It seems the news always contains something about Israel and the Middle East. As an independent news writer and editor, sometimes, it becomes necesssary to let your readers know where you stand on issues, and what you believe. It is especially important because my viewpoint of History and what Christ means to me, as a believer and my bias in reporting or commenting on news will often be subjective and opinionated, then one needs to understand my theology and more. I believe absolutely that Christ died for my sins, was raised from the grave and ascended to the Father to give us, the Holy Spirit, who trust in Him, and to live His resurrected life within the believer by grace through faith, and that it is His work alone that saves, sanctifiies and glorifies the believer. We are to trust him and in this trust comes obedience by His Spirit.
A little history of the Hebrews from 597 until today on their belief structure and more.
The Chaldeans, following standard Mesopotamian practice, deported the Jews after they had conquered Jerusalem in 597 BC. The deportations were large, but certainly didn't involve the entire nation. Somewhere around 10,000 people were forced to relocate to the city of Babylon, the capital of the Chaldean empire. In 586 BC, Judah itself ceased to be an independent kingdom (which they were), and the earlier deportees found themselves without a homeland, without a state, and without a nation. This period, which actually begins in 597 but is traditionally dated at 586, is called the Exile in Jewish history; it ends with an accident in 538 when the Persians overthrow the Chaldeans.
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Chaldeans, only deported the most prominent citizens of Judah: professionals, priests, craftsmen, and the wealthy. The "people of the land" (am-hares ) were allowed to stay. So Jewish history, then, has two poles during the exile: the Jew in Babylon and the Jews who remain in Judah. We know almost nothing of the Jews in Judah after 586. Judah seems to have been wracked by famine, according to the biblical book, Lamentations , which was written in Jerusalem during the exile. The entire situation seemed to be one of infinite despair. Some people were better off; when Nebuchadnezzar deported the wealthy citizens, he redistributed the land among the poor. So some people were better off. In addition, there were rivalries between the two groups of Jews. It is clear that the wealthy and professional Jews in Babylon regarded themselves as the true Jewish people.These are the same people today who call themselves - Jews
The salient feature of the exile, however, was that the Jews were settled in a single place by Nebuchadnezzar. While the Assyrian deportation of Israelites in 722 BC resulted in the complete disappearance of the Israelites, the deported Jews formed their own community in Babylon and retained their religion, practices, and philosophies. Some, it would seem, adopted the Chaldean religion (for they name their offspring after Chaldean gods), but for the most part, the community remained united in its common faith in Yahweh.
They called themselves the "gola," ("exiles"), or the "bene gola" ("the children
of the exiles"), and within the crucible of despair and hopelessness, they forged a new national identity and a new religion. The exile was unexplainable; Hebrew history was built on the promise of Yahweh to protect the Hebrews and use them for his purposes in human history. Their defeat and the loss of the land promised to them by Yahweh seemed to imply that their faith in this promise was misplaced. This crisis, a form of cognitive dissonance (when your view of reality and reality itself do not match one another), can precipitate the most profound despair or the most profound reworking of a world view. For the Jews in Babylon, it did both.
From texts such as Lamentations , which was probably written in Jerusalem, and Job , written after the exile, as well as many of the Psalms , Hebrew literature takes on a despairing quality. The subject of Job is human suffering itself. Undeserving of suffering, Job, an upright man, is made to suffer the worst series of calamities possible because of an arbitrary test. When he finally despairs that there is no cosmic justice, the only answer he receives is that humans shouldn't question God's will. That God is sovereign. Many of the psalms written in this period betray an equal hopelessness.
But the Jews in Babylon also creatively remade themselves and their world view. In particular, they blamed the disaster of the Exile on their own impurity, their forgetting of the Law and breaking the Torah and it's 613 commandments. They were sure they had betrayed Yahweh and allowed the Mosaic laws and cultic practices to become corrupt; the Babylonian Exile was proof of Yahweh's displeasure.
During this period, Jewish leaders no longer spoke about a theology of judgement, but a theology of salvation. In texts such as Ezekiel and Isaiah ,there is talk that the Israelites would be gathered together once more, their society and religion purified, and the unified Davidic kingdom be re-established. However, what they missed was God was going to establish a "spiritual" kingdom and not a physical kingdom and not the nation of Israel.
These scriptures misunderstood then, and when they crucified Christ because he didnt fulfill these things physically, are still misinterpreted and misunderstood even more today, but now not only by those who call themselves Israel but the true Jew or (Israel, the church) today.
It wasn't until the 1800's with the advent of the Scofield Bible and it's pro Zionist (separating Jews from Christians)commentary and premillenial doctrines did the church believe that Israel was to re-establish a physical nation in the "promised land, once again to usher the coming of Christ"
The prophets, that Israel misundersood then, when they crucified Christ and even today with the re-establishment of an aparthied government known as the State of Israel still persist due to poor interpretation and pro-Zionistic leading by pro Zionism even within the Christian Church.
Yes, it was to the Jews he gave the promises and the law, but they rejected it and as a result only a remnant was saved when the church began and even unto today only a remnant is being saved. Paul and the earliest Christians, the Apostles and the beleivers at Jerusalem- who were all Jewish were and are part of this remnant even until today.Along with those who claim to be Hebrew or believe in the Torah alone come to know Christ since then. What most Christians don't realize is the Torah is not the Jewish authority today nor was it when Christ was here. The Talmud and the rabbincal teachings have replaced the Torah (the first five books of the Bible which includes the 613 commandments of God).
So this period is marked by a resurgence in Jewish tradition, as the exiles looked back to their Mosaic origins in an effort to revive their original religion. It is during this time that the Jews began to develop the Mishnah, the Gemara and what is finally known as the Talmud which is what the Jews beleive in and practice today. The Torah by the time Christ came was lost to thousands of interpretations and new (fence) laws made by the Sophraim and the Tannah and thus Christ told them- "You nullify the Commandments of God for the traditions of men".
The Talmud has become the central text of the Jewish faith. The one thing that allowed Israel to rediscover itself at this time was the fervent revival of religious tradition it was aided by another incident in history: when Cyrus the Persian conquered Mesopotamia, he allowed the Jews to return home. This was no ordinary event, though. Cyrus sent them home specifically to worship Yahweh—what was once only a kingdom would become a nation of Yahweh.
The so called nation of Israel if based that they are to return to their homeland has been fulfilled many times before 1949. It may be that never before was a particular area called Israel since the Babylonian captivity but it is not the land that God promises those of Hebrew origin but Himself, if but they would return to him.
One of the main reasons the Law has not made the Hebrew or those claiming to be Jewish, lead them as "the school master to Christ" as it did us, who claim to be Christian, is the purity of the original 613 commandments made by God to Israel has been turned into ridiculous and long discourse of the law which in themselve have become the law for Jews.
Judaism, regardless of what you may mistakenly beleive has nothing to do with the honor of the Torah as the Supreme law of God as the pre-Babylonian Jews trusted in and broke it's laws but the traditions of these men who wrote the Misnah, the Gemara, now known as the Talmud and all the rabbinic discussions since. The Talmud and it's writings are anti-Christ in nature and anti-Christian. One must study to discover these things as I have, and read the Talmud and the Jewish writings of today to discover this truth. Israel- the nation of Israel is made up of Zionist and those who hold to the supremacy of themselves over all races, including American Gentiles ( Gentile, here, having the meaning - all of us who do not accept the Talmud and their Jewish supremacy over all other races in the world). Most Americans and even most preachers in America have simply accepted what has been handed down to them as interpretation of the majority of Paul's writings in Romans on this subject, and the most predominant teaching since the 1800's has been Darby's and Scofield's popularizing this DISPENSATIONAL interpretation of Biblical prophecy, all of scripture, and the book of Revelation.
However, they weren't alone in this non-biblical interpretation of scripture. Here is the story behind DISPENSATIONALISM, from whence most of the premillenial doctrine is taken. It will surprise you, it may even anger you at me for telling you, but what I hope is it will anger you that you have been so mislead to believe in DISPENSATIONALISM. It will anger you to find that the foreign policies and the War against Terrorism and much of the Police State, that is already in effect in Israel is driven by Pro-Zionist and those in the church who proscribe to these cultic theories of DISPENSATIONALISM.
The Origins of Dispensationalism
Most people assume that Dispensationalism started with J N Darby, one of the originators of the Brethren movement. Certainly Darby popularised this doctrine and, with the spread Scofield’s reference Bible, the teaching went world wide. However, Darby was not the first to develop these ideas. In fact, there is now conclusive evidence that there was a plan by William Kelly (another key Brethren leader, and follower of Darby) to discredit the real origins, because of their dubious pedigree, and inflate the place of Darby.
I should be very clear that Dispensationalism finds no place in the entire history of the church before 1830. No one has yet found any credible evidence that anybody believed or taught such a thing. This alone should cause alarm bells to ring in our spiritual ears. When we learn the true origin of the error, we can see even more reason to steer clear.
Key Distinctives of Dispensationalism
Before we proceed, we need to clarify exactly what this teaching is in connection with other eschatological theories.
Dispensationalism is a variant of
Historic Premillennialism,that is the teaching that Christ will return after the Great Tribulation and establish a 1000 year reign on the earth (millennium) before the final battle with Satan (Armageddon), which issues in final judgment and a new earth.
Postmillennialism
teaches that Christ returns after a golden age of 1000 years where the church rules the earth in righteousness;
Amillennialism
believes that there is no Biblical teaching about a literal millennium and that the only passage which mentions is (Rev 20) is symbolically speaking of the age of grace in which we now live.
Dispensationalism is very different and has become the predominant belief in America and versions of it are growing rapidly in Britain. One problem is that it has very many variations, so to simplify our approach we will keep to essential distinctives. These are:
• Two comings of Christ. One an appearing for the saints in the air, the other a return with the saints. A period of 7 years separates these comings. In this time of tribulation, the Gospel is preached by a remnant of believing Jews and Christians not spiritual enough to be raptured.
• A secret rapture of some saints before the period of tribulation when the
antichrist will arise. This is the key distinctive called the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, (henceforth: pretribulation). This is imminent and could happen at any time.
• A dichotomy between the church and Israel. Jews are God’s true covenant people who will inherit the literal covenant promises, the church is God’s stop-gap
operation which benefits from Jewish promises. This distinction is seen as the most important Dispensational tenet by Dispensationalists Charles Ryrie and John Walvoord.
• A rigid literal approach to interpretation, especially of prophetic books.
This divides the Bible into that which refers to the Kingdom (Israel) and that which speaks of the Church.
• History is divided into specific dispensations where God deals with men in a
certain way. Each of these time periods ends in failure and judgment.
The most important aspects in evaluating the origin are: the pretribulation rapture and the dichotomy of Israel/Church.
The Origins
Pre 19th century
Some isolated superficial ‘dispensational’ statements have appeared throughout history. Some 18th century writers began to systematise some of these ideas e.g: Pierre Poiret and Isaac Watts. No one, however, taught a pretribulation rapture.
Everyone believed that the church would go through the Great Tribulation. Claims, of
some, to find it in the early church fathers are false. There is some amillennialism
there, but none of the key distinctives of Dispensationalism:there is no separation of the church and Israel and no idea of Christians escaping the tribulation or antichrist by a rapture.
The earliest form of a ‘secret’ rapture was the idea of a partial rapture which
separated some saints from others after the tribulation. This really was about
prioritisation at the second coming, spiritual believers being given priority over less worthy ones. No one saw a place for Jews until the very end and there was no form of Church/Israel dichotomy.
19th century prophetic conferences
During the 18th century there was very little teaching on the Lord’s return. As a result, a reaction began in the 1820’s and 30’s. Prophetic periodicals and references abounded. Most important were the Albury conferences established by Henry Drummond in 1826-30, but the Powerscourt Conferences, instituted by Lady Powerscourt, were also significant. Anglican S.R Maitland began to teach a future rise of Antichrist and a 3½ year great tribulation in 1826. His follower,James Todd, also wrote extensively on the subject. William Burgh converted to this ‘futurist’ view of Revelation and wrote systematically upon it in 1835.
Edward Irving
Before we continue, we must explain the person of Edward Irving. Originally a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister, he moved to London in 1822 and became a very famous preacher. He was such a powerful and stimulating speaker, who attracted great
crowds, that in 1827 the large Regent Square church was erected for him. This was the first to adopt modern charismatic practices (including tongues) following Irving’s belief that the gifts of the Spirit were about to be given again. Tongues first appeared in the west of Scotland in Spring 1830 but were soon present in Irving’s church. Being expelled by the Church of Scotland in 1833 he established
the Catholic Apostolic Church which was fully charismatic, including a belief in the vital role of prophets and apostles. Events soon took a turn for the worse with the gifts being abused and overruling common sense. Irving himself was ousted by men with gifts of supposed greater (apostolic) authority, and many serious doctrinal and ethical aberrations resulted. Irving himself taught a false Christology. As a result, Irving died a demoralised man and the whole movement was vilified.
In 1830, however, Irving was at the height of his fame, and spoke at the Albury
conferences. His journal "The Morning Watch", which had a high eschatological content, was widely distributed. We should note that this journal was susceptible to many weird teachings in its desire to undergird a new wave of spiritual gifts.
Some examples follow.
• Human pre-existence, author: ‘WL’. March 1830.
• The church will give birth to generations of new people in heaven to inhabit
other worlds, author: ‘C’. Sept 1830.
• The Jewish occult Cabbala rested on a ‘stable’ foundation, author not named. Sept 1830.
• Christ will multiply human beings, from the church in heaven, not by creation, but by mysterious generation in the same way that Christ was generated, author: Irving, March 1833.
• The Zodiac will bring out from secular science a conclusive demonstration of
scripture chronology, author not named. March 1833.
These sorts of doctrinal aberrations were felt to be: ‘mysteries heretofore unknown’ (Morning Watch June 1833). The same issue derided great theologians of the past, denigrated Christians that studied their writings as ‘idolaters’ and called the Evangelical World: ‘modern Moabites’.
Like many other cults, it was deemed necessary that one must join them and be
initiated to be safe. Irvingite historian Edward Miller explains that it was necessary to be sealed by the apostles of the Catholic Apostolic Church in order to escape the Imminent Great Tribulation. Each of the Irvingite apostles had to seal 12,000 before he died, but failed to do so in time (and insufficient volunteers). A helpful prophet declared that the sealing would thus be carried on in Paradise.
Roman Catholic influence
The Irvingite church journal (The Morning Watch) carried an article in September 1830 that posited a two phased coming of Christ. This critical idea is originated from a Roman Catholic Jesuit Spanish writer, called Manuel Lacunza. His book, The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty, was translated by Irving in 1827 and studied at the Albury conference, and especially at the later Powerscourt meetings. This is important - one of the key spurs to the foundations of Dispensationalism was the study of the imaginations of a Roman Jesuit, the ideas of another Jesuit, Ribera, were also considered.
So, by about 1830 we have a high degree of eschatological speculation in conferences, books and journals; a futurist view of Revelation; a growing acceptance of extreme ideas including charismania; a Jesuit view of two second comings of Christ; ideas about the separation of the church and Israel; a parenthesis of the Jewish kingdom (see later); and the expected rise of antichrist and the Great tribulation. It is also interesting to note that Joseph Smith published the Book of
Mormon, teaching a regathering of Israel, in 1830. In 1831 William Miller (the founder of Adventism) began teaching his ‘findings’. Jehovah’s Witnesses also started soon afterwards. Chiliasm (millennialism) was in the air in the mid 19th century. The missing ingredient, however, is a secret rapture.
Margaret Macdonald
The first person to speak about a pretribulation rapture was a young girl named
Margaret Macdonald from Port Glasgow (15 miles from Glasgow) who was familiar with The Morning Watch and Edward Irving. The vehicle of this idea was a vision which was written down and read by Irving. In the early 1800’s, some people were beginning to think of a future tribulation and Antichrist. Earlier, most had been historicists who saw the 1260 days of Revelation as years, viewing tribulation as present or past and seeing the Antichrist in the pope, or Napoleon, and the beast as Jews, pagans, Arians, Saracens etc.
In 1829 The Morning Watch represented the most advanced prophetical ideas, including:
• a future tribulation and Antichrist.
• a literal rapture
• a partial rapture (only those filled with the Spirit)
• however, the man-child of Rev 12 was not seen as a church symbol
• an emphasis upon the witnesses of Zecharia tied in to the witnesses of Revelations 11.
[Historically, these witnesses had been seen as the Old and New Testaments, or alternatively as Enoch and Elijah (who had been raptured)].
Margaret saw these witnesses as a symbol of the church which introduced a completely new eschatological idea. Irving (as a historicist) had come close to this in seeing the Rev 11 witnesses as a succession of chosen men faithful to God. This is found in his introduction to the translation of Lacunza’s: The Coming of the Messiah’. (Although he later in the same work states that they are a symbol of the scriptures.) Lacunza also saw them as 78utwo congregations of faithful ministers, but neither saw them as being secretly raptured before the Tribulation. Irving, like many others, believed he was already in the 1260 year Tribulation.
Young Margaret Macdonald, who had such a critical influence in the formation of
pretribulation was a poor foundation on which to rest. Her insight came in a lengthy vision after prolonged sickness which required bed-rest for 18 months. This was written down and passed to ministers, including Irving at a time when he was very susceptible to such charismatic revelation. Margaret had also only been a Christian for a year and was uneducated. It was probably these facts which led to the origin being obscured and publicised by more educated men.
Margaret was also particularly open to the occult. Robert Norton wrote of her and a friend, ‘I have seen both her and Miss Margaret Macdonald stand like statues scarcely touching the ground, evidently supernaturally’. Andrew Drummond tells us that Margaret’s close friend Mary Campbell practised automatic writing and had intense psychical power and was a medium. Margaret also predicted that socialist Robert Owen was the Antichrist at the time she had her pretribulation vision. Margaret herself began to speak in tongues about four months after her vision in August 1830.
"The Morning Watch"
The Morning Watch did not credit Margaret Macdonald as its inspiration, although it does mention ‘several young women’ having given deep revelation in a few broken sentences.
Robert Baxter, a lawyer who became disillusioned with the Irvingites and left
them wrote about Margaret in his Narrative of Facts. He states that: ‘the delusion first appeared in Scotland’ but ‘it was not until adopted and upheld by Mr Irving, that it began to challenge much attention.’ Margaret’s (uncredited) vision appeared in 1840 in the Memoirs of James & George Macdonald of Port Glasgow written by Robert Norton. In 1861 he told her vision and named her specifically, identifying her as the source of the new doctrine. The fact that the Irvingites initiated the teaching of pretribulation is also asserted by several contemporaries,including eminent Brethren writers, such as: S. P. Tregelles, J. P. Lange, Thomas Croskery,
Edward Miller (Irvingite historian), William Reid, George Stokes and J. S. Teulon.
Subsequent to receiving a copy of Margaret’s vision, The Morning Watch went into overdrive in explaining their modification of eschatology. The caught up of 1 Thess 4 is now separated from the gathering of Matt 24. An article by ‘Fidus’ in June 1830 clearly states that ‘Philadelphia’ (spiritual believers) will be raptured and ‘Laodicea’ (non-spiritual Christians, and Jews who follow Antichrist) will be left on earth to endure the Great tribulation. Margaret had rested on the ‘two
witnesses’ symbol, Fidus on the 7 churches.
Later, others (especially Darby) would rest upon the ‘man-child’ symbol. Pretribulation must lean upon these symbols from Revelation because there is absolutely no clear, non-symbolic statement in the Bible to defend it.
The pretribulation rapture became known as ‘the secret rapture’. This has tendencies of developing an elitist, arcane society of adherents, those who are privileged to know about the secret or are especially spiritual in order to take part in it. In June 1832, it was stated that the Lord’s coming was only a joy for those prepared and looking for it. Only they would see the Lord, the rest of the church would only see this first appearance as a meteor or cloud.
Other ideas began to emerge. In June 1832 an article on the feast of Tabernacles saw the seven days of the feast as seven years, the thirteen bullocks slain indicated a confederacy of thirteen hostile powers, during the rise of Antichrist, Gog and Magog etc. This appears to be the first mention of a seven year tribulation period. Out of interest, Darby was teaching a tribulation of three and a half years as late as 1868.
Because the symbolism of types can be interpreted according to other influences, once sound Biblical hermeneutics are ignored,the interpretation of the feasts varied significantly from year to year. Irvingites shifted the rapture from feast 6 (of Lev 23’s 7 feasts) to feast 5, then feast 4 and even feast 3 within the first few years. Modern Dispensationalists have the same problems.
Scofield based his pretribulation rapture on feast 3 (firstfruits). Hal Lindsey has a rapture somewhere between feast 3 and 7. Edgar Whisenant based it upon feast 5, stating that it would occur in 1988. Another recent author stated that it would occur in May 1997.
Irving’s man-child ideas began to emerge in June 1831; repeated by Darby in 1839. He took Paul’s teaching on the union of believers with Christ and transferred it to the the interpretation of OT prophecy and Revelation symbolism. References to ‘Christ’ became corporate, especially the veiled reference of the man-child in Rev 12. With appalling exegesis he sees a first company gathered (rapture of the singular child) before the others of the church who suffer in the Great Tribulation (a remnant of the woman’s seed).
Questions raised by this nonsense include:
• Part of the symbol is literal (‘caught up’),and part is taken spiritually (‘man-child’).
• If the man-child literally referred to Christ as claimed, why did the disciples not accompany Christ into heaven at his ascension?
• If the man-child symbolises a pretribulation rapture at Rev 12:5, the head
needs to be on earth for the whole body and members to be caught up together.
• If the church is already mysteriously (spiritually) joined to the head, why does the church need to be with him in person at Rev 12:5?
Development by Darby
Dave MacPherson has catalogued Darby’s main eschatological beliefs in 21 tenets. He then demonstrates that all of these are present, using the same wording, in Edward Irving’s preliminary discourse to Lacunza’s work published in 1827. In 1829, Darby himself was only voicing 6 of the 21 items. For instance, in 1829 Darby had a Post-tribulation outlook and only saw a distinction, not a dichotomy (separation) between Israel and the church. Darby also quoted Irving, Lacunza and
The Morning Watch in 1830.
Furthermore, Darby’s idea of the parenthesis (where the Jewish kingdom is put
on hold while the Gentile church is developed) appeared in 1830; but the same thought in very similar wording appeared in The Millennium by W C Davis of South Carolina in 1811. Lacunza also frequently mentioned this word in explaining prophetic scripture. It was only in 1870 that Darby’s development led to the position now held by modern dispensationalists. He ceased to emphasise the man-child symbol in favour of the Philadelphia symbol, or even the apostle John who heard ‘Come up hither’. All these had been previously stated by Irvingites, even
using John as a church symbol.
Darby’s later reminiscences show signs of misrepresentation and plagiarism. For example, his observations of an 1830’s Scottish prayer meeting conducted by the Macdonalds, and which included tongue speaking,is almost identical to the report given by John B. Cardale printed in The Morning Watch, Dec 1830, except for one item. Darby omits Margaret’s utterances regarding a pretribulation deliverance. Other writers noted this. F. Roy Coad called it, ‘disingenuous tactics’ and ‘descended to the disreputable’. Benjamin Newton wrote that Darby was most subtle (i.e. sly). Darby can be claimed as a populariser of other’s thoughts on pretribulation predispensationalism, but not the originator - as is everywhere claimed.
Earlier historians and theologians were not in the dark on this. George Stokes wrote: ‘Darby ... imbibed the Irvingite theories about prophecy, which coincided with his natural turn of mind.' Samuel Tregelles, one of the ablest 19th century scholars and a Brethren leader, said that the Secret Rapture doctrine was developed by Irvingites, that Darbyites wrote heterodox tracts, misrepresented historic writings to suit their ideas, and added unsound thoughts to quotes of existing writers, all excused as being done for the honour of God. In editing Darby’s
works, William Kelly deliberately revised them to give the impression that Darby originated the key doctrines and used editing techniques to misrepresent the Irvingite position. Modern Dispensationalists have continued this error, by accident or design.
After being taken on board by the Brethren leader, John Darby, some Brethren
leaders (like B. W. Newton, George Muller) rejected it. S. P. Tregelles added that the idea came from a false spirit prompting a vision in Irving’s church. Other contemporary leaders, like Charles Spurgeon and William Booth also condemned the teaching.
The ideas were exported by several visits of Darby to the USA (between 1859-74) and a series of prophetic conferences (1878-1901) presenting Dispensationalism to Americans. Delegates included Hudson Taylor, A.T. Pierson. A.J. Gordon, S.H. Kellog and W.J. Erdman.
The Scofield Bible and other writings
Dispensationalism was Internationally popularised by the Scofield Reference Bible (arising out of these conferences and published in 1909 with over 3 million sold by 1960), J.N. Darby’s writings, William Kelly’s books, E.W. Bullinger’s The Companion Bible, W.E. Blackstone’s Jesus is Coming (hundreds of thousands sent free to Christian workers in USA) and many other Brethren writings. Many of these works denigrated existing commentaries, and even the church Fathers and the Reformers, and boasted a special revelation, only their works truly understood God’s mysteries.
This gave these ideas an attractive and popular ‘novelty’ to the Christian public. It should also be noted that there was widespread corruption in the church at large in this period with a poor level of teaching (despite some notable exceptions). As a result, many people jumped on to Darby’s bandwagon which
promoted a return to exegetical teaching of the Bible. ‘He (Darby) was able to do what he did because there was a great need ... the church was corrupt, the clergy unlearned.
Liberalism had all but taken over. Prophetic teachings ... were almost unheard of.
Multitudes were spiritually starved’.
The current situation
Today, the most popular systematic defenders are Americans (live & dead) like:
Charles Ryrie, John Walvoord, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Arno Gaebelein, J. Dwight Pentecost and Ernest Pickering. At a popular level, there are numerous melodramatic paperbacks (like Hal Lindsey’s: The Late Great Planet Earth and Bruce Larson, Armaggedon) or like films.
We can identify the following varieties:
· Classical Dispensationalism -
(Scofield, Chafer), Israel is on the earth, the church is in heaven and the two never meeting the new world. There are two ways of salvation: works in the OT and faith in the NT. Chafer holds to two covenants. This view dominated 1900-1950’s.
· Hyper Dispensationalism - Instead of finding the usual Dispensationalist origin of the church in Acts 2, these see it in Acts 13 (as Charles Baker, author of A Disp. Theology and associated with Grand Rapids Grace Bible College!).
· Ultra Dispensationalism - The church begins in Acts 28 (as E.W. Bullinger, hence sometimes called Bullingerism). Therefore, only a few of Paul’s letters apply to the church, the rest of the NT is Jewish.
· Neo Dispensationalism - (Ryrie, Walvoord, Dwight Pentecost). Israel and the
church will be together after the millennium; there is only one way to salvation in both testaments (faith); there is only one new covenant. Dallas seminary promotes this view.
· Progressive Dispensationalism - In recent years some have realised that even some of the Neo Dispensational views are untenable and have sought to further ameliorate its teaching (e.g: Robert Saucy, Craig Blaising, Darrell Bock).
They state that:
o The church is not a parenthesis but the first step towards establishing the kingdom of God.
o God does not have two purposes (i.e. Israel and the church), there is only one purpose, but both of them share in it.
o There is no distinction between Israel and the church in the future state.
o The church will reign (with Jews) in glorified bodies on earth during the
millennium.
o But - they still insist that OT prophecies regarding Israel will be fulfilled
in the millennium by ethnic Jews. They do not see the church as the new Israel or believe that OT prophecies are fulfilled in the church.
One can begin to see how complex and varied this scheme is. There is, also,
hopeless disagreement among its teachers. Is it really conceivable that the greatest saints in the history of the church could have not known of this ‘vital’ truth for 1900 years?
Also consider that the foundation was laid by: a Roman Catholic Jesuit, a discredited, charismatic heretic and a young girl influenced by hallucinations and connected with occult practices.
Go figure how this belief system has so influenced American politics and the preaching of this in America, to create Christian Nationalism, the greatest lie told to the church, so that is has become proactive in this idolatry to the point we have become a nation of war mongering and blood shedding of any others that would disagree with us, all except the present nation of Israel, who not only is
allowed to have WMD's but continue it's persecution of all those that in anyway would oppose their authority over all of the Middle East. We have somehow come to beleive that as long as we support this Zionist nation, we too are some how the nation, with the promised land and the physical promises that can never be removed.
Wrong, as history and time will tell. If we continue, on the same path as Israel, to put ourselves, above God and others, and not promote the Kingdom of God over the earthly kingdoms of men, we will soon find the destruction of America just as Israel found itself under the destruction by Rome in 70 AD. It is our call to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone, to bring forth the true Jew, as Paul so elogantly put it - those not circumcised in the flesh but in the heart. The true Israel, the organized church is unable to realize is the unseen "universal church" (EKKLESIA) "the called out one's" of Christ who no longer look for an earthly kingdom, but live by the Lord's prayer. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Remember it is Paul who said that "there is neither, Jew nor Greek, nor male or female, all are one in Christ".
How easy it is to be decieved, even with the very first letter Paul wrote sometime in 51 AD, to the church of Galatia, the Judaizers were then trying to destroy Christianity with a return to the Old Covenant and circumcision of believers as they have so subtley done so today to convince us that God has any kingdom on this earth.
"The Kingdom of God is within you", Christ said. This is the rulership of our Father in our lives over all things and all purposes, all desires of this world (Cosmos) which the Bible says very clearly, "they are blinded by the god of this world"- Satan. I am not anti-Semitic nor do I hate the people in Israel or any race called the Hebrews, but the truth is they are blind and as long as any Hebrew continues to reject Christ he as all others including Americans, Chinese or whoever, they are under the power of Satan and blinded by him.
I refer you to a scripture now, 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 "For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that "all" will be condemned "who have not believed" the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
It is time the church rejects these ideas of dichtomy (seperation) of the Jews and the Church and realize, there is only one true Israel it will all be saved, as it is made up of men and women, of all races, creeds and color, who given their lives to Christ and recognize him as King now, and the Promised Land as the dwelling place we have with him now in the Spirit.
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007
How American Preachers Incited Revolution
I want to post an article here because I want people to realize the part that the organized church has always played in the politics of America. I want to talk about at a later date, the influence of ideas that still play the largest part to American foreign policy today and war. There will be many that will disagree, and that is the wonderful thing about being a Christian is if we have love for one another, we can disagree- agreeably. So, news for the next few weeks will probably encompass a lot of my interpretation of these events, where they originate from, and how a lie is continually propagated on the American Christian. The organized church has only since the 1800's began to believe these things, and it all started with men by the last name of Darby and Scofield. Let me tell you right now, I am not a premillenialist, nor do I believe in the physical restoration of the physical kingdom of Israel as a promise unfulfilled but fulfilled now as of their occupation of 1949. Israel recieved the promise land in the physical, many times but lost it because of their unbelief. I strongly believe that the Zionist are playing politics with a twist of the truth of what Jesus was trying to tell the Zionist even back when He walked this earth, and because of the concepts popularized by two men and in the 1800's and the most recent series of books written on the "Last Days" we are as a nation being led by the nose into the present circumstances we find ourselves. I won't say more, as there are pages that can be written by my how I came to these conclusions. I am not anti-semitic nor do I have a hatred for any race of people. I do believe truth needs to be told, now my truth may not be yours but perhaps you haven't really given thought to these things and because of the popularity of books like "The Rapture" and Armageddon, etc, by Bruce Larson and his co-writers, we have become even more enamored with these ideals of the physical and American Christians may be missing the whole point of Revelations and Christ's soon coming return. Anyway, for those that do want to say something about the churches influence in the forming of this country, this will give them ammunition, but in truth, the purpose of this story is to show how the church can influence political changes and propagate something it believes in. Perhaps the fault today, to the problems we have as Americans can be laid at the foot of Pre-Millenial, DISPENSATIONAL stories and teachings that continue to be propagated by the organized churches preachers.
You have every right to disagree, but don't let it change our love for one another.
This is a copied article from Christianity Today- Church History. It wasn't written by me. I think it will reveal the strong influence preaching had on the Revolution of 1776. I have a differing opinion as to whether it was Christian belief or not.
How Preachers Incited Revolution
Angry colonists were rallied to declare independence and take up arms because of what they heard from the pulpit.
By Harry S. Stout
No turning back.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) Americans suffered 441 casualties and the British 1,150. Though a strategic victory for the British, English nerve was shaken, the colonists were emboldened, and any hope for peaceful reconciliation was lost.
It's 1775. The year 1787, with its novel constitution and separation of church and state is a long 12 years away. At the moment, you and your friends are just a bunch of outlaws.
You've heard the debates in Parliament over taxation and representation; you've seen British troops enforce royal supremacy at the point of a bayonet. Your king, George III, and Parliament have issued a declaration asserting their sovereignty in "all cases whatsoever" in the colonies. You are, at least in New England, a people under siege with British troops quartered in Boston. You've dumped tea into Boston's harbor in a fit of rage and had your port closed.
Who will you turn to now for direction? There are no presidents or vice-presidents, no supreme court justices or public defenders to call on. There are a handful of young, radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, but they're largely concentrated in cities, while you and most of your friends live in the country. In many colonies, including Massachusetts, there are not even elected governors or councilors—they have all been appointed by the British crown and are answerable to it.
Where you turn is where you have habitually turned for over a century: to the prophets of your society, your ministers.
The American Revolutionary era is known as the "Golden Age of Oratory." What school child has not heard or read Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Who has not seen reenactments or heard summaries of Ben Franklin's heroic appearance before a hostile British Parliament?
Yet often lost in this celebration of patriotic oratory is the key role preaching played in the Revolutionary movement.
TV, INTERNET AND MORE
A few broad statistics can help us appreciate more fully the unique power the sermon wielded in Revolutionary America.
Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!
The pulpits were Congregational and Baptist in New England; Presbyterian, Lutheran, and German Reformed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and Anglican and Methodist in the South. But no matter the denomination, colonial congregations heard sermons more than any other form of oratory. The colonial sermon was prophet, newspaper, video, Internet, community college, and social therapist all wrapped in one. Such was the range of its influence on all aspects of life that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.
Eighteenth-century America was a deeply religious culture that lived self-consciously "under the cope of heaven." In Sunday worship, and weekday (or "occasional") sermons, ministers drew the populace into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them. Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for God's chosen people.
Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from God's. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God's providential design. The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. Colonial congregations saw themselves as the "New Israel," endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history.
Thus colonial audiences learned to perceive themselves not as a ragtag settlement of religious exiles and eccentrics but as God's special people, planted in the American wilderness to bring light to the Old World left behind. Europeans might ignore or revile them as "fanatics," but through the sermon, they knew better. Better to absorb the barbs of English ridicule than to forget their glorious commission.
For over a century, colonial congregations had turned to England for protection and culture. Despite religious differences separating many colonists from the Church of England, they shared a common identity as Englishmen, an identity that stood firm against all foes. But almost overnight, these loyalties were challenged by a series of British imperial laws. Beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765 and running through the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, and finally, martial law in Massachusetts, patriotic Americans perceived a British plot to deprive them of their fundamental English rights and their God-ordained liberties.
In the twentieth-century, taxation and representation are political and constitutional issues, having nothing to do with religion. But to eighteenth-century ears, attuned to lifetimes of preaching, the issues were inevitably religious as well, so colonists naturally turned to their ministers to learn God's will about these troubling matters.
TYRANNY IS "IDOLATRY"
When understood in its own times, the American Revolution was first and foremost a religious event. This is especially true in New England, where the first blood was shed.
By 1775 the ranks of Harvard- and Yale-educated clergymen swelled to over600 ministers, distributed throughout every town and village in New England. Clergymen surveyed the events swirling around them; by 1775 liberals and evangelicals, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, men and women—all saw in British actions grounds for armed resistance.
In fact, not only was it right for colonists to resist British "tyranny," it would actually be sinful not to pick up guns.
How did they come to this conclusion? They fastened on two arguments.
First, they focused on Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had sovereignty over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." For clergymen this phrase took on the air of blasphemy. These were fighting words not only because they violated principles of representative government but even more because they violated the logic of sola Scriptura ("Scripture alone") and God's exclusive claim to sovereignty "in all cases whatsoever."
From the first colonial settlements, Americans—especially New England Americans—were accustomed to constraining all power and granting absolute authority to no mere human being.
For Reformed colonists, these ideas were tied up with their historic, covenant theology. At stake was the preservation of their identity as a covenant people. Not only did Parliament's claims represent tyranny, they also represented idolatry. For colonists to honor those claims would be tantamount to forsaking God and abdicating their national covenant pledge to "have no other gods" before them.
In a classic sermon on the subject of resistance entitled A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission, Boston's Jonathan Mayhew, a liberal(he favored Unitarianism), took as his text Romans 13:1-6, in which Paul enjoins Christians to "be subject unto the higher powers." The day he picked for this sermon was portentous—it came on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, when Anglican ministers routinely abhorred the Puritan revolution, and Puritans routinely kept silent. Mayhew would not keep silent.
For centuries, rulers had used this text to discourage resistance and riot. But circumstances had changed, and in the chilling climate of impending Anglo-American conflict, Mayhew asked if there were any limits to this law? He concluded that the law is binding only insofar as government honors its "moral and religious" obligations. When government fails to honor that obligation, or contract, then the duty of submission is likewise nullified. Submission, in other words, is not unlimited.
Rulers, he said, "have no authority from God to do mischief. … It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God's ministers." Far from being sinful, resistance to corrupt ministers and tyrannical rulers is a divine imperative. The greater sin lies in passively sacrificing the covenant for tyranny, that is, in failing to resist.
Who determines whether government is "moral and religious"? In the Revolutionary era, the answer was simple: the individual. There were no established institutions that would support violent revolution. Ultimate justification resided in the will of a people acting self-consciously as united individuals joined in a common cause. Where a government was found to be deficient in moral and spiritual terms, the individual conscience was freed to resist.
AMERICA: A NEW HEAVEN
Clergy in the Revolutionary era reminded people not only what they were fighting against, namely tyranny and idolatry, but also what they were fighting for: a new heaven and a new earth.
Many early American settlers arrived believing they were part of the New Israel, that they would be instruments for Christ's triumphant return to earth. Interpretations varied on whether the last days would be marked by progressive revelations and triumphs (the "postmillennial" view), or whether they would be marked by sudden judgments and calamities (the "pre millennial" view), or some combination thereof. But all agreed the present was portentous, and American colonists were going to play a direct role in the great things looming.
Wars, first with France and later with England, accelerated these millennial speculations. In fighting against England and George III, people felt they were at once fighting against the Antichrist in a climactic battle between good and evil, tyranny and freedom.
Freedom and liberty (like individual) were both political and religious terms. They helped not only preserve fundamental human rights but also sustain loyalty to Christ and to sola Scriptura. So closely intertwined were the political and religious connotations, it was virtually impossible for colonists to separate them.
In his 1776 sermon on The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, Samuel Sherwood examined the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and concluded that American Christians were the "church in the wilderness," nurtured in a faraway hiding place and raised to battle and defeat Antichrist. He argued that the powers of Antichrist were "not confined to the boundaries of the Roman empire, nor strictly to the territory of the pope's usurped authority." Rather, they extended to all enemies of Christ's church and people. He concluded that England's monarchy "appears to have many of the features and much of the temper and character of the image of the beast."
In only slightly more secular terms, the greatest pamphlet of the Revolutionary era invoked this millennial imagery. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was the runaway bestseller of the American Revolution. In time Paine would be unveiled as a wild-eyed deist, and worse, an atheist. But you couldn't guess that from Common Sense. It read like a sermon. Paine knew his audience well, and he knew what biblical allusions would bring them to arms.
His sermonic pamphlet begins by berating George III as the "royal brute" of England, noting that monarchy, like aristocracy, had its origins among ruffians who enforced their "superiority" at the point of a sword. Then they masked this brute coercion with the trappings of refined culture and regal bearing. Nevertheless, "How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!" He then identifies the monarchy with tyranny, and tyranny with idolatry and blasphemy. Paine traces in elaborate detail Israel's "national delusion" in requesting a king as did other nations, and God's subsequent displeasure at a "form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven."
From scriptural precedent, Paine, the revivalist of revolt, concludes, "These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false."
Paine then went on to echo ministerial visions of a new millennial age. With unmitigated confidence, Paine reiterated John Winthrop's 17th-century Puritan vision of America as a "city upon a hill." But unlike Winthrop, Paine's millennial city was modeled on republican principles (rather than hierarchical)and religious toleration (rather than state-enforced conformity). With words certain to thrill, he likened the colonists to a young tree on which small characters were carved, characters of liberty and freedom. In time this tree would grow huge, and with it, the characters boldly would proclaim the birth of a new adventure in freedom that would be seen throughout the world.
Many colonists were fearful that, if they failed, their leaders would be hung as traitors and the people enslaved in tyranny. But Paine exulted, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom. … How trifling, how ridiculous do the little paltry cavillings of a few weak or interested men appear when weighed against the business of a world."
With rhetoric like this, Paine fused the liberal Mayhew's defense of resistance with an evangelical-like appeal to passion. It is not surprising that liberals and evangelicals united in "the business of a world."
VOICE OF HOPE AND COURAGE
No minister studied the rapidly unfolding events against scriptural teachings more closely than did Concord's 32-year-old minister, William Emerson(grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson). For a long time, his world had been dominated by local concerns and salvation preaching. But all of this changed in March and April 1775, when all the members of his congregation were propelled into what he termed "the greatest events taking place in the present age."
By March, Emerson and other Concord patriots knew that British spies had infiltrated their town and informed General Thomas Gage of a hidden armory and munitions supplies stocked by the local "Sons of Liberty" (a secret society of radicals). Many believed Gage was planning a preemptive strike on these supplies, and they feared for their lives. At a muster of the Concord militia on March 13, Emerson preached a sermon on 2 Chronicles 13:12: "And behold, God himself is with us for our captain. … O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper" (KJV).
Never would he deliver a more momentous sermon. He had it within his means to promote or discourage an almost certainly violent call to arms. What was he to say? What was God's will for his American people?
With obvious agitation, Emerson began his sermon with the somber note that recent intelligence warned of "an approaching storm of war and bloodshed." Many in attendance would soon be called upon for "real service." Were they ready? Real readiness, Emerson explained, depended not only on martial skill and weaponry but also on moral and spiritual resolve. To be successful, soldiers must believe in what they were fighting for, and they must trust in God's power to uphold them. Otherwise they would scatter in fear before the superior British redcoats.
What were the men of Concord fighting for? In strident political terms that coupled the roles of prophet and statesman, Emerson argued for colonial resistance. For standing by their liberties and trusting only in God, the American people were "cruelly charged with rebellion and sedition." That charge, Emerson cried, was a lie put forward by plotters against American liberty. With all of the integrity of his sacred office behind him, Emerson took his stand before the Concord militia:
"For my own part, the more I reflect upon the movements of the British nation … the more satisfied I am that our military preparation here for our own defense is … justified in the eyes of the impartial world. Nay, for should we neglect to defend ourselves by military preparation, we never could answer it to God and to our own consciences of the rising [generations]."
The road ahead would be difficult, Emerson cautioned, but the outcome was one preordained from the beginning of time. Accordingly, the soldiers could go forth to war assured that "the Lord will cover your head in the day of battle and carry you on from victory to victory." In the end, he concluded, the whole world would know "that there is a God" in America.
On April 19, the mounting apprehensions became fact as 800 British troops marched on Lexington and Concord to destroy the patriot munitions. At Lexington, Gage's troops were met by a small "army of observation," who were fired upon and sustained 17 casualties. From there the British troops marched to Concord. Before their arrival, the alarm had been sounded by patriot silversmith Paul Revere, and militiamen rushed to the common. William Emerson arrived first, and he was soon joined by "minutemen" from nearby towns. Again a shot was fired—the famed "shot heard 'round the world"—and in the ensuing exchange, three Americans and twelve British soldiers were killed or wounded. America's colonial war for independence had begun.
Words like Emerson's continued to sound for the next eight years, goading, consoling, and impelling colonists forward in the cause of independence. The pulpit served as the single most powerful voice to inspire the colonists.
For most American ministers and many in their congregations, the religious dimension of the war was precisely the point of revolution. Revolution and a new republican government would enable Americans to continue to realize their destiny as a "redeemer nation." If time would prove that self-defined mission tragically arrogant, it was not apparent to the participants themselves. With backs against the wall, and precious little to take confidence in, words like those of Mayhew's, Emerson's, and Paine's were their only hope.
Harry Stout is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University. He is author of The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford).
You have every right to disagree, but don't let it change our love for one another.
This is a copied article from Christianity Today- Church History. It wasn't written by me. I think it will reveal the strong influence preaching had on the Revolution of 1776. I have a differing opinion as to whether it was Christian belief or not.
How Preachers Incited Revolution
Angry colonists were rallied to declare independence and take up arms because of what they heard from the pulpit.
By Harry S. Stout
No turning back.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) Americans suffered 441 casualties and the British 1,150. Though a strategic victory for the British, English nerve was shaken, the colonists were emboldened, and any hope for peaceful reconciliation was lost.
It's 1775. The year 1787, with its novel constitution and separation of church and state is a long 12 years away. At the moment, you and your friends are just a bunch of outlaws.
You've heard the debates in Parliament over taxation and representation; you've seen British troops enforce royal supremacy at the point of a bayonet. Your king, George III, and Parliament have issued a declaration asserting their sovereignty in "all cases whatsoever" in the colonies. You are, at least in New England, a people under siege with British troops quartered in Boston. You've dumped tea into Boston's harbor in a fit of rage and had your port closed.
Who will you turn to now for direction? There are no presidents or vice-presidents, no supreme court justices or public defenders to call on. There are a handful of young, radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, but they're largely concentrated in cities, while you and most of your friends live in the country. In many colonies, including Massachusetts, there are not even elected governors or councilors—they have all been appointed by the British crown and are answerable to it.
Where you turn is where you have habitually turned for over a century: to the prophets of your society, your ministers.
The American Revolutionary era is known as the "Golden Age of Oratory." What school child has not heard or read Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Who has not seen reenactments or heard summaries of Ben Franklin's heroic appearance before a hostile British Parliament?
Yet often lost in this celebration of patriotic oratory is the key role preaching played in the Revolutionary movement.
TV, INTERNET AND MORE
A few broad statistics can help us appreciate more fully the unique power the sermon wielded in Revolutionary America.
Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!
The pulpits were Congregational and Baptist in New England; Presbyterian, Lutheran, and German Reformed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and Anglican and Methodist in the South. But no matter the denomination, colonial congregations heard sermons more than any other form of oratory. The colonial sermon was prophet, newspaper, video, Internet, community college, and social therapist all wrapped in one. Such was the range of its influence on all aspects of life that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.
Eighteenth-century America was a deeply religious culture that lived self-consciously "under the cope of heaven." In Sunday worship, and weekday (or "occasional") sermons, ministers drew the populace into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them. Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for God's chosen people.
Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from God's. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God's providential design. The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. Colonial congregations saw themselves as the "New Israel," endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history.
Thus colonial audiences learned to perceive themselves not as a ragtag settlement of religious exiles and eccentrics but as God's special people, planted in the American wilderness to bring light to the Old World left behind. Europeans might ignore or revile them as "fanatics," but through the sermon, they knew better. Better to absorb the barbs of English ridicule than to forget their glorious commission.
For over a century, colonial congregations had turned to England for protection and culture. Despite religious differences separating many colonists from the Church of England, they shared a common identity as Englishmen, an identity that stood firm against all foes. But almost overnight, these loyalties were challenged by a series of British imperial laws. Beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765 and running through the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, and finally, martial law in Massachusetts, patriotic Americans perceived a British plot to deprive them of their fundamental English rights and their God-ordained liberties.
In the twentieth-century, taxation and representation are political and constitutional issues, having nothing to do with religion. But to eighteenth-century ears, attuned to lifetimes of preaching, the issues were inevitably religious as well, so colonists naturally turned to their ministers to learn God's will about these troubling matters.
TYRANNY IS "IDOLATRY"
When understood in its own times, the American Revolution was first and foremost a religious event. This is especially true in New England, where the first blood was shed.
By 1775 the ranks of Harvard- and Yale-educated clergymen swelled to over600 ministers, distributed throughout every town and village in New England. Clergymen surveyed the events swirling around them; by 1775 liberals and evangelicals, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, men and women—all saw in British actions grounds for armed resistance.
In fact, not only was it right for colonists to resist British "tyranny," it would actually be sinful not to pick up guns.
How did they come to this conclusion? They fastened on two arguments.
First, they focused on Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had sovereignty over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." For clergymen this phrase took on the air of blasphemy. These were fighting words not only because they violated principles of representative government but even more because they violated the logic of sola Scriptura ("Scripture alone") and God's exclusive claim to sovereignty "in all cases whatsoever."
From the first colonial settlements, Americans—especially New England Americans—were accustomed to constraining all power and granting absolute authority to no mere human being.
For Reformed colonists, these ideas were tied up with their historic, covenant theology. At stake was the preservation of their identity as a covenant people. Not only did Parliament's claims represent tyranny, they also represented idolatry. For colonists to honor those claims would be tantamount to forsaking God and abdicating their national covenant pledge to "have no other gods" before them.
In a classic sermon on the subject of resistance entitled A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission, Boston's Jonathan Mayhew, a liberal(he favored Unitarianism), took as his text Romans 13:1-6, in which Paul enjoins Christians to "be subject unto the higher powers." The day he picked for this sermon was portentous—it came on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, when Anglican ministers routinely abhorred the Puritan revolution, and Puritans routinely kept silent. Mayhew would not keep silent.
For centuries, rulers had used this text to discourage resistance and riot. But circumstances had changed, and in the chilling climate of impending Anglo-American conflict, Mayhew asked if there were any limits to this law? He concluded that the law is binding only insofar as government honors its "moral and religious" obligations. When government fails to honor that obligation, or contract, then the duty of submission is likewise nullified. Submission, in other words, is not unlimited.
Rulers, he said, "have no authority from God to do mischief. … It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God's ministers." Far from being sinful, resistance to corrupt ministers and tyrannical rulers is a divine imperative. The greater sin lies in passively sacrificing the covenant for tyranny, that is, in failing to resist.
Who determines whether government is "moral and religious"? In the Revolutionary era, the answer was simple: the individual. There were no established institutions that would support violent revolution. Ultimate justification resided in the will of a people acting self-consciously as united individuals joined in a common cause. Where a government was found to be deficient in moral and spiritual terms, the individual conscience was freed to resist.
AMERICA: A NEW HEAVEN
Clergy in the Revolutionary era reminded people not only what they were fighting against, namely tyranny and idolatry, but also what they were fighting for: a new heaven and a new earth.
Many early American settlers arrived believing they were part of the New Israel, that they would be instruments for Christ's triumphant return to earth. Interpretations varied on whether the last days would be marked by progressive revelations and triumphs (the "postmillennial" view), or whether they would be marked by sudden judgments and calamities (the "pre millennial" view), or some combination thereof. But all agreed the present was portentous, and American colonists were going to play a direct role in the great things looming.
Wars, first with France and later with England, accelerated these millennial speculations. In fighting against England and George III, people felt they were at once fighting against the Antichrist in a climactic battle between good and evil, tyranny and freedom.
Freedom and liberty (like individual) were both political and religious terms. They helped not only preserve fundamental human rights but also sustain loyalty to Christ and to sola Scriptura. So closely intertwined were the political and religious connotations, it was virtually impossible for colonists to separate them.
In his 1776 sermon on The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, Samuel Sherwood examined the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and concluded that American Christians were the "church in the wilderness," nurtured in a faraway hiding place and raised to battle and defeat Antichrist. He argued that the powers of Antichrist were "not confined to the boundaries of the Roman empire, nor strictly to the territory of the pope's usurped authority." Rather, they extended to all enemies of Christ's church and people. He concluded that England's monarchy "appears to have many of the features and much of the temper and character of the image of the beast."
In only slightly more secular terms, the greatest pamphlet of the Revolutionary era invoked this millennial imagery. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was the runaway bestseller of the American Revolution. In time Paine would be unveiled as a wild-eyed deist, and worse, an atheist. But you couldn't guess that from Common Sense. It read like a sermon. Paine knew his audience well, and he knew what biblical allusions would bring them to arms.
His sermonic pamphlet begins by berating George III as the "royal brute" of England, noting that monarchy, like aristocracy, had its origins among ruffians who enforced their "superiority" at the point of a sword. Then they masked this brute coercion with the trappings of refined culture and regal bearing. Nevertheless, "How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!" He then identifies the monarchy with tyranny, and tyranny with idolatry and blasphemy. Paine traces in elaborate detail Israel's "national delusion" in requesting a king as did other nations, and God's subsequent displeasure at a "form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven."
From scriptural precedent, Paine, the revivalist of revolt, concludes, "These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false."
Paine then went on to echo ministerial visions of a new millennial age. With unmitigated confidence, Paine reiterated John Winthrop's 17th-century Puritan vision of America as a "city upon a hill." But unlike Winthrop, Paine's millennial city was modeled on republican principles (rather than hierarchical)and religious toleration (rather than state-enforced conformity). With words certain to thrill, he likened the colonists to a young tree on which small characters were carved, characters of liberty and freedom. In time this tree would grow huge, and with it, the characters boldly would proclaim the birth of a new adventure in freedom that would be seen throughout the world.
Many colonists were fearful that, if they failed, their leaders would be hung as traitors and the people enslaved in tyranny. But Paine exulted, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom. … How trifling, how ridiculous do the little paltry cavillings of a few weak or interested men appear when weighed against the business of a world."
With rhetoric like this, Paine fused the liberal Mayhew's defense of resistance with an evangelical-like appeal to passion. It is not surprising that liberals and evangelicals united in "the business of a world."
VOICE OF HOPE AND COURAGE
No minister studied the rapidly unfolding events against scriptural teachings more closely than did Concord's 32-year-old minister, William Emerson(grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson). For a long time, his world had been dominated by local concerns and salvation preaching. But all of this changed in March and April 1775, when all the members of his congregation were propelled into what he termed "the greatest events taking place in the present age."
By March, Emerson and other Concord patriots knew that British spies had infiltrated their town and informed General Thomas Gage of a hidden armory and munitions supplies stocked by the local "Sons of Liberty" (a secret society of radicals). Many believed Gage was planning a preemptive strike on these supplies, and they feared for their lives. At a muster of the Concord militia on March 13, Emerson preached a sermon on 2 Chronicles 13:12: "And behold, God himself is with us for our captain. … O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper" (KJV).
Never would he deliver a more momentous sermon. He had it within his means to promote or discourage an almost certainly violent call to arms. What was he to say? What was God's will for his American people?
With obvious agitation, Emerson began his sermon with the somber note that recent intelligence warned of "an approaching storm of war and bloodshed." Many in attendance would soon be called upon for "real service." Were they ready? Real readiness, Emerson explained, depended not only on martial skill and weaponry but also on moral and spiritual resolve. To be successful, soldiers must believe in what they were fighting for, and they must trust in God's power to uphold them. Otherwise they would scatter in fear before the superior British redcoats.
What were the men of Concord fighting for? In strident political terms that coupled the roles of prophet and statesman, Emerson argued for colonial resistance. For standing by their liberties and trusting only in God, the American people were "cruelly charged with rebellion and sedition." That charge, Emerson cried, was a lie put forward by plotters against American liberty. With all of the integrity of his sacred office behind him, Emerson took his stand before the Concord militia:
"For my own part, the more I reflect upon the movements of the British nation … the more satisfied I am that our military preparation here for our own defense is … justified in the eyes of the impartial world. Nay, for should we neglect to defend ourselves by military preparation, we never could answer it to God and to our own consciences of the rising [generations]."
The road ahead would be difficult, Emerson cautioned, but the outcome was one preordained from the beginning of time. Accordingly, the soldiers could go forth to war assured that "the Lord will cover your head in the day of battle and carry you on from victory to victory." In the end, he concluded, the whole world would know "that there is a God" in America.
On April 19, the mounting apprehensions became fact as 800 British troops marched on Lexington and Concord to destroy the patriot munitions. At Lexington, Gage's troops were met by a small "army of observation," who were fired upon and sustained 17 casualties. From there the British troops marched to Concord. Before their arrival, the alarm had been sounded by patriot silversmith Paul Revere, and militiamen rushed to the common. William Emerson arrived first, and he was soon joined by "minutemen" from nearby towns. Again a shot was fired—the famed "shot heard 'round the world"—and in the ensuing exchange, three Americans and twelve British soldiers were killed or wounded. America's colonial war for independence had begun.
Words like Emerson's continued to sound for the next eight years, goading, consoling, and impelling colonists forward in the cause of independence. The pulpit served as the single most powerful voice to inspire the colonists.
For most American ministers and many in their congregations, the religious dimension of the war was precisely the point of revolution. Revolution and a new republican government would enable Americans to continue to realize their destiny as a "redeemer nation." If time would prove that self-defined mission tragically arrogant, it was not apparent to the participants themselves. With backs against the wall, and precious little to take confidence in, words like those of Mayhew's, Emerson's, and Paine's were their only hope.
Harry Stout is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University. He is author of The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford).
Monday, February 26, 2007
Amazing Grace
I saw but for a brief moment, an advertisement on television about a movie called, Amazing Grace. I didn't give it much thought at the moment and went on by it while clicking the remote control. One of the favorite things of men to do, switch through the channels before settling down to watch just one thing. My mother called yesterday and mentioned her and my dad were going to go see this movie. She told me she sent me a link in my email and to take a look at it. I did. The movie is about something, I knew for awhile now, which is the story behind the song, "Amazing Grace". This song so loved by everyone, especially here in our society. This song after the 911 incident was the most sung song across America. How soon we forget.
For the most part we have largly ignored the origin of this song and it's author.
I am going to be honest about it, the "white church" hasn't talked about the origin or the author, though we like to sing the song.
I believe we have ignored a mention of this song's origin and it's author simply because it deals with the emancipation of men from slavery, namely that of the African slaves. Regardless, how we pretend to not be prejudice in this country, claiming to be 80% Christian, we are. I personally think that is why, until I read up on it by accident a few years back, I never knew the story behind the song that I sang in church since age 6.
Here is an outline of the story of it's author, I copied it from the web site and edited it some to save my fingers some typing.
http://www.amazinggracemovie.com
John Newton wrote the words to one of the most beloved hymns of all time between 1760 and 1770, while working as an evangelical pastor. Son of the commander of a merchant ship, Newton was captain of a slave ship for many years, until he underwent a dramatic religious conversion while steering his vessel through a storm.
Repenting and regretting the misery he had inflicted on the thousands of human cargo he had transported across the Middle Passage for many years, he devoted his life to the Church, and wrote the lyrics to many hymns which are still popular today.
In 1780 Newton left Olney to become rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, St. Mary Woolchurch, in London. There he drew large congregations and influenced many, among them William Wilberforce. Newton continued to preach until the last year of life, although he was blind by that time. He died in London December 21, 1807.
What a tremendous testimony to the power of God, to change a man from a slave trader to a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18).
A man that so influenced William Wilberforce, that he went to battle to end slavery. The movie is this story. Christian churches will now know the story behind the song and how it resulted in the Grace of God, working through this one man, John Newton, and how he influenced another individual, William Wilberforce to stop this horrible practice of slavery of the African nations people by England. The movie is about this story and the people as summarized here.
Wilberforce, who, was a Member of Parliament, navigated the world of 18th Century backroom politics to end the slave trade in the British Empire. John Newton, a confidante of Wilberforce who inspired him to pursue a life of service to humanity. William Pitt the Younger, England's youngest ever Prime Minister at the age of 24, who encourages his friend Wilberforce to take up the fight to outlaw slavery and supports him in his struggles in Parliament.Elected to the House of Commons at the age of 21, and on his way to a successful political career, Wilberforce, over the course of two decades, took on the English establishment and persuaded those in power to end the inhumane trade of slavery.
Barbara Spooner, was a young woman who shares Wilberforce's passion for reform, and who becomes his wife after a whirlwind courtship. Olaudah Equiano. Born in Africa and sent as a slave to the Colonies, Equiano bought his freedom and made his home in London, where he wrote a best-selling account of his life and became a leading figure in the fight to end the slavery of his fellow countrymen.
This movie is now showing in Tyler, Texas theaters and other places across the United States. I recommend others to see this film, as the courage of these believers in Christ went about practicing, the Lord's prayer. "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
There is much to be said about Christian activism. I am an activist as a Christian, for I believe we are called to bring about and usher in the Kingdom of God, by living it, breathing it and allowing the resurrected life of Jesus to live through us, we will influence, and change the world by exposing evil, whereever and whenever God calls us to. It will be costly, but did Jesus not say, count the cost? So, I choose to write now about another slavery that goes on. Go ahead and get mad at me again. It seems whenever I speak the truth about something, someone gets angry, kind of like the Pharisee's of Jesus time. That's OK, truth has to be spoken and I have given this one some thought in my time with the Lord.
Slavery in America Still Exist!
There is a new prejudice in America that has raised it's ugly head, it is a prejudice against the Hispanic people in this country.
Yes, the law has been violated with the illegal entry of many of them, but these people only come here, because in our greed we have invited them as American businessman, so we can pay lower wages to make higher profits. Don't blame any people who want to better themselves, and their families. If you want to stop the influx of illegals, you don't form a hatred committee against those coming here, you form a hatred for the evil of greed that encompasse American business today who illegally hire the people, so their profits can grow. This is where the problem is.
God loves the Mexican people and being raised in New Mexico, I love their culture, their art, their food and their music. They are a wonderful people, and as much Mexican food as we consume and as many Mexican food restaraunts there are here in Athens, Texas, this is a statement, that we like something about them.
The only thing, I ask, do we love them as Christ called us to love them. Or are we just enamored with the idea of having them cook, clean and wait on us, like slaves?
Are we willing to make a stand against slavery?
When a man works at low wages, while another man could afford to pay more, this is nothing more than justified slavery.
Are we willing as Christians to make a stand for all races and colors, or we only fooling ourselves into "playing church" on Sunday?
The words for all of us of this great song, Amazing Grace, should take on more meaning now that we understand, that the author of this wonderful song, took his faith in Christ to heart and influenced others to change the world they lived in.
Amazing Grace (How sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev'd;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ'd!
Thro' many dangers, toils and snare,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall profess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call'd me here below,
Will be for ever mine.
These words apply to all men, regardless of their race or country of origin.
Dr. J.
For the most part we have largly ignored the origin of this song and it's author.
I am going to be honest about it, the "white church" hasn't talked about the origin or the author, though we like to sing the song.
I believe we have ignored a mention of this song's origin and it's author simply because it deals with the emancipation of men from slavery, namely that of the African slaves. Regardless, how we pretend to not be prejudice in this country, claiming to be 80% Christian, we are. I personally think that is why, until I read up on it by accident a few years back, I never knew the story behind the song that I sang in church since age 6.
Here is an outline of the story of it's author, I copied it from the web site and edited it some to save my fingers some typing.
http://www.amazinggracemovie.com
John Newton wrote the words to one of the most beloved hymns of all time between 1760 and 1770, while working as an evangelical pastor. Son of the commander of a merchant ship, Newton was captain of a slave ship for many years, until he underwent a dramatic religious conversion while steering his vessel through a storm.
Repenting and regretting the misery he had inflicted on the thousands of human cargo he had transported across the Middle Passage for many years, he devoted his life to the Church, and wrote the lyrics to many hymns which are still popular today.
In 1780 Newton left Olney to become rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, St. Mary Woolchurch, in London. There he drew large congregations and influenced many, among them William Wilberforce. Newton continued to preach until the last year of life, although he was blind by that time. He died in London December 21, 1807.
What a tremendous testimony to the power of God, to change a man from a slave trader to a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18).
A man that so influenced William Wilberforce, that he went to battle to end slavery. The movie is this story. Christian churches will now know the story behind the song and how it resulted in the Grace of God, working through this one man, John Newton, and how he influenced another individual, William Wilberforce to stop this horrible practice of slavery of the African nations people by England. The movie is about this story and the people as summarized here.
Wilberforce, who, was a Member of Parliament, navigated the world of 18th Century backroom politics to end the slave trade in the British Empire. John Newton, a confidante of Wilberforce who inspired him to pursue a life of service to humanity. William Pitt the Younger, England's youngest ever Prime Minister at the age of 24, who encourages his friend Wilberforce to take up the fight to outlaw slavery and supports him in his struggles in Parliament.Elected to the House of Commons at the age of 21, and on his way to a successful political career, Wilberforce, over the course of two decades, took on the English establishment and persuaded those in power to end the inhumane trade of slavery.
Barbara Spooner, was a young woman who shares Wilberforce's passion for reform, and who becomes his wife after a whirlwind courtship. Olaudah Equiano. Born in Africa and sent as a slave to the Colonies, Equiano bought his freedom and made his home in London, where he wrote a best-selling account of his life and became a leading figure in the fight to end the slavery of his fellow countrymen.
This movie is now showing in Tyler, Texas theaters and other places across the United States. I recommend others to see this film, as the courage of these believers in Christ went about practicing, the Lord's prayer. "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
There is much to be said about Christian activism. I am an activist as a Christian, for I believe we are called to bring about and usher in the Kingdom of God, by living it, breathing it and allowing the resurrected life of Jesus to live through us, we will influence, and change the world by exposing evil, whereever and whenever God calls us to. It will be costly, but did Jesus not say, count the cost? So, I choose to write now about another slavery that goes on. Go ahead and get mad at me again. It seems whenever I speak the truth about something, someone gets angry, kind of like the Pharisee's of Jesus time. That's OK, truth has to be spoken and I have given this one some thought in my time with the Lord.
Slavery in America Still Exist!
There is a new prejudice in America that has raised it's ugly head, it is a prejudice against the Hispanic people in this country.
Yes, the law has been violated with the illegal entry of many of them, but these people only come here, because in our greed we have invited them as American businessman, so we can pay lower wages to make higher profits. Don't blame any people who want to better themselves, and their families. If you want to stop the influx of illegals, you don't form a hatred committee against those coming here, you form a hatred for the evil of greed that encompasse American business today who illegally hire the people, so their profits can grow. This is where the problem is.
God loves the Mexican people and being raised in New Mexico, I love their culture, their art, their food and their music. They are a wonderful people, and as much Mexican food as we consume and as many Mexican food restaraunts there are here in Athens, Texas, this is a statement, that we like something about them.
The only thing, I ask, do we love them as Christ called us to love them. Or are we just enamored with the idea of having them cook, clean and wait on us, like slaves?
Are we willing to make a stand against slavery?
When a man works at low wages, while another man could afford to pay more, this is nothing more than justified slavery.
Are we willing as Christians to make a stand for all races and colors, or we only fooling ourselves into "playing church" on Sunday?
The words for all of us of this great song, Amazing Grace, should take on more meaning now that we understand, that the author of this wonderful song, took his faith in Christ to heart and influenced others to change the world they lived in.
Amazing Grace (How sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev'd;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ'd!
Thro' many dangers, toils and snare,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall profess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call'd me here below,
Will be for ever mine.
These words apply to all men, regardless of their race or country of origin.
Dr. J.
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Toll of the War in Iraq
Now, I am going to write about something, I believe very strongly about and as a result there will be some of you that will get mad at me. I already know this has been a long standing argument within the organized church. There shouldn't be, if people will take God's Word over man's word and leave it at that, there would be none. As I had written in an earlier article man has a propensity to take the Commandments (The Word of God) and make it of no effect because of the traditions of men. The tradition, I want to speak about is the one developed by Augustine, who was one of the early church Fathers, who came up with the idea of a "JUST WAR". The just war theory also has a long history. Whilst parts of the Bible hint at ethical behaviour in war and concepts of just cause, the most systematic exposition is given by Saint Thomas Aquinas. In the "Summa Theologicae" Aquinas presents the general outline of what becomes the just war theory. He discusses not only the justification of war, but also the kinds of activity that are permissible in war. Aquinas's thoughts become the model for later Scholastics and Jurists to expand.
Early Christians did not believe men, but believed God and abstained from war and in most cases military service altogether. Once Constantine conquered the empire and esablished a church-state and Augustine who developed the idea even more of a physical "City of God" and spread the idea of a Christian nation and fighting for it, I want to say in my opinion all else went "to hell in a handbasket", in relation to Christian men and women loving their enemies. We suddenly took on the ways of the world.
A very dark history of the organized church proves that. Though Martin Luther wanted the church or common people to have the freedom to read and study God's word even he did not allow for true freedom in Christ, as he and Calvin persecuted and were responsible for the deaths of many Ana-Baptist, because they were scriptural and preferred "sitter's rights" and believed in "non-resistance". The AnaBaptist believed in the Kingdom of God only, not the kingdom of men, and they wanted to see an end to the priest-pastor in the church and return to the "priesthood of all believers" (a plurality of pastors-elders), where each man had a right to speak in assembly, as lead by the Holy Spirit and others would judge what was said. This would have eliminated the "one man" show and today we might be practicing in the assembly according to the tradition of the Apostles and the early church and Christ very own teaching. Once again, the traditions of men superceded the Word of God and those who really were closer to the teachings of Christ and church practice were sacrificed and killed for a structure of power over others. The Baptist organization as known today gave into this structure of power, even those that once beleived in "sitter's rights" have given into a structure of power over others in their assemblies and in their organization and structure. The churches of the German Brethern and the remaining AnaBaptist - the Mennontites have turned to the traditions of men in this one area as well. Power over others continues to be one of the greatest failures of the church today. It hasn't changed since the early church writer and "so called early church father" Origen set this all in motion with his raising the Bishop to the level of equality with Christ himself.
Jesus did not teach power over others, but power under. Some say Christ was not a non-resistor. Well, let's look at one of the strongest scriptures of His established new covenant with men.
Open your Bible to Matthew 5:38, and let's get rid of the idea of justifying war altogether and any concept that just because Israel did so under the Old covenant and a theocracy, that justifies us under the new relationship with God our Father which happens to be not a physical theocracy as Israel had but we are under a spiritual one, with Christ as our Head.
Here Jesus speaks very precisely, "You have heard that it was said, Eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth." NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY AND DON"T CHANGE WHAT HE SAYS HERE. "But I tell you." (Now remember this is God come down to men in the flesh) "Do not resist an evil person."
Let's be clear about that, DO NOT RESIST.
Now for me a biblical student, I don't have to do a lot of digging to understand His words, plain and simple. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Doesn't that just burn you up, that Jesus would actually tell us, to allow someone to hit us physically, yet we aren't to strike back but give them the other cheek to strike. I don't know about you, but in my flesh, I say, hit them back.
If we as Christians, have the living resurrected Christ living in us, this is just what should not result, striking back at our enemies. Our lives should be exemplary of that same life that he had while here on earth. So we excuse it with it, well "I'm not Jesus". Well, let's take a moment with me and go over to I John 2:6 - "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did".
Now Israel was under the iron hand of Rome. Jesus ended up under Pilate a ruler of Rome. All of Isreal was disappointed that he wasn't the military Messiah they were looking for and even today they do not accept Christ as Messiah because of who he is the Prince of Peace. Just as he said to Pilate, John 18:36 - "My kingdom is not of this world. if it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." We as believers have this same Kingdom, not a different one then he had.
The United States of America may be where we exist physically, but the Kingdom of God is the only one we have allegiance to, and thus His Kingdom, doesn't seek revenge, nor does it war with others over real estate, oil or any other ideal. To do so, makes us no better than the Muslims who believe in their kingdom. I highly recommend a great book written by a great Christian entitled. "The Myth of a Christian Nation", by Gregory A. Boyd, who handles the question of non-resistance for the beleiver in a tremendous way taking us through scripture and a greater understanding of verses like Romans 13:1-7.
I don't have the time or space to do it here.
What brought me once more to writing on this subject is the most recent news.
"Nearly 800 Iraq contractors killed."
Now. let's count up, some say it was 2,200 or a little more that got killed in the World Trade Center attack, collapse and destruction.
George Bush called for vengeance, no less in the name of the Christian God, and got our blood all stirred up and the next thing you know, we were ready to kill anyone that George could point his finger at and say they were responsible for all this. Well, now we have lost over 3,300 servicemen and 800 contractors serving in Iraq. That brings the toll since 911 to over 5,500 men, or women dead as a result of our want and need for vengeance and blood. I can call it nothing less than that. We can justify it under the idea of fighting for freedom, but don't you realize in the mind of the Muslim, they too worship a "pagan god of war", and beleive they are fighting for freedom as well.
See when like minds have the same purpose and goal of destroying one another with the same justifications, who is right? You want to know the truth, neither one of them. Thus, Paul writes in Romans 12:9-21- Summary: Do not repay ANYONE evil for evil. This includes a terrorist or Muslim or any other people our nation at any one time percieves as an enemy. For those who call themselves, Christians, we are to do just the opposite that the world would do, love our enemy.
See nations will deal with their problems the way men do, in the flesh. Whereas Christians, our sole allegiance is to be to Christ and His Kingdom. Somewhere down the line we have made the traditions of men and Augustine, supercede the Word of God and justified and even supported the ongoing hatred for others. Even the Muslims still refer to us as the Crusaders because of an even darker time in Church history where we killed, maimed and slaughtered millions of Muslims for the sake of the call of the Pope and the known church to gain salvation. Yes, that's right, the Pope made it clear to the Christian Crusaders to die for their cause to obtain Jerusalem under Christian control, that those who died doing so, would be guaranteed salvation and go to heaven. Now America has chosen a new Pope, a mislead President, that even beleives God talks to him directly - super canonically( outside of scriptural verification or justification) and gives Him his justifcation for war.
Hitler, did the same thing, the church at that time, listened to the same rhetoric and as a result thousands and thousands died needlessly while the Christian church of Germany went along with Hitler's ideals and the church stood by supporting it. German Christian men enlisted in Hitler's troops. One man, alone took a stance against Christian Nationalism in his country of Germany, his name was Dietrich Boenhoffer. One of the better recognized Theologians of today. The result he and his family were later killed by Hitler and his troops. Though, some rumor has come forth that he may have plotted to kill Hitler himself, I believe, that he understood and by the way, it was only a rumor that he planned to kill Hitler himself, the difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. He gave allegiance to God, and taught the Word, and died as a result of it. If you were to die today as a Christian, by the hands of a terrorist, would you be any of the worse because of it. Of course not, if you are truly born again and filled with the Spirit of Christ, you too would be looking beyond the grave to that great day of resurrection, when there shall be no more war, pain, tears or death. Only everlasting peace in Christ our Lord. May we never forget as believers, He is the Prince of Peace, not the prince of war. The toll of war in Iraq will grow as long as Christians support the death and continued destruction of a nation and it's people's will die, our sons will die, our husbands will die, our wife's, daughters and mothers will die all for a cause that has absolutley nothing to do with advancing the Kingdom of God. So, if you don't like what I have written here. Too bad, I love you all the same.
The Toll of the War in Iraq is beyond the number of deaths you hope to avenge at the World Trade Center, and yet, it continues and many who call themselves Christians are supporting it, with the preaching of another gospel, which is no gospel at all. It is a false gospel and one which our Saviour made it very clear, "my kingdom is not of this world". Until the day believers understand this, there will be war always and the false premise that one men made goverment is more righteous than another, and the sad thing Christians will die not for the sake of righteousness but for the sake of a presumed freedom. Only Christ can set a men truly free, not any nation. Christ said ALL NATIONS WILL BE judged. This includes Israel, the United States, no exceptions. There is no such thing as a "Christian Nation". There are only Christians that live in a nation. We are not part to this kingdom, we only live in it and are to pray for it, but we are not to be of the world, only in it, so that we might live out, Christ in us, which is the hope of glory! We are to be it's salt, it's light, but as it goes so often we have allowed ourselves to be many things else, we only promote the confusion so that everything righteous becomes nothing but gray areas of what individual belief and men's traditions define rather than what our Lord had to say about it all. The world cannot not see anything different about a believer than they can find in corporate board rooms where people take sides and fight for control to have power over others.
The institutional church has taken on these same tactics often and the church doesn't become a sanctuary from the world, it becomes just like them.
Where's the difference? There is none! We should find rest from our flesh when we come together as an assembly. There should be peace, love and righteousness.
I pray that we can only come to terms with Augustine's ideas, and throw them out for the lies they are. There is no "just war" for Christians. Until the day Christ returns and the sons of God are revealed and then we will have a Theocracy again, should we as believers realize the wars of men are not our affairs. There will be that day where He calls the shots not men. The wicked and the evil and the nations of this world will face judgement. God help us to know the truth and set us free from hatred, and vengeful thinking and allow us to have "the mind of Christ", who loved his enemies to the bitter end at the cross and said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". "Who died for us while we were yet his enemies."
The toll of the war in Iraq, is death and more death. Do we really care about life or not? Stand up and let your voice be heard. Let your stand for pro-life be real. Pro Lifer's do not kill others period, unlike some of the mislead individuals in the movement to stop abortion. We are to change the world by being the very opposite of what this world is. Jesus first, above all else. Let me close with these words from James 4:1-10 from the American Standard Version.
Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not:ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain:ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.
4 Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.
5 Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?
6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
7 Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep:let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.
Dr. J.
Early Christians did not believe men, but believed God and abstained from war and in most cases military service altogether. Once Constantine conquered the empire and esablished a church-state and Augustine who developed the idea even more of a physical "City of God" and spread the idea of a Christian nation and fighting for it, I want to say in my opinion all else went "to hell in a handbasket", in relation to Christian men and women loving their enemies. We suddenly took on the ways of the world.
A very dark history of the organized church proves that. Though Martin Luther wanted the church or common people to have the freedom to read and study God's word even he did not allow for true freedom in Christ, as he and Calvin persecuted and were responsible for the deaths of many Ana-Baptist, because they were scriptural and preferred "sitter's rights" and believed in "non-resistance". The AnaBaptist believed in the Kingdom of God only, not the kingdom of men, and they wanted to see an end to the priest-pastor in the church and return to the "priesthood of all believers" (a plurality of pastors-elders), where each man had a right to speak in assembly, as lead by the Holy Spirit and others would judge what was said. This would have eliminated the "one man" show and today we might be practicing in the assembly according to the tradition of the Apostles and the early church and Christ very own teaching. Once again, the traditions of men superceded the Word of God and those who really were closer to the teachings of Christ and church practice were sacrificed and killed for a structure of power over others. The Baptist organization as known today gave into this structure of power, even those that once beleived in "sitter's rights" have given into a structure of power over others in their assemblies and in their organization and structure. The churches of the German Brethern and the remaining AnaBaptist - the Mennontites have turned to the traditions of men in this one area as well. Power over others continues to be one of the greatest failures of the church today. It hasn't changed since the early church writer and "so called early church father" Origen set this all in motion with his raising the Bishop to the level of equality with Christ himself.
Jesus did not teach power over others, but power under. Some say Christ was not a non-resistor. Well, let's look at one of the strongest scriptures of His established new covenant with men.
Open your Bible to Matthew 5:38, and let's get rid of the idea of justifying war altogether and any concept that just because Israel did so under the Old covenant and a theocracy, that justifies us under the new relationship with God our Father which happens to be not a physical theocracy as Israel had but we are under a spiritual one, with Christ as our Head.
Here Jesus speaks very precisely, "You have heard that it was said, Eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth." NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY AND DON"T CHANGE WHAT HE SAYS HERE. "But I tell you." (Now remember this is God come down to men in the flesh) "Do not resist an evil person."
Let's be clear about that, DO NOT RESIST.
Now for me a biblical student, I don't have to do a lot of digging to understand His words, plain and simple. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Doesn't that just burn you up, that Jesus would actually tell us, to allow someone to hit us physically, yet we aren't to strike back but give them the other cheek to strike. I don't know about you, but in my flesh, I say, hit them back.
If we as Christians, have the living resurrected Christ living in us, this is just what should not result, striking back at our enemies. Our lives should be exemplary of that same life that he had while here on earth. So we excuse it with it, well "I'm not Jesus". Well, let's take a moment with me and go over to I John 2:6 - "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did".
Now Israel was under the iron hand of Rome. Jesus ended up under Pilate a ruler of Rome. All of Isreal was disappointed that he wasn't the military Messiah they were looking for and even today they do not accept Christ as Messiah because of who he is the Prince of Peace. Just as he said to Pilate, John 18:36 - "My kingdom is not of this world. if it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." We as believers have this same Kingdom, not a different one then he had.
The United States of America may be where we exist physically, but the Kingdom of God is the only one we have allegiance to, and thus His Kingdom, doesn't seek revenge, nor does it war with others over real estate, oil or any other ideal. To do so, makes us no better than the Muslims who believe in their kingdom. I highly recommend a great book written by a great Christian entitled. "The Myth of a Christian Nation", by Gregory A. Boyd, who handles the question of non-resistance for the beleiver in a tremendous way taking us through scripture and a greater understanding of verses like Romans 13:1-7.
I don't have the time or space to do it here.
What brought me once more to writing on this subject is the most recent news.
"Nearly 800 Iraq contractors killed."
Now. let's count up, some say it was 2,200 or a little more that got killed in the World Trade Center attack, collapse and destruction.
George Bush called for vengeance, no less in the name of the Christian God, and got our blood all stirred up and the next thing you know, we were ready to kill anyone that George could point his finger at and say they were responsible for all this. Well, now we have lost over 3,300 servicemen and 800 contractors serving in Iraq. That brings the toll since 911 to over 5,500 men, or women dead as a result of our want and need for vengeance and blood. I can call it nothing less than that. We can justify it under the idea of fighting for freedom, but don't you realize in the mind of the Muslim, they too worship a "pagan god of war", and beleive they are fighting for freedom as well.
See when like minds have the same purpose and goal of destroying one another with the same justifications, who is right? You want to know the truth, neither one of them. Thus, Paul writes in Romans 12:9-21- Summary: Do not repay ANYONE evil for evil. This includes a terrorist or Muslim or any other people our nation at any one time percieves as an enemy. For those who call themselves, Christians, we are to do just the opposite that the world would do, love our enemy.
See nations will deal with their problems the way men do, in the flesh. Whereas Christians, our sole allegiance is to be to Christ and His Kingdom. Somewhere down the line we have made the traditions of men and Augustine, supercede the Word of God and justified and even supported the ongoing hatred for others. Even the Muslims still refer to us as the Crusaders because of an even darker time in Church history where we killed, maimed and slaughtered millions of Muslims for the sake of the call of the Pope and the known church to gain salvation. Yes, that's right, the Pope made it clear to the Christian Crusaders to die for their cause to obtain Jerusalem under Christian control, that those who died doing so, would be guaranteed salvation and go to heaven. Now America has chosen a new Pope, a mislead President, that even beleives God talks to him directly - super canonically( outside of scriptural verification or justification) and gives Him his justifcation for war.
Hitler, did the same thing, the church at that time, listened to the same rhetoric and as a result thousands and thousands died needlessly while the Christian church of Germany went along with Hitler's ideals and the church stood by supporting it. German Christian men enlisted in Hitler's troops. One man, alone took a stance against Christian Nationalism in his country of Germany, his name was Dietrich Boenhoffer. One of the better recognized Theologians of today. The result he and his family were later killed by Hitler and his troops. Though, some rumor has come forth that he may have plotted to kill Hitler himself, I believe, that he understood and by the way, it was only a rumor that he planned to kill Hitler himself, the difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. He gave allegiance to God, and taught the Word, and died as a result of it. If you were to die today as a Christian, by the hands of a terrorist, would you be any of the worse because of it. Of course not, if you are truly born again and filled with the Spirit of Christ, you too would be looking beyond the grave to that great day of resurrection, when there shall be no more war, pain, tears or death. Only everlasting peace in Christ our Lord. May we never forget as believers, He is the Prince of Peace, not the prince of war. The toll of war in Iraq will grow as long as Christians support the death and continued destruction of a nation and it's people's will die, our sons will die, our husbands will die, our wife's, daughters and mothers will die all for a cause that has absolutley nothing to do with advancing the Kingdom of God. So, if you don't like what I have written here. Too bad, I love you all the same.
The Toll of the War in Iraq is beyond the number of deaths you hope to avenge at the World Trade Center, and yet, it continues and many who call themselves Christians are supporting it, with the preaching of another gospel, which is no gospel at all. It is a false gospel and one which our Saviour made it very clear, "my kingdom is not of this world". Until the day believers understand this, there will be war always and the false premise that one men made goverment is more righteous than another, and the sad thing Christians will die not for the sake of righteousness but for the sake of a presumed freedom. Only Christ can set a men truly free, not any nation. Christ said ALL NATIONS WILL BE judged. This includes Israel, the United States, no exceptions. There is no such thing as a "Christian Nation". There are only Christians that live in a nation. We are not part to this kingdom, we only live in it and are to pray for it, but we are not to be of the world, only in it, so that we might live out, Christ in us, which is the hope of glory! We are to be it's salt, it's light, but as it goes so often we have allowed ourselves to be many things else, we only promote the confusion so that everything righteous becomes nothing but gray areas of what individual belief and men's traditions define rather than what our Lord had to say about it all. The world cannot not see anything different about a believer than they can find in corporate board rooms where people take sides and fight for control to have power over others.
The institutional church has taken on these same tactics often and the church doesn't become a sanctuary from the world, it becomes just like them.
Where's the difference? There is none! We should find rest from our flesh when we come together as an assembly. There should be peace, love and righteousness.
I pray that we can only come to terms with Augustine's ideas, and throw them out for the lies they are. There is no "just war" for Christians. Until the day Christ returns and the sons of God are revealed and then we will have a Theocracy again, should we as believers realize the wars of men are not our affairs. There will be that day where He calls the shots not men. The wicked and the evil and the nations of this world will face judgement. God help us to know the truth and set us free from hatred, and vengeful thinking and allow us to have "the mind of Christ", who loved his enemies to the bitter end at the cross and said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". "Who died for us while we were yet his enemies."
The toll of the war in Iraq, is death and more death. Do we really care about life or not? Stand up and let your voice be heard. Let your stand for pro-life be real. Pro Lifer's do not kill others period, unlike some of the mislead individuals in the movement to stop abortion. We are to change the world by being the very opposite of what this world is. Jesus first, above all else. Let me close with these words from James 4:1-10 from the American Standard Version.
Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not:ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain:ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.
4 Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.
5 Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?
6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
7 Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep:let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.
Dr. J.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Days of Frustration
You ever had one of those days when everything seems to go wrong? When everything you planned to accomplish either doesn't get done or is it so difficult you just want to scream. I did, that was today! You know being a Christian doesn't exclude you from tough times or frustration in real life scenarios. Mine, started getting that way last week. My truck radiator gave up the ghost. She blew, I mean she blew and steam came out from there so thick, I thought my truck was on fire. I began to look for a new radiator and of course in our world today of auto parts, the price is a poor man's weekly wage. Now, get this, a Dodge 1996 Ram 1500 pickup radiator which is made of plastic and aluminum they want $225.00 for. Now, I know aluminum prices have gone up, but that's ridiculous. Well, I got a quote for one that was used for $125.00 in Tyler so I drove up there Saturday and they weren't open. The hunt was on, same kind of pricing for new ones there too. I begin to check out junk yards and that came to no avail. Finally, I went to an old source in Tyler where I had a radiator repaired back in the 70's. He had moved closer to the North Loop off North Highway 14. Well my repairman told me he couldn't get the tanks for the thing, and that otherwise he couldnt repair it, but then again maybe he could, "bring it by", he said. So, Tuesday, I drove up to Tyler again, he beat around the bush a little then said, "I have a new tank for that", he said, "but they are expensive, 120.00 dollars to do the job if it will take".At this point I said, "go ahead and see what you can do". Well, I went up to get it Wednesday, and he said he had fixed it, charged me what he said he would. Told me it was plugged up a lot but he cleaned it all up for me.I paid the man and went home. I had to go to work that evening so I couldn't get it in yet. So today, I get up bright and early, I was going to attack removing the old thermostat and replacing it and do the radiator on Friday when I would be off from work all day. Well, don't even dream of doing a thermostat on a Dodge truck, the two bolts mind you, to remove the top hose and get to the thermostat are buried so deep down under a ton of brackets for the AC and the Alternator, only a genius or someone very patient with lots of time can get it out. I gave up and said to myself, " it's staying and I'm praying, that it will last".
I started putting the radiator back in and got to fastening the right side back to the shroud that goes around the fan and all and , no clip fastners for the bolts to go in, no bushing to hold the radiator up against the cross bar. The guy had forgot to take them out of my old radiator and put them in the new tank he put on. I could have screamed at this point. I was frustrated! Now, the test comes in. What do we do, when things get beyond our control at times. Well, I hopped on my motorcycle drove to town and found a radiator shop, the only one around, that may not even be in operation anymore as the guy told me, the son of the guy that use to do it had quit recently. Anyway, it was down on the Y at the corner. The guy was real nice he knew exactly what I was looking for and gave them to me, at no charge. Well, that relieved some of the pain of the day. I went home with them in my pocket ready to get after it. My grand daughter brought me my mail, Oh no, a letter I was expecting didn't come, so I called the party sending it, and guess what they mailed it to the wrong address. Well not really, see 911 has one address, and UPS will deliver to that one, but no, the U.S. Postal service has another one. So, needless to say, the mail I was expecting, which just happen to be very important to me, is lost in mail land somewhere. Frustrated again!, Well, the radiator replacement went well. Pain relieved again. Now, I am trying to put water in the radiator, and flush it, and along comes my 5 year old grand daughter wanting to play in the water with the hose, while I am asking her to turn it off, she is watering everything in sight. I finally cut it off myself, with a battle of course. I'm trying to finish up and the cell phone rings about this time. My wife calls, I vent, my frustration at her I guess, because she thought I was angry and wouldnt talk to me in that condition. Well, once I got it all together, got my bath, sat down to relax before having to go to work, I placed a call to her and apologized. What a jerk, I am! How often, do we as husbands and wife's allow our frustrations to get to us, and our spouse has nothing to do with it, and we blow up on them. A lot, I am sure. The difference should be as in my own case, we need to apologize and start over. Start over with prayer as well. We are not to be anxious the scripture says, we are to take everything in prayer to him, we forget, I did. We are not to worry about tommorrow, the evil of today is sufficient. I think Christ understood we were going to have days, when radiators would blow up, bolts wouldn't work, kids would play with water and get in our way, and letters wouldn't come we expected. He knew, because he lived as a Carpenter for 30 some odd years. He had to know the frustration we would encounter. I'm sure he hit his thumb a few times with His hammer. Ouch! He is a help in time of need, for scripture says, he was tempted in everyway as we are, yet He didn't sin. What a wonderful thing to have His Spirit there to comfort us, but also to point out to us when we need to say, I'm sorry. Isn't it great to be a Christian and have the Holy Spirit help us when we are wrong or have wronged others?
I started putting the radiator back in and got to fastening the right side back to the shroud that goes around the fan and all and , no clip fastners for the bolts to go in, no bushing to hold the radiator up against the cross bar. The guy had forgot to take them out of my old radiator and put them in the new tank he put on. I could have screamed at this point. I was frustrated! Now, the test comes in. What do we do, when things get beyond our control at times. Well, I hopped on my motorcycle drove to town and found a radiator shop, the only one around, that may not even be in operation anymore as the guy told me, the son of the guy that use to do it had quit recently. Anyway, it was down on the Y at the corner. The guy was real nice he knew exactly what I was looking for and gave them to me, at no charge. Well, that relieved some of the pain of the day. I went home with them in my pocket ready to get after it. My grand daughter brought me my mail, Oh no, a letter I was expecting didn't come, so I called the party sending it, and guess what they mailed it to the wrong address. Well not really, see 911 has one address, and UPS will deliver to that one, but no, the U.S. Postal service has another one. So, needless to say, the mail I was expecting, which just happen to be very important to me, is lost in mail land somewhere. Frustrated again!, Well, the radiator replacement went well. Pain relieved again. Now, I am trying to put water in the radiator, and flush it, and along comes my 5 year old grand daughter wanting to play in the water with the hose, while I am asking her to turn it off, she is watering everything in sight. I finally cut it off myself, with a battle of course. I'm trying to finish up and the cell phone rings about this time. My wife calls, I vent, my frustration at her I guess, because she thought I was angry and wouldnt talk to me in that condition. Well, once I got it all together, got my bath, sat down to relax before having to go to work, I placed a call to her and apologized. What a jerk, I am! How often, do we as husbands and wife's allow our frustrations to get to us, and our spouse has nothing to do with it, and we blow up on them. A lot, I am sure. The difference should be as in my own case, we need to apologize and start over. Start over with prayer as well. We are not to be anxious the scripture says, we are to take everything in prayer to him, we forget, I did. We are not to worry about tommorrow, the evil of today is sufficient. I think Christ understood we were going to have days, when radiators would blow up, bolts wouldn't work, kids would play with water and get in our way, and letters wouldn't come we expected. He knew, because he lived as a Carpenter for 30 some odd years. He had to know the frustration we would encounter. I'm sure he hit his thumb a few times with His hammer. Ouch! He is a help in time of need, for scripture says, he was tempted in everyway as we are, yet He didn't sin. What a wonderful thing to have His Spirit there to comfort us, but also to point out to us when we need to say, I'm sorry. Isn't it great to be a Christian and have the Holy Spirit help us when we are wrong or have wronged others?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Patch Adams and a Cheerful Heart
The other night after work I was flipping through the channels and I happen to run across a movie I saw sometime back. "Patch Adams" starring Robin Williams. I forgot about this movie. In all the seriousness of life, I had forgot how delightful this based on a real person, film was. Just to find someone who in medicine, who discovered the truth to Proverbs 17:22, is a joy in itself. To know medicine isn't totally loss to the greed that often we read about in the news.
The verse in proverbs reads like this: "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Patch Adams went and still is going up against traditional medicince that in most cases has created a very cold professional, whose work has come to more the philosphy of making money and carrying a title, than the original Oath of Hippocrates.
Patch is a wonderful individual, who reminds us that a positive attitude and laughter can heal or at least make life have more value. I want to place in copy here a description of Patch and his dream.
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Extraordinary! One man I can look up to and respect, Incredibly, mind blowing and memorable, and Incredibly inspiring, amazing human being, invaluable to hear him first hand …are among the words heard from participants’ after experiencing Patch Adams, the real person behind the hit movie Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams.
Patch is both a medical doctor and a clown…but he is also a social activist who has devoted 30 years to changing America's healthcare system, a system which he describes as expensive and elitist.
He believes that laughter, joy and creativity are an integral part of the healing process and therefore true health care must incorporate such life. Doctors and patients in his model relate to each other on the basis of mutual trust, and patients receive plenty of time from their doctors. Allopathic doctors and practitioners of alternative medicine will work side by side. If you think that all sounds like a utopian impossibility, it isn't. Patch and his colleagues practiced medicine at the Gesundheit Institute together in West Virgina that way for 12 years in what he calls their pilot project. They saw 15,000 patients. Patch Adams has devoted his life to the study of what makes people happy.
Through the success of this program at the Arlington, Virginia location, a model health care facility is being planned on 310 acres purchased in Pocahontas County, WV. The Institute will include a 40-bed hospital, a theater, arts and crafts shops, horticulture and vocational therapy. Over five years ago, Dr. Adams and staff temporarily stopped seeing patients so that they could coordinate plans for raising $5 Million needed for the Institute's permanent and expanded home, a model health care community. Currently planned is an immediate phase of this dream, a $400,000 WV facility so that their medical service to patients can resume within the next two years.
The Institute addresses, by action, four major issues in health care delivery: the rising cost of care, dehumanization of medicine, malpractice suits, and abuses of third-party insurance system.
Dr. Adams adds to his training as a physician, his experience as a street clown. In working with health and mental health professionals, he explores the relationship between humor and therapy using his unique blend of knowledge, showmanship and hands on teaching techniques. Says Dr. Adams, I interpret my experience in life as being happy. I want, as a doctor, to say it does matter to your health to be happy. It may be the most important health factor in your life.
Patch Adams, M.D., is a nationally known speaker on wellness, laughter, and humor as well as on health care and health care systems. He approaches the issues of personal, community, and global health with zestful exuberance, according to Time Magazine. Dr. Adams believes that the most revolutionary act one can commit in our world is to be happy.
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Patch is so right. While America looks for alternatives for Healthcare, Patch has founded an Institute that will not charge patients for their care. He has used the generosity of thousands who have donated to his cause. I have always held that if American's put their actions into taking care of the poor, the widow and the orphan which is a very large substance of a Christlike life, we wouldn't be looking for solutions to the healthcare problem in the United States. We have an organization called the "church", that devotes millions to building programs, and real estate accrual and other wasteful projects. Oh! yes ,there is money that goes to the poor, the widow and the orphan but in honesty the percentage taken in by churches and given to these things are very very small in relation to pastoral staff salaries and larger facilities and the cost involved. Do we think for a minute this is what the Lord came to give us, the same as Israel had in it's time. I don't. That system came to an end when the curtain veil was torn into. I have spent the larger portion of my life as a believer and a Spirit abiding Christian, fighting this deceitful system on the grounds of scripture and early Christian history. Teaching others who they are in Christ, and where the real church is.
I co-pastored home church for near 2 years with no salary or intake of funds. We gave, we didnt take. We helped people in the community with money, food or whatever they came to us and needed out of our own pockets, without a committee meeting or vote taken. Why don't we still meet, simple we discipled others and they have gone on to disciple others or dropped out. The idea was never to build an institution but to do as a number of individuals rather than one, to build Christians into maturity and then let them go. They are gone or are discipled and growing through and in Christ, so we don't meet anymore. Should the Lord open the opportunity again, I am willing. I am not against the assembly of believers, I am not against people meeting in buildings, I am against a system that has propped up Pastors to the position of High Priest and the building of Temples as where God dwells. It is wrong and is one of the greatest lies to steal truth from the believer in Christ. God no more dwells in anyone building in Athens, Texas or any other place in this world. God has come to indwell His people. I grow discouraged at times, when I constantly here someone say, aren't you glad you are in "the house of the Lord". Regardless of what their intention is, it creates and teaches a wrong view of the "ekklesia" of Christ. Peter as an individual was a little rock that Jesus would build his Big Rock on the church. Peter was not the first Pope. Peter as an individual who proclaimed Christ as the Messiah, became the beginning of many who would do the same. These are the EKKLESIA- the called out one's. They remain the dwelling place of God, once they are born again, by repentance, proclamation of Jesus as Lord, and baptism in His name. These being the work of God, not the work of men. He gives His Spirit unto them, to dwell in them, to live through them, to teach them and to sanctify and glorify them. The restoration of God not just with men, but "in men". Through Christ, eternal life is born in the believer then and there. They are the ekklesia and the many like them are, but any one building in the world with a sign outside is not the EKKLESIA, it is simply a building in which they gather with one another. They could meet in the parking lot, it wouldn't matter. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, His people would worship in Spirit and in Truth. Worship is what you do with your life, not an exercise on Sunday. It is an exercise done Monday through Sunday, week after week, year after year, and moment by moment in the life you life. Jesus said, where there are two or more gathered in my name, there I am. You can join with your wife in prayer, your child in worship on the playground and have "church". I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but I feel very strongly about these things.
When Paul faced the first questions of legalism trying to sneak back into the belief system of early Christians, the one thing, that the early eldership of Apostles agreed on was that the church was to "remember the poor".
We have got so busy with our lives and our organizations that we have forgotten this admonition and earliest and part of the only creed set by the Apostles themselves in Jerusalem. I promise you, if it was practiced, healthcare wouldn't be a great issue, nursing homes wouldnt be a great issue, and many people would be healed by the mere generosity of Christians and their genuine care and cheerfulness to give to them, whether it is time, a home or money they offer. The problems may not cease altogether but they would be minimized by the action of Christ in the believer.
We have lost the joy of the Lord to bureaucacy and institutions that so often, are based on what they can get rather than what they can give. Truth is truth, and often I make people mad when I state my opinion about these things. I could go on for hours on the failing "institution" and the glory that is awaiting beleivers if they would only return to the things the Lord taught and early Christians did.
Yes, the organization and institution can fail, there are many churches closed now, and pastors no longer pastoring, but the real "EKKLESIA (church-the called out one's)" of Christ, his people, the Universal church, Hell will not be able to prevail against it.
We have for over 1800 years propped up a system, that the Lord never intended, one of great cathedrals, great temples, and great ownership title and position.
We must never forget the words of Stephen that so angered the Pharisees.
Acts 7:48
..however, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? Or will be my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things?
This along with a few other things Stephen had to say so angered the Jews who wanted to keep God in a building and themselves as the guardians of truth as high priest, it resulted in the stoning death of Stephen.
The greatest awakening needed in the church today, is that those proclaiming the name of Jesus as individual beleivers realