother in crisis looking in the right direction (towards God’s people, His vessels) for comfort and love at a time when I could barely manage to eat and breath. I left there feeling rejected by God. Of course, that was not the case, but I did not yet understand His infinite love.
I do not regale you with these very personal experiences in my own name in order to get pity or attention. There are a bzillion me’s out there. I have learned through my experiences to be ready to love on people in the name of Christ. I am far from great at it, but it’s my number 2 priority. Christ declared it as His second priority, right after loving His Father with all His heart, soul, and mind. Are we not to try to be like Him? Come one, let’s run that race!
Thank you so much for telling your story. You’re welcome here.
Dear Kathryne,
I ahve seen similar attitudes in some churches. I am retired law enforcement, and one Sunday morning working as shift supervisor, I was called to meet with the pastor of the biggest Baptist church in the city. I met with him in his office, the service was about to start. The pastor took me to the door of his office and pointed at a dirty looking man sitting in the front pew. “Do you see that man there? I would like for you to remove him.” I asked: “Is he creating a disturbance?” The answer was: “No, but he is dirty and smells bad, and I don’t think nobody wants to sit close to him. You can tell him to come back after the service, and I’ll pray for him.”
I went over to the man, and asked him to come outside, that I wanted to talk with him. He came with no problems at all. He told me he was on the way to Florida to get work harvesting fruits, and had been hitchhiking for several days as he had no money for the bus fare nor food. Only sleeping at the road side, that’s why he was so dirty. He only wanted to attend a church service and hear the Gospel. I took him to a small Episcopal church nearby, and told the priest there what had happened. Well, the treatment was a little different. The man got a front seat, a blessing and special prayer by the priest. The congregation took up a collection for money for his bus fare. The priest and his wife took him to their home, let him shower, gave him clean clothes, fed him lunch and gave him a ride to the bus station.
As the priest said, this man may be the Lord testing us. There are both good and bad pastors and priests, some should not even be allowed to call themselves Christians. But God is among all of us.
In my 30 plus years of law enforcement I have seen them all.
The main problem for Anne Rice is the direction she was moving in. She would be wise to get out of that harlot church Jesus warns us about in Revelation – The Roman Catholic Church, and to steer clear of her daughters – The Protestant Church. All one really needs is a good version of the Bible and pray Abba will show you His Ways.
When I left the church at age 15 I clung to the teachings of Christ as my only defense against the judgement of the recently split congregation. An Evangelist had come to our town and had purged the “spirit of the law” people from the “letter of the law” community. My sunday school teacher was among those targeted in church and later banned from entering the doors.
Now, I knew all of these people — less than 100 — and when the verse was read about how few of the believers would actually make it into heaven, I looked around and said to myself: “That’s about right.” There were only a few in this community that were loving enough to get along well. If the rest were in heaven it would just be more of the same.”
Those who quoted scripture the most, were often the ones who understood the least about loving others. In a grand paradox, they were both preserving the scriptures and leading by bad example. Still, I must admit, in the long run, it kind of works, i.e., they produce people who genuinely cling to Christ. So much so that they can follow him right out the church door with the whole church community telling them they are going to hell. Graduation time, perhaps.
