A beautiful prayer that comes from a heart with groaning too deep for words.
To recognize the darkness that is eclipsing my life,
to pray for the light of the Father to dawn again.
To feel weakness that robs even my body from endurance,
to pray that El Shaddai will renew my strength.
To feel the brokenness that reaches to the very marrow of my bones,
to pray that the Comforter will reconstruct what has been broken.
To see and feel the bruises that have been left on my soul,
to pray that the Great Physician will restore my heart.
To be so sick at heart that life has lost meaning,
to pray the the Father of Mercies will be the light at the end of this long and dismal tunnel.
That He will give strength to my weariness,
replace my weakness with power.
That He will empower me to soar on wings like eagles;
to run and not grow weary and to walk and not faint.
A simple posting on Facebook that spoke volumes to my torn heart. I have touched the bottom and it is sound. He has not abandoned me to yet another wasteland.
(I have had quite a few emails and conversations asking me to start writing again. I have been in a rough place, and quite frankly, I haven't had the emotional bandwidth. That being said, today is Easter Sunday - a time for new beginnings and resurrection - so here goes.)
As many of you know, my wife Josephine left in mid-December. I still have no idea where she is or if she is alright. Since that time I have been struggling with depression and loneliness. My faith is strong and thanks to three groups of people, the Foothills Church of Christ here in Reno and the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, LA - and my wonderful kids Sarah and Nathan - I KNOW I am loved.
The reason I am writing today, rather than being in a fetal position on my bed, is that I know there are others in the same pain.
For nineteen years I have stood side-by-side with Josephine. I helped her get her B.S. and MSW. Stood by her through various troubles that came our way. I have always been the supportive and loving husband I thought I could be. Then - Whoosh! - My entire life was uprooted and I was life feeling like the words of this song:
"Well is they say that love in in the air, never is it clear
How to pull it close and make it stay
If butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away
Leavin' me to carry on and wonder why
Was it you that kept me wondering through this life
When you know that I was always on your side"
Yes, I spend a great deal of wondering why. All self justification aside, I still do not have an answer to that question. Intellectually, I know I will get through this, but it is the emotional side of me that is a train wreck. Mainly because I do not know where I am going or what I am supposed to do. All I have left is to throw myself at the feet of a compassionate God and ask for His grace in my time of need.
I wish there was some easy 1,2,3 formula to get through this but there isn't. (I will try one a bit later) Sometimes I think suffering is just that, suffering. Many of us are willing to concede that we have had enough, yet it keeps on coming. The words in that little picture are very true and not some pie-in-the-sky psychobabble. I am a stronger man because of the things I have faced in my life. In reality, I am thankful for every scar that is on my heart because each one shows a time I had to place my faith in the God of the universe. Yes, even He wants me to be whole.
In Psalm 34:17-20 Eugene Peterson translates it this way in The Message.
"Is anyone crying for help?
God is listening, ready to rescue you.
If your heart is broken,
you'll find God right there;
if you're kicked in the gut,
he'll help you catch your breath.
Disciples so often get in trouble;
still, God is there every time.
He's your bodyguard, shielding every bone;
not even a finger gets broken."
For a person who does not share my faith - those words are nonsense. To me they are a promise from a Father that always keeps His promises. No matter how bad this whole thing gets, I know He is There and Not Silent.
Since I am still in the midst of this cyclone all I can do is give some advice. It may change after I either land in Kansas or Oz, but here goes:
Cling to your faith.
Find a loving body of fellow believers. (This can be tricky. Make sure they understand that we all suffer and want to help you. Avoid legalistic and judgmental people - they always want to assign blame).
Get out of the house.
Cling to your faith.
Let's see how this goes as I continue my journey. Below is wonderful song be Johnny Cash that ,might help.
~In December of 2013 my wife, Josephine, went off of her medication and suffered from an apparent psychotic break.
After sending out horrible emails about me and other hurtful things --
She Left.
I have no idea where she is or even if she is still alive.
The pain I have suffered has been horrendous.
I am writing this because I want to get out what is bottled up inside of me.
The song below is one of the most beautiful songs I have heard.
It also communicates where my heart is right now.~
As a person who was abandoned by my mother at six weeks of age, abandonment is a very fearful thing for me. As I sit in this house alone I constantly see things that remind me of Josephine. After almost twenty years of sharing, defending and loving a person -- the silence is deafening. My children are now adults and I am just an old man who is left with memories. I guess I am sharing this because I want you to know that I am a broken person, as are you. Just because I am a person who is seen as a person with answers, doesn't mean I do not experience the pain that others do.
What I will say is I have heard a phrase over and over from people,
"God will not allow you to face more than you can handle."
I thought I would take a minute and explain where that quote has its origins and why it is not true. This is a misquotation of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which actually says:
"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation he will also provide
the way to escape,
that you may be able to endure it." (ESV)
Now, not to be cruel to people who are trying to help and are at a loss for words, this passage is talking about temptation not when your whole world collapses around you. It also makes the person who is suffering want to say,
"I am at my wits end and I really cannot endure this. Why is God punishing me?"
I believe another passage is helpful, at least it is to me. Jesus knew we would be faced with troubles. The Christians of the first century faced persecution so intense that it would often cost them their lives. He knew that in this world we would face troubles. Often times, they are more than we can bear. So, during this time in my life, I have found my faith increased and my prayer life energized. I know this is more than I can handle! I throw myself on the faith and mercy of Jesus. His words are here to be a source of comfort.
"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me,
for I am gentile and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"
(Matthew 11:28-30 - ESV)
I am not trying to give you a pie-in-the-sky response to suffering. I am saying, that for me, the only place I have left to turn is my faith in Jesus Christ.
I have no idea where this path will lead, but I do know who is with me.
~Please Allow the Words of This Song to Encourage You~
Labels are difficult to avoid. Most of us when asked to tell someone who we are respond with our vocation. I am a plumber, homemaker, minister, police officer or whatever. We do that to keep from telling people who we feel we are. I am a failure, a loser, an addict, divorced, lonely, depressed, incapable or some other label we have chosen to describe our inner hurts. Often those labels have come from a parent or other authority figure and we believed them and they stuck.
I was recently listening to a message by Joel Osteen where he spoke of "wormy" thinking. The concept grabbed me and it made sense. Over our lives we have been told who and what we are. During that same time those labels built a cocoon around us and trapped us inside. We struggle inside that cocoon and we reinforce the walls with wormy thinking. We have accepted that we are a worm and the idea of breaking free is just a distant and unattainable dream. Just as that beautiful butterfly was never meant to stay in its cocoon - neither are you!
Sometimes we forget that we are beloved by God; the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. We were created in His image. From passages like John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world that he he gave his only
begotten son That whosoever believe on him shall not perish but have everlasting life."
To Jeremiah 1:5
"Before I formed you in the womb
I knew you,
and before you were born
I consecrated you..."
There are times when the struggles and stresses of our life are so overwhelming we long to crawl back into our cocoon and wallow in self-pity. We forget the grace of God. I would like to remind you today that you are loved and that God does not look at where you have been -- He sees what you can become. I hope in some small way God can use these words to remind you that you are valuable and loved.
~ Please Listen to This Song. There Too Many People Who Only See This as an Option~
As many of you know, I have been preaching on a fairly regular basis (not as regularly as I would like) at the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, LA. In a discussion with one of the elders, he commented that people who I have met that were not church people -- liked me. I asked him how he felt about that. His response, laughingly (He was kidding), was he was concerned about that. So I said, those were the people Jesus spent his time with. In fact, if you were to make two columns; on one side Jesus's interaction with "those people" and the second, the Religious establishment's response to Jesus' actions or comments. Which column best describes most of our churches? Aside from the legalism and self-righteousness of the Pharisees and Priests -- they couldn't speak the language of broken people.
I was raised in an alcoholic home, that has its own baggage. One of my earliest memories was my Dad taking me out. He said it was a surprise, it was - a bar. I remember I was little and he was going to let me play pool. That translated into him putting a coin in the pool table and putting the balls on top. He then lifted my up and I spent a long time rolling the balls around and he would resupply the table with coins. All the time I was playing he was getting shovel-faced at the bar. I remember growing up with my "Mom" passed out and me heating a TV Dinner and watching TV until the channels signed off, (Yes, they used to do that). I grew up on the streets around gang members, bikers, druggies, winos and just the general throw aways from our society.
So, when I became a Christian, a great deal of that baggage came with me. I tried my best to fit in. I would overhear the other young people, in the youth group, talking about going out for pizza, I would not get the invitation. So, I would just show up and act surprised. I had to FIGHT my way into our youth group. I knew I wasn't like them and they knew it too. I had been a violent teen and we didn't speak the same language. They had what I called, "Leave it to Beaver Homes". ( I had no idea of the dysfunction and family "secrets" that even plague those homes). I had no idea what it was like to come from a normal home. As a Christian, I failed over and over in ministry and with my family. It wasn't until I met a man named Lynn Anderson who taught me about the grace of God. Even through my failures, he was still there. He said I reminded him of King David. David messed up royally (really bad pun) but he "had a heart after God's own heart".
So now back to my affinity for the brokenness Matthew writes these words about Jesus:
"When he saw the crowds,
he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd."
(Matthew 9:36 - ESV)
I guess I understand why non-believers view Christians as having nothing to offer them. When I am talking to a person who does not share my faith -- I listen. I listen to their story and I listen to their happiness and pain. I have NO judgment in my heart toward them. For many, having a group of people who will love and accept them is all they want. That is why so many just hang out in bars. Remember the line in the theme song from the sitcom Cheers?
"Making your way in the world today
takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries,
sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same.
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same.
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.
That is the lie of bars, they just continue to equip people's addictions and they fall further and further into darkness. One the other hand, if I can persuade them to come to a group, class, meal or assembly - I pray they will feel accepted. If they stick around they will have questions about Jesus. Then it is time to share his grace with them. Too many Christians want to start right in quoting Scripture, most broken people are not ready for that -- it is a foreign language to them. They really are looking for belonging. If we can just love these people and be there to listen and allow God to open their hearts, they will follow Jesus. I think, since I have had so many personal failures in my own life, and being a broken person, I am a little bit more patient with people coming to faith. This is the start to fixing our churches.
Please pray daily for those you may know who do not know the Lord.
I started writing this blog a little over a year ago. I have shared intimate stories that some were shocked to hear. I have been open about the failures and successes in my own life and the church in general. Today I have been reading from a book by Jim McGuiggan and was puled back to the foundations of my faith. A faith, I believe has been long forgotten and possibly even neglected by many of us. It is a simple response to a still quiet voice that calls to us in our suffering and calls us back to what is truly important.
Here is a quote from Jim's book, Jesus, Hero of Thy Soul:
"Only Jesus could give himself to all without pandering.
Only he could treat us as individuals while insisting that we belong to one another.
Only he could forgive us fully, freely, gladly -- but without
dishonoring us or weakening our resolve for righteousness.
Having seen Jesus, knowing how he has lived his life here, we can't settle for less than a genuine pursuit of his likeness. His very presence among us forbids us to settle for just being "nice" people who do "nice" things.
(The bland leading the bland and both falling into a "nice" rut.)
"I am sick of the literature that reduces the Christian life into quiet times, fixed grins, happy talk and saccharine songs.
I am tired of writers and speakers who indulge our whimpering and whining, who prescribe endless therapy for problems we wouldn't have if we weren't so outrageously self-centered, who encourage us to feather our own already fairly comfortable nests while oohing and aahing over our inconveniences as if they were crucifixions.
"I am sick, too, of scholarly literature that pours scorn on the people of God, judging them as nothing but self-serving hypocrites who either worship themselves or a petrified faith that should have been discarded centuries ago.
These wise men for whom, I suspect, life has become sour and boring, rip away at the foundations of the Christian faith, leaving disciples unsure of who they are and what direction they should go. What has the appearance of bold scholarship has no upward call and no sure message. Rather, it's the bored and peevish ramblings of academics who have lost their way.
"Finally, I'm one of a great multitude who are sick of themselves! But not so sick that we don't know who we are and whose we are. Not so sick that we can't see the glory of the biblical Christ, can't feel the magnetism of his person and the wholesome rebuke of his life, can't recognize our hunger for something more glorious as the work of God in us.
"No, in spite of our human limitations, we see the Christ out in front of us, calling us onward and upward.
We are determined, with blood-red earnestness, to live heroically for God and the world he so loves that he gave his son." pp.4-5
In the 2,000 or so years since Jesus walked this earth, sharing a simple message, people have devoted their lives to making it more complicated, political or even palatable. His message was simple:
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
The only reason I can see that message getting distorted is - WE DON'T WANT TO. Jesus and the writers of the New Testament left this message in its barest essence -- live like Jesus did, treat people as Jesus did, help people as Jesus did, forgive people as Jesus did and love people as Jesus did. I am no scholar, but I can easily say that sums up the message of Christianity. It is not summed up by how doctrinally "pure" we are. How well we dress when attending Sunday services. Who has the best worship team or the fanciest building or who can claim the most piety. It is simply, do you look to Jesus the author and perfecter of your faith? And if so, do you treat people like he did? As for me, I pray that I can see this simple response to the gift of God in my life.
~This is a beautiful song that deserves a listen.~
Grace is a difficult concept for so many of us to figure out. That God would forgive us of all of our misdeeds as a gift goes against who we are as people. Over the years the church has found numerous ways for its people to pay for that gift. There has been penance, good deeds and even detailed lists that people are forced to adhere to. The main way these have been enforced has been guilt. Yet, these feeble attempts and the guilt behind them only nullify the grace of God. If a person has been freed from earning their salvation, the works exude from them. Listen to Paul in Ephesians 2:
"For it has been by grace you have been saved, through faith
-- and this not from yourselves -- it is a gift from God --
not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God's workmanship (masterpiece,Gk),
created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do."
So there are works, they flow from us as gratitude for the gift from God.
Here is where the trouble comes into the equation. People mess up. I have taken messing up to an art form during my 60 years. Granted, much of that was before I became a Christian, yet a great deal has occurred since I became a Christian. I have failed my family, my church, myself and my God. I have walked away from God, with no intention of looking back and somehow He drew me home.
This week I had a conversation with a young man who has made mistakes and is trying to find his way back in serving the Lord. He is discouraged because when he is attempting to do something public in the church -- he sees the eyes of judgment of those who knew him when he was struggling with his faith. It is as though they are waiting for him to mess up again -- spoiler alert! -- he will! Just as those people who are constantly pulling him back to his mistakes. Only God knows the heart of a person. Only God knows the true struggles and temptations a person is going through.
When a person fails, we should be there to help them up. Will they mess up again? -- probably, but so do all of us. One of the reasons the church exists is to be a representation of God's love, mercy and grace. People who go to church aren't perfect, not even close. We are all there as people who have failed God and other people in our lives. We are there to encourage each other to be better people. We lend a hand when someone falls and if they fall again -- we are still there holding out a hand of reconciliation.
More than anything else, we need our Father's Eyes.
Of all of the Rocky movies, my favorites were the last and the first. Everyone remembers the story of, Rocky, the underdog who gets his big break and meet Apollo Creed in the ring. We cheered when The Rocky Theme was played. Rocky calling for Adrianne after the fight - "Adrienne, I did it!". The final movie, Rocky Balboa, had the hero well past his prime. A man who had buried the love of his life, Adrienne. The Rocky Theme would play softly and very slowly as we watched Rocky sit at the graveside of Adrienne in a wooden chair - and talk to her. In the last movie, Rocky is a has-been with brain damage and he is alienated from his son. He has been to the mountaintop and now is back in the valley. He is a lonely -- BUT NOT A BROKEN man!
The scene below is, in my opinion, one of the greatest scenes I have seen in any movie:
"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life...
But it ain't about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. . It's How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done...
Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not point fingers and blame other people. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!..!!!"
This movie had a huge impact on me because what was said was so true in my own life. " Its not how hard you hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." I think most of us have had our fair share of hits. How we respond to those hits determines if we choose to be a "victim" or a "victor". I have had some hits in my life that I thought would knock me out of the game. Honestly, my initial defensive response was to blame the situation or other people or a person in general; then I came to realize that it was my choice that caused it. I am not saying that there cannot be outside influences, but there comes a time when you have to say to yourself,
"OK, that sucked and it really hurt me - DEAL WITH IT!"
I know many people who are clinging to past pain or even past successes that have long ago gone away. In many cases losing success is one of the hardest. When I went through my divorce I had a successful Mortgage Banking company, (that was before they became the pariahs of our society), I went from making mid six-figures to nothing. The next year my gross salary was $27,000. My family was shattered, I was alone, I had lawsuits against me, I was in bankruptcy and foreclosure. I even had the District Attorney's Office deposing me to see if I had done anything that warranted prosecution. Yet, through the grace of God - I survived.
For me, it felt like I had hornets swirling around my head. It seemed that wherever I turned there was another attack - I was completely overwhelmed. I sat down one night with a pad of paper and I wrote down all of the things that I was facing. I took the hardest ones first and made a list. I had decided I would fight them one at a time. I can handle one hornet better than a swarm. One by one I took them on, but with a constant gaze toward the future. It took years and it wasn't easy but by focusing on the future I was able to defeat the past. Now, I am not Superman, there were times I felt like ending it all with a bullet to the brain. Yet the drive to make it through the "Perfect Storm" in my life gave me that North Star to guide me.
For those of you in your own "Perfect Storm", all I can tell you is to look to the future. Dwelling in the past, whether success or hurt will keep you nailed in the past. You will never move forward, you will constantly blame others and most importantly you will NEVER heal. When Paul writes in Philippians 3 he is reflecting on all of his grand accomplishments:
"But whatever was to my profit, I now consider it loss
for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to
the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost ALL things.
I consider them rubbish (Gk. Manure/dung, rotting food),
that I may gain Christ ....
But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus
took hold of me.
But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
(Philippians 3:7-8, 12b, 13b - NIV)
It is interesting that Paul uses a word for dung in referring to his past and present accomplishments. For Paul, his life is consumed in Jesus Christ. We should take comfort in knowing that although this world will beat you down, there is One who will lift you up. Look to the future and for help on its horizon.
Below is Rocky remembering a talk he had with his trainer Mickey. If nothing else -- Listen to the angel on your shoulder,
It has been one year to the day of, my ex-wife, Angela's passing. One year ago I was sitting across the bed from Curtis, Angela's husband. We were both holding one of her hands as she passed away from this world. Angela gave a valiant fight against an unstoppable foe - ALS. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or "Lou Gehrig's Disease" it takes no prisoners.
If there ever was a disease to cause me to doubt my faith in God, it would be ALS. With the brain fully functioning, your body starts to fail one part at a grueling time. You can no longer talk, walk, swallow, use your hands and breathing becomes more of a problem. What you can look forward to is to suffocate in your own fluids and mucous. All the time with a fully functional brain, knowing exactly what is happening.
While Curtis and I were there at the house, Sarah and Nathan had gone to a cafe. (I asked them to do that so they wouldn't have to watch their Mom pass away. They left when she fell asleep.) After that draining experience, I had to drive over to meet Sarah and Nathan -- I had no idea what I was going to say.
Sarah was 23 and Nathan was 18, their Mom was dead and the remnant of our family is small. Over the past year I have watched how each one has grieved. Sarah was very expressive in her grief and to this day has a vacancy in her heart. Nathan expressed his grief in stoicism and an impenetrable wall of silence. They, like all of us, handle these things differently and each has the same amount of hurt and pain. I have done my best to let them both know they are valued and loved.
Angela would be very proud of how they have each grown into young adults. Sarah, now 24, lives in Oregon and is currently studying nursing with an eye toward Naturopathic Medicine. Music is her true love and I believe her cathartic release. She has grown into a warm, compassionate, intelligent beautiful woman.
Nathan, will be 20 in June, he inherited my twisted sense of humor. He just finished his first year at UNR, studying Psychology. He is a bookworm and loves StarCraft and Diablo 3. He is also gifted musically and often is up late at night writing music on his computer. He is bright and has a wonderful sense of humor.
Both Sarah and Nathan have turned out well. This is a tough time for them and they could use your prayers.
So now after a year, I pause to reflect on how Angela's passing has affected me.
It was an ugly divorce with fault on each side, yet, in spite of all of the pain we caused each other - forgiveness felt much better than the hate.
Sarah and Nathan, seeing that Angela and I could forgive each other was a good thing to see.
Curtis' and Josephine's understanding and inner strength was good to see. As the current spouses neither were threatened by the fact that Angela and I no longer clung to anger.
Shortly after Angela's death I started writing this blog to express a great deal of feelings I had buried much too long.
2011 was a horrible year. Shortly after Angela's passing Josephine went to Ireland to experience the loss of multiple uncles her Dad and her Sister.
The song below was played at Angela's Memorial Service. The words express, better than I can, how I feel and I am sure Angela is feeling right now.
I thought I would assemble some quotes from Christian thinkers that can help facilitate a discussion of Postmodernism at - http://allachner.com/forum .
"Because we are commanded by God to form and reform culture, Christians have to be actively engaged with culture: studying it, discerning positive and negative aspects, and working to redeem it. We are to be in the world but not of it, working to restrain evil and advance redemptive potentials. We are called to be salt in the world, working to enrich culture and preserve life-affirming aspects. We are also called to be a light to show the way for cultural development, uncovering and disentangling forces for good and evil, and redirecting unhealthy or destructive patterns toward principles in line with loving god and serving our neighbor. And the culture we are called to form and reform, to move toward redemption, includes even popular culture." William Romanowski
"Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting." Francis Schaeffer
"Traditional Christian teaching has been otherworldly in its emphasis. It has had more to say about how to accept failure than about how to succeed, more about suffering than about action. Theology has been the preserve of those who minister as priests and pastors to the inner spiritual life of their people. Consequently, when theologians whose whole work is in this pastoral ministry try to speak about matters of politics and economics, their words do not carry weight." Lesslie Newbigin
In 1968 Francis Schaffer wrote these words. They are strangely prophetic:
The God Who Is There
"Men are facing a society without structure and they want to fill the void that has appeared. For a long time Reformation ideas formed the basis of North European culture, and this extended to include that of America and English-speaking Canada, etc. But today that has been destroyed by the relativism both inside [82] and outside the churches. Hence historic Christianity is now a minority group....
"Society cannot function without form and motivation. As the old sociological forms have been swept away, new ones must be found or society breaks down altogether. Sir Julian Huxley has stepped in at this point with his suggestion that religion has a real place in modern society. But, he would contend, it must be understood that religion is always evolving and that it needs to come under the control of society.
"This suggestion is not as ridiculous as it sounds, even coming from a convinced humanist, if one understands the mentality of our age. The prevailing dialectical methodology fits itself easily into religious forms.... "Teilhard de Chardin... illustrates that the progressive Roman Catholic theologians are further away from historic Reformation Christianity than classical Roman Catholicism, because they are alsodialectical thinkers.
"The orthodox Roman Catholic would tell me that I am bound for hell because I reject the true Church. He is dealing with a concept of absolute truth. But the new Roman Catholic who sits at my fireside says, ‘You are all right, Dr. Schaeffer, because you are so sincere.’ In the new Roman Catholicism such a statement usually means that the dialectical method has taken over.
Therefore we are not surprised to find that ... others such as Hans KUng have been strongly influenced by neo-orthodoxy. It is important to note that the position on Scripture by the Vatican Council has shifted in the same-direction and men such as Raymond Panikkar, Dom Bede Griffiths[close friend of C. S. Lewis]... are proclaiming a synthesis between Roman Catholicism and Hinduism." 83
"The time, therefore, does seem right for this new theology to give the needed sociological forms and motivations. It is true, of course, that society could look elsewhere amongst the secular mysticisms for a new evolving religion, but the new theology has some strong advantages. "Firstly, the undefined connotation words that they are using are deeply rooted in our Western culture. This is much easier and more powerful than using new and untraditional words. "Secondly, these men control almost every large denomination in Protestantism.... This gives them the advantage of functioning within the organisational stream of the Church, and thus both its organisation and linguistic continuity is at their disposal. "Thirdly, people in our culture in general are already in process of being accustomed to accept non-defined, contentless religious words and symbols, without any rational or historical control. Such words and symbols are ready to be filled with the content of the moment. The words ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ are the most ready for the manipulator. The phrase ‘Jesus Christ’ has become a contentless banner which can be carried in any direction for sociological purposes.
"...because the phrase ‘Jesus Christ’ has been separated from true history and the content of Scripture, it can be used to trigger religiously motivated sociological actions directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.... It is against such manipulated semantic mysticism that we do very well to prepare ourselves, our children and our spiritual children." 84
I was given a great compliment this week by my Daughter Sarah. She posted this picture on Facebook and said. "Thanks for teaching me this..." I wrote back and told her that was the best compliment she could have given me.
I have always had a very critical mind, some would call it skeptical. It has always bothered me that so many people hold positions and beliefs that they heard somewhere and decided, I like that. They do absolutely no research to determine if it is true, false or something in between.
I have taught my kids that unless you can, with equal passion and knowledge, argue both sides of an issue -- you don't understand the issue. We live in an age of sound bites, half truths and a very ignorant audience. I love when Jay Leno goes out on one of his "Jay Walks". He asks people very simple questions and the answers are often very funny, yet sad. I understand that these people are picked because they gave the best clueless answer, but does it matter? The video below is more than just funny, it is extremely revealing - I suggest you watch it.
What is true in regards to history is also true with people of faith. In my experiences, many Christians know a few Bible stories but cannot tell you where those stories are found in the Bible. They believe in Jesus, yet have no idea if there is any actual historical evidence of his life, death, burial and resurrection. A large number of Christians know a few "proof-texts" that they learned in Sunday School, yet have no concept of how those texts fit into the context of what was written. When a person quotes a verse to me to justify a belief, I ask them to close their Bible and tell me what the paragraph is saying before that verse. I am not attempting to be a know-it-all, I simply believe a large number of Christians are Biblically illiterate. Their belief structures are based more on American virtues than what is found in the Bible. I have heard sections of the Constitution, quotes from Shakespeare and even movies quoted as Biblical verses.
I remember when I was minister in the San Francisco Bay Area. A group of students from a Christian College wanted to come to our congregation to evangelize students at U.C. Berkeley. We had a nightly event on campus to discuss Christianity and they were inviting people to attend. While walking around Cal, I saw a one of the Christian College students crying. I asked her what happened? She said, "They don't believe in the Bible!" My unspoken response was "Duh!" I wound up talking to her and explained that most people she would encounter don't believe in the Bible. I can only describe her response as total horror. She had been raised in a Christian home in the "Bible-Belt"; it was inconceivable that people would question the Bible.
So, as we move along in a postmodernism culture.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism Have we really prepared the next generation to be people of faith? I wrote recently, we are losing the next generation to "spirituality" -- which is true. The congregation I attend, here in Reno, is viewed as being too rational. Yet, I see people of all ages who know why they believe what they believe. Questions are always allowed and we may disagree on some of the answers, but we still view each other as fellow citizens of the Kingdom of God. Or minister, Gary Cage PhD, has done a great job to make our congregation as a place where truth is pursued. If you are exploring the background of Christianity, I would recommend a link on our congregational website: http://evidencestudy.com/
If nothing else, I would ask you to question everything you read or hear. Research it and find what is true.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson
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