David, there are hundreds of online sites that meet all your legal questions, how could you not know it? For example, at the time slavery was less cruel and violent than that of the nineteenth century in the United States. It was a situation more comparable to that of employees. In Exodus 21,5 you can see that some slaves preferred to remain slaves of their master rather than be free, “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not Want to go free. ” In addition, the master had no right to kill his slave, and if he did should be punished as the laws in Exodus 21,20. But in all the pagan nations around Israel could kill the bosses if they wanted their slaves. If the slave owner was losing a tooth, an eye had to give in exchange for freedom, as laws in Exodus 21,26-27. But in all the pagan peoples although amputees, the slaves remained slaves forever. Only a very naive man might think that the social context of 2500 years ago is the same as today, and only one person in bad faith can not see that the law of Moses made slavery much lighter than it was before. In addition, the New Testament, slavery is considered sinful as Paul says in 1 Timothy 1,10. Hebrews 10,1 say “The [of Moses] Law is ONLY A SHADOW of the good things That are coming NOT THE REALITIES THEMSELVES [Grace we have in Christ]”. There are thousands of webpages that explain perfectly more clearly this apologetic theme and all the others. The fact that you are not familiar with these answers, and propose Dawkins as a theological teacher, shows how enormous is your unpreparatione and that you are victim of misinformation. You have no right to accuse God for what you do not understand. I see in your words not a sincere desire to seek the truth, just a proud thoughts like “I can declare me righteous and God sinful”. If we do not agree with what God and has done, does not mean that he is in error, just that our minds are corrupted by original sin. “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1Corinthians 2,14). Put more faith in God’s word than your same thinkings and AFTER you’ll receive from God clear explanation of everything will be clear in your mind. You have to take a step of faith, because without faith it is impossible to please him! (Hebrews 11,7).
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but it sounds to me like you are defending slavery. “If an employer beats his employee, he shall not be punished as long as the employee recovers in a day or two, since the employee is his property”. I’ve worked for some companies who seem to THINK that’s the way it works, but fortunately it doesn’t work that way.
Unfortunately, whenever people get into discussions about God, it’s very difficult to keep emotions at bay long enough to discuss things in a reasonable fashion. That’s true for atheists as much as believers. Here are some of the problems:
1. Circular reasoning (also known as “begging the question”):
Christians – If you question whether or not church doctrine or a quote from the Bible really came from God, you’re “arrogantly judging God”. No you’re not — you’re questioning whether or not what PEOPLE say about God and the Bible is actually true or not. To say otherwise is to assume the truth of the doctrine in order to prove that it’s true, which is circular and therefore proves nothing.
Atheists — claim there’s no reason to believe in God because scientific investigation of the universe reveals no evidence of Him. But the premise at issue involves the existence or non-existence of a being that TRANSCENDS the physical universe. Looking for God in the cosmos is like looking for Leanardo da Vinci in the Mona Lisa and then proclaiming that da Vinci never existed because there’s no trace of him in the Mona Lisa.
2. “Straw man” arguments:
Christians: “You’re proposing Dawkins as a theological teacher”. I did not propose Dawkins as a theological teacher, I presented him as an opponent who is leading many people away from Jesus and therefore needs to be answered. But saying I am proposing Dawkins as a theological teacher makes it a lot easier to criticize it.
Atheists: “Christians believe salvation is attained through eating the flesh of a zombie” (Zombies rise from the dead; Christians observe the rite of Communion). No we don’t. That’s a grossly inaccurate distortion of our beliefs. But portraying us that way sure makes it easier to answer us, doesn’t it? How convenient.
3. Poisoning the well: (Attacking the speaker rather than the statement, to discredit the speaker so nobody will listen to him anymore. This is often done as a desperation ploy when the speaker’s objections can’t be readily answered)
Christians: “You think that way because you’re understanding things with your darkened, carnal mind rather than with the light of God’s wisdom.” If I said 2 +2 = 4, you could use this ploy to say that no, actually, 2 + 2 = 5 and the only reason I think it’s 4 is because I’m considering the problem with my darkened, carnal mind.
Atheists (particularly of the scientific mindset): “Christians claim to have had experiences with God, but that’s because the human brain is a marvelously complex instrument. Hallucinating a “god” would be child’s play for it.” OK, if the human brain is such a good hallucinator, how do you know you’re not hallucinating me? How do I know I’m not hallucinating you?
These guys (the militant atheists) portray us as a bunch of fools who rely on circular reasoning, “straw man” argumentation, threats and personal attacks to cover up contradictory beliefs (“God is love” vs. “God orders people to kills children”). They get away with it even tough they play the same logic games that Christians do — they’re just doing it a whole lot better than we are, which is why Christianity is losing its faithful day by day. Let’s answer their logic games with reasonable responses, not more games.
Sadly, I find that whenever you ask tough questions in church, you get accused of “judging God”, you get accused of pride, you get accused of insincerity, you get accused of heresy — and then, ironically, you get accused of “judging others”. Thinking, it seems, is the ultimate sin in church. Are thinking and faith really so incompatible? I have faith that there ARE answers, answers that don’t involve defending slavery or genocide. Even though I have yet to discover many of these answers, I know that Jesus is good, and my faith that Jesus good is greater than my faith in the strict verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. I anticipate an objection here — “You don’t know what’s good and what’s evil, only God knows that (or, “darkened, carnal minds don’t know the difference”)” Yes, I do know the difference, and so does everyone else, Christian or not, who descended from the man who ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we didn’t know good from evil, then God wouldn’t judge us for sin, any more than He judges a dog for sin when it bites someone.
If we allow ourselves to think without fear of retribution form God, sometimes we can actually get answers!. For example — in the New Testament, Jesus, speaking of Judas’s upcoming betrayal, said that the prophesy of betrayal must be fulfilled, but “woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!” To me, that sounded like God forced Judas to sin, then punished him for sinning. The doesn’t sound like a God of justice, or of love. But I pressed on, even though the church told me I was “arrogantly judging God” by daring to raise the question. After thinking about it for a long time, (hopefully under the influence of the Holy Spirit), I came to a new understanding of what that passage means — it wasn’t what Judas did that was sinful (after all, he was fulfilling an element of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind) — it was WHY he did it. If his motivation had been to do his duty, to play his role in God’s plan to save mankind, rather than simply to enrich himself, his action would not have been sinful. Which is consistent with Jesus’ point that all sin is committed in the heart before it is manifested in action.
There ARE answers, even if we haven’t discovered them yet. Let’s find them. God will not punish us for asking honest questions. We owe it to the millions of people sitting on fence, who need faith to make sense. For too long, the church has set up faith and reason as enemies, and it’s not working.
Dave:
Very, very well put. I have been accused of heresy, of judging God. I always bring up the life of Christ, his questions to the pharisees, his life that seemed so rebellious to them, and that does not even make a dent in the reason of my church family. In fact, some have come back at me with “Well, you certainly are not Jesus.” as if they forget that we are to try to be like Him. Or, the age old comeback of IS 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” When scriptures are used as a platitude or a ‘hush-up you heretic”, as a way to say “We who know the Bible are right and you are wrong” then we are in a closed system as tight as any cult. These points of argument that you bring up are tools to keep people confused and distracted, tools to keep us from moving forward together. It is heart breaking to me. Imagine the heart of our Lord as He looks on…
That was excellent Dave. I once read a book called Fit Bodies, Fat Minds – the title being a reference to Christians who go to great pains to keep their bodies trim and fit but will at the same time make themselves guilty of exceedingly sloppy thinking. This phenomenon has been termed an anti-intellectual bias. And the fact is that if you abdicate your ability to think for yourself and let somebody else start doing the thinking for you, you will get taken advantage of, even by people purporting to be your ‘spiritual father’ or ‘spiritual home’ or ‘spiritual brothers/sisters’ or ‘the Body.’ That is why I am against denominationalism (not to be confused with true Christian fellowship which I am strongly in favour of).
Once you reclaim your right to think for yourself you, you (at the risk of sounding harsh) realize that, despite the fact that what those spiritual pimps did to you is to some extent inexcusable, you have yourself to blame in the first place for having surrendered you independence of mind. And you have to forgive the pimps for it turns out they too are often very sincere in what they are doing but nevertheless are the victims of a higher ‘religious pimping’ order they got their ideas from.
How to break the cycle – acquaint yourself honestly and first hand, under the direct personal guidance of the Holy Spirit (and not someone else idea of what that Holy Spirit guidance should constitute) of God’s Word as contained in the Bible.
In my experience, Christians who choose to think for themselves are often attacked and judged as you rightly point out. That is really deplorable, because the instead of the Church nurturing those talents with a view to using those people as their bulwark against the intellectual onslaught of atheists, they actually finish them off before the atheists even get a chance to get to them.
In this same above mentioned book one of the Huxleys is quoted as saying “Most Christians will rather die than think for themselves; in fact, most of them do”…
Oh, the number of times I have heard that said i.e. “Well, you’re not Jesus”! Definitely comes from a self-righteous spirit and a stubborn heart.
I find faith in God is reason to belief in God. That is what 7 years of following Yeshua and studying the Word has shown me.
David, you state
“it wasn’t what Judas did that was sinful (after all, he was fulfilling an element of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind) — it was WHY he did it. If his motivation had been to do his duty, to play his role in God’s plan to save mankind, rather than simply to enrich himself, his action would not have been sinful.”
So, since we have no clarification from God one way or another, should we not hold out the hope that Adolf Hitler was “just playing his role in God’s plan to save mankind?” (Surely, you see the absurdity of such a hope?) I suspect you have a Calvinistic upbringing, and it is this type of twisting the scriptures that has tortured me for most of my adult life. There is no way the betrayal of our Lord could have been made not to be sin. It was a sinful act regardless of motive.
We are given free will, and will be judged on how we use it, not on how it plays out in God’s plans. God gives us the choice -though he already knows how we will choose! “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.” (Psalm 139:4) He knew, for example, that Peter would betray Jesus 3 times before the rooster crowed. But it was still Peter’s choice to (wrongly) do so. As He knows how we will chose, He can use our choices for good, even if they are bad choices -but we are still the ones who chose, and will be judged accordingly. In the case of Judas, he was offered a chance to be remembered as one of Jesus’ faithful Apostles. He rejected the offer, and chose to do evil. God simply used his wicked choice for greater good. So what Judas did was still sinful as Jesus himself said, “woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! I would be better for him if he had not been born.” (Mark 14:21) God simply used his poor choice as part of His plan.
No, I’m certainly not a Calvinist. I must point out, though, that 6 million Jews didn’t volunteer to die in gas chambers, but Jesus did voluntarily sacrifice himself on the cross. That’s why Judas’ act furthered what Jesus intended to happen. Even so, Judas’ deceitful motivations made his act a heinous sin.
Here’s a possible explanation. Let’s suppose that the cities attacked by the Israelites were full of utterly corrupt, unredeemable adults — incest, bestiality, you name it. That much is recorded in the Bible, about at least some of them. If they were beyond redemption,the only thing they had to live for was to pile up their sins. Killing them off might have been merciful — by reducing the number of sins they would have to answer for on the Day of Judgment. But, having killed the parents, what do you do with the children? Take them in as orphans, feed them and clothe them? And then move on to the next city, do the same thing, and end up with another big batch of orphans. Before long, the orphans would outnumber the Israelites, and the Israelites wouldn’t be able to afford to feed them anymore. A quick death by the sword is better than a slow death by starvation. Another problem — when those children grew up, they would likely be hostile to the Israelites who killed their parents. Thus Israel would be outnumbered by enemies it its own midst. Which enemies would probably rise up and kill all the Israelites — men, women and children.
I don’t know if that’s right or not — my heart is revolted by the killing of children. But it’s a step in the right direction. And I never would have thought of it if I hadn’t dared to ask tough questions, to doubt radically, and to stick with the question until I got an answer that made sense. I’m still not completely satisfied, but I do feel I’m making progress. Let me encourage all of you to do the same.
People are in church for a whole variety of reasons. Some are purely tribal. When this is the case the “tribe” and its’ identity has a conflict of interest with truth seeking.
Other reasons for church going are no different than primitive peoples trying to appease their God(s). God by definition is very powerful, and can make you hurt if you don’t follow the right ‘formula’. People most selfishly worried about what God might do to them, or for them, get real ‘letter of the law’. It is probably a developmental thing that some people have trouble growing out of. Churches are a magnet for them.
Conflicts of interest can also arise around the effort to do the difficult things that are at the core of Christs teachings. It has boggled my mind the way people can make an easy answer out of Christs teachings….. And it’s all selfish! Their motive is to save their sorry behinds. They want to do what it takes to be saved, and well…., loving your enemies is a nice ideal that is so far above us that nobody really expects us to do that,….. do they???
Christ was very troubled with the institutional and private behavior of the people of his time. He spent a lot of time instructing them in how to do better. Being people, though, they were mostly interested in how to avoid death and anything else unpleasant that life and God might have in store for them. They didn’t want to hear too much about their shortcomings. In order to get them to not completely dismiss him and all the good things he had to offer, he had to give them a little of what they wanted, even though he knew it would probably kill him. He died for our sins. And his wisdom lives on, perpetuated by some of the same weaknesses that he preached against.
Now that is true irony!
God can use bad things to accomplish good, and He can even pull truth out of the mouths of liars. (-;
David,
Yes, and I hope this makes sense, this is why those of us who become tattered and broken by life’s horrors and then further beaten by ‘Christian’ platitudes and religious zeal NEED to ‘run not walk’ away from the church.
(Sorry Jesus about using the word ‘Christian’ in such a context).
To Katheryne Ankney: I can well understand how one who has been “beaten by” [Chritianity]would have the “NEED to ‘run not walk’ away from the church” So often I have asked myself why is it that Christianity is so often the very opposite of what it is supposed to be? While not having a clear or easy answer there is one experience that is burned into my thinking on this matter. I was setting at a relative’s death bed speaking to his daughte when the subject of ‘church’ came up. I mentioned a popular church near her and how it was connected to a church I was attending then.she said “I was married in that church, so was my dad…” This surprised me greatly, but what followed was more than a surprise. She related how, when the church usher commited a serious felony imvolving a minor and the church rallied behind the usher how she could no longer bear to have her children present in such a church. What made this revelation all the more troubling to myself was that at that very time this church was involved in another scandle, and was steadfastly refusing to do anything about it. I am aware of so many such incidents. How can these offended children ever come to trust Jesus? Jesus spoke well when He said it would be better that a mill stone be tied about necks of such offenders and it cast into the deepes part of the sea.
Why is it that the present day church is coming to resemble the church of Laodacia? Why are we slipping into apostacy? One can see from many of the comments in this blog that many Christians are turning from faith in God’s word. The Bible is no longer trusted or relevant. We are turning away from the authority of Scripture and putting our trust in people like Paul Young, the author of ‘The Shack’. While ‘The Shack’ is a wonderful and compelling book, the doctrine it relates in anti-biblical and Paul Young has previously written to the effect that the Jesus of the Bible is over a millon times more evil than Adolph Hitler. (See James De Young’s book ‘Burning down the Shack’ or go to http://www.inthedays.com for a discussion on ‘The Shack’ (search ‘The Shack’) My point being this: Christians are turning to anything and everything but the Bible, we are running headlong into apostacy. If we rule out God’s word, should we be surprised when the presence of God departs from our churches and another spirit takes control?
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMGatR8SNns&feature=related
People…., Ya gotta love ’em. They’re in quite a bind. Life is truly hard. But ya gotta love Christ even more for what he did. Truly amazing!!!
The Bible does not teach slavery as a divine institution, it is just a consequence of original sin. Slavery was present in the ancient world many centuries before that God spoke to Moses. Under the Law of Moses slavery was made lighter, and with the New Testament were laid foundations for its ultimate elimination. Anyone who knows history knows that it was christians faithful to Bible, not materialists and atheists, those who fought for slavery’s abolition. With regard to the answers you need, arises from the need you have to study further the difference between old and new testament. If you get to thinking that OT is the SAME as divine revelation to the NT, you’ll just do mistakes and errors, and you will go out of road. I repeat: Hebrews 10,1 say “The [of Moses] Law is ONLY A SHADOW of the good things That are coming NOT THE REALITIES THEMSELVES [Grace we have in Christ]“. In communist and islamic countries, christians prefer a violent death than deny Jesus and the Bible. It is shameful that some Christians in free countries deny Jesus just to have read a book full of misleading arguments. There is strong Christian response to Dawkins & Co. Read, for example, “Dawkins Delusion” of Alister McGrath, or “Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology” of William Dembski. Please Read Dembski directly from his book, there are dozens of Internet sites that distort his thinking with straw man arguments. If you study the arguments of evolutionists against Intelligent Design you will realize that they are much, much more and more closed minded, bigots and prejudiced than every fundamentalist. Evolutionists are literally mesmerized and brainwashed by the naturalistic conception of the world.
The Muslims don’t dare question the Koran, but that is exactly the problem. How can they be saved until they do? If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, would you have been a Muslim, arguing that the Koran is God’s Word? If you’d been born in India, would you now be a Hindu? I feel sure that I would be a Christian by now, no matter where I was born.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I had a different experience than you did. I got saved after a direct exchange with Jesus. He clearly identified himself as the Jesus written about in the Bible. He told me directly what I needed to do to be saved. Since it was consistent with what I’d been hearing in church (an evangelical Protestant church), I naturally turned to the Bible for more answers. But the basis of my faith has never been the Bible, it has always been based on direct communication.
An example: One day he told me that my little sister was about to reject Jesus, and that if she did, her decision would be final. I found that strange, because she had identified herself as a Christian for at least five years, since before I got saved. So I called her long-distance and told her what Jesus told me. She replied “That’s so strange! Because I was at a Bible study meeting last night and they had me recite the Sinner’s Prayer, and I went home feeling like a phony because I recited it but I didn’t really mean it.” She told me she hadn’t told anybody about it, so I asked her “If I haven’t been talking to Jesus, then HOW DID I KNOW THAT?” She accepted Jesus that night.
A similar incident happened with my other sister. I was leaving town, on my way to California to buy a plane ticket to Asia, where I am now. I was about 3 hours out of town, when Jesus told me to turn back, and fly out of my hometown instead of California, and call my sister when I got back into town. When I called my sister, she told me she’d had a big fight with her boyfriend, that he was going crazy, he had this wild look in his eyes, “like a demon” she said. He left her house and she was on the bed crying when she heard a loud “bang”. She went into the living room and this large jade crucifix that I had given her had fallen of the mantle piece onto the floor, even though the windows were shut and there was no draft in the room. She said she knew then that what I had been telling her about Jesus was true. She wanted to get saved, but she didn’t know how, so I walked her through the process. Since then she has been a lot happier, she has even beaten her addiction to narcotics.
Experiences like these happen to me frequently. That is why I place primary emphasis on personal contact rather than secondhand accounts.
David: You have a very interesting testimoney. Wehn Jesus revealed Himsielf to you it was in a manner consistent with what the Bible and church taaught. Are your other communications with Him answered in a similar way? We have gone off on a few rabbit trails, the main issue here being ‘why Christians leave the church’ or loose faith. You could drop me a line at dalelangmade@yahoo.com , I’ll respond if I get it. Concerning Islam and their faith in the Koran I was once listening to Hank, The Bible Answer Man, on the radio. A guy called in saying “My room mate believes the Koran is the inerrant word of God. He says Christians can’t even agree on the wording of the Bible, take for example the controversy on ‘did the angels sing “Peace on earth, good will towards men” or “Peace on earth to men of goodwill”?’ It seemed to me the caller got the better of Hank.
It seems to me that evolution IS the intellegent design. See, you’re both right.
Ever since I accepted Jesus as Savior, I have noticed the same pattern in my life: Every time I go out of my way to do a good deed for someone, something bad happens to me. And the magnitude of the bad thing that happens is directly proportional to the good that I did — if I did a small good deed, my bad luck will be small, but if I did a big good deed for someone, my bad luck will be devastating. Is anyone else having the same experience?
David,
I think you should seek out the most mature and wise people you can find and ask for prayer about this. Maybe one shouldn’t be surprised if life goes like that some times – but it should not be normal. I will ask some friends to pray for you.
Perry
Thanks for your kind thoughts. I am a bit worried about prayer, though. The attack has been mainly on my finances. An example: God led me to Asia. About a year ago, I was in Laos,a Buddhist country next to Vietnam. I work on the Internet, and make a very small salary — I made less than $18,000 last year. It’s enough out here, as long as I don’t get stolen from. My company transfers money into my bank acount in the US, and I withdraw it wherever I am using my ATM card. I kept having bad luck financially, due to amazingly adverse coincidences as well as theft, to the point where I was destitute, I had to spend a couple of nights on the street with the mosquitos. I prayed to Jesus all night one night, to remove the financial curse that had been set upon me. The next morning I woke up. It was a good day, it was payday, I would be relieved of destitution for at least a few days. I put my card in the ATM to withdraw money.
No money came out. I found out later, though, that the ATM machine had debited my account of the money I had requested, but failed to disburse the cash. I spent another night on the streets. For me, prayer has had absolutely no effect on any of this. Everything I own in the world can fit into a backpack — everything else has been stolen from me one way or another. I’m almost afraid to pray now. These days, I try to limit my prayer to prayers for other people. These prayers are usually answered. But if I pray for anything for myself, even for daily bread..well, you figure it out. It often backfires. I can hear it already from some of the people on this forum “God is punishing you because you refuse to accept the verbal inspiration of the Bible”. But I accepted exactly that for the first eight years of my Christian walk, and things were exactly the same way then as they are now. Hardship began the split second I decided to live for God, about a year before I actually got saved, and it has not abated since. It can be very discouraging sometimes, watching evil people prosper by stealing from others (even in church), while I worry where my next meal is coming from.
David,
You definitely need intercession from other people. Seek it out and I will seek it for you as well.
Perry
My luck has turned around 180 degrees. I discovered that I have the ability to simply command the devil out of my life, instead of asking Jesus to do it for me. It only works, though, if I believe it will work. Now I am on the receiving end of fortuitous coincidences.
Awesome!
From what I have read of your posts I think you are definitely on the right track, you don’t make the mistake of many Christians who think that faith and reason are incompatible with each other.
Could it be that there may be something that you have missed so far?
All the promises that God gave to Abraham belong to you if you receive this by faith:
15 Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. 16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. Gal. 3:15-16
Christ is the Seed to whom the promises were made and we participate when we abide in Him.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. John 15:12-16
In Christ you have total power and authority over the enemy.
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Luke 10:19 KJV
You must now use the power and authority that you have by right of the New Covenant and command the devil to leave you alone.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7 KJV
17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16:17-18
I have found that this works for me as I have suffered these same kinds of bad luck. More than once I have recovered things that I have lost simply by commanding the devil to return it to me.
Here are some on line teachings that will help you understand more fully what I just told you: http://www.unleavenedbreadministries.org/?page=hmpc2
God bless you as you become a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Victor
Labour not for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life. Perhaps God simply wants you to depend on him and not on the material things of this world? Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things (eg. food and clothes) shall be given to you. Ask God to show you what He wants you to do – and get busy doing it. He promises He will provide, but it’s got to be His way, not your way. Don’t forget the Lord’s prayer – we are only to ask for our daily bread, nothing more (as far as material things go). You are in one of the best places spiritually to place your life in the hands of God. Just get busy asking God what HE wants, rather than what you want – you will find answers. God bless you as you seek after His Kingdom.
Right! And I’ve found answered prayers to do His will to be, “Be still amd know I am God.” Ah, the simplicity of faith in God through belief in His Son, Yeshua haMashiach. First is faith then He will show you the work He wills for you. Death to self – live for Yeshua.
You turned out to be absolutely right, and I can testify to this using recent empirical evidence from my own life.
David: You have an interesting story. Why not return to North America?
I do, occasionally (summer of 2010 most recently). I work on the Internet, so I can work anywhere in the world. I don’t make much money, though, so right now I can only afford to live in third world countries. I am in Malaysia at the moment.
Also, Jesus has a job for me to do out here.
David, I can so relate to predicament of your life. Mine started out quite inauspiciously when I was born February 29, red-headed (to two very dark-brown-black-headed parents), left handed, eventually to grow some nice big teeth of which the top ones jutted out just a wee bit over the bottom. I was the oldest and since the next three kids looked more like my parents I believed that was why they didn’t love me. Both my parents and I didn’t understand, in those days no one did, that I had Aspergers Syndrome (a high functioning form of autism). So, for all of my life I have tried to be normal, have normal expectations, to understand the world. I learned about God as a very young child and talked to Him more than anybody. He became my confidant. Many horrible things happened to me and my brother. I talked to God. I asked Him first to change things to the better, then to protect us, then to take us to heaven. Nothing happened, except the horrible things of course. As an adult the horrible things kept happening. I had five children, one died, one had her first breast tumor at the age of 12, two are autistic, one is blind in one eye. My house has been burned down a couple of times, I could go on but I won’t. I love the Lord and I remember that Paul said:
“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity;” Philippians 4:11
While this does not take away the misery at certain times, or the sleepless nights, the pain in my body since I just had heart surgery, I’m just taking one step at a time and one day at a time and accepting offers like the one Perry just gave you for intercession because God put magic in that kind of prayer. I HAVE thought of giving up a MILLION times, and a MILLION times, Jesus has shown Himself to me through His Spirit and His vessels here on earth. But then, I’m a wimp like that. You sound so strong and so grounded in Christ. My prayers will be with you also. God bless.
David, keep praying for other people, we’ll just have to pray for you! Maybe that’s part of what Paul’s “Mystical Body” is all about? I’ve added you to my list, hope others do, too….
Now…, to the many incredible teachings of Christ that have nothing to do with saving our sorry behinds, and are so much work that people avoid them, i.e.,:
*Doing the time consuming, and hard work of Loving enemies and strangers, by seeing ourselves in them, (or how we could be them).
*Doing the equally time consuming work of learning what we need to know to forgive (know) someone that is screwing up in order that we can know enough to both protect ourselves and redirect them.
*Doing the work of getting past the letter of the law to become fully proficient in the spirit of the law.
*Doing the constant renewing work of Humility through reminding ourselves that what we know and see can blind or distract us from what we don’t know or see. [Beliefs and traditions are necessary evils, i.e., handholds while we look for better ones on the ‘climbing wall of life’.]
*Doing the constant work of not judging others on superficial knowledge is unsustainable if we don’t also do the additional work of judging ourselves in our heart of hearts on a moment by moment basis. [Otherwise we succumb to the apparent ease of superficiality, that in the end becomes our ‘drug of choice’.]
*Doing the work of emptying ourselves in the presence of God. Most prayer is directly or indirectly selfish. Christ minimized it in the Lords’ Prayer to ‘daily bread’ but concludes with “Thy will be done.”
When we actually follow the many teachings of Christ that require major ongoing effort, we find that there are only 3 sins: Selfishness, Laziness, and Cowardice. [They can manifest themselves in all areas of our life: physically, mentally, socially, psychologically, ideologically, and spiritually. It is very unlikely that we can judge un-superficial sin in someone else, but very likely that we can judge ALL sin in ourselves….. And…, it is very important that we do so.]
Christ pointed the way for humanity to live more lovingly. Most people had and have more selfish concerns. Our fear of death and pain is the dominant selfish concern and the primary reality of a physical existence. Perhaps because that fear can itself create much added misery, the challenge for Christ became two fold. Tamp down the fear of the here after, on one hand, and encourage needed behavior in the here and now, on the other. Regardless, I feel confident, from the bulk of what has been recorded, and what we know about people from all times; ‘Teachers’ are always trying to inspire more effort and better technique, while ‘Students’ are usually looking to get the most “benefits” for the least effort. And ‘Teachers’ have been known to do what ever it take to keep the ‘Pupils’ in the classroom in hopes that some of the good stuff sinks in.
Thank you Jesus!!! The nature of your teachings and your sacrifice has assured the ever present God appeasers among us will preserve your every word even if they don’t live it or understand the important and hard parts. It will always be there, hidden in plain sight among the easy answers, for who ever is able to rise to the challenge of substantive and unselfish Love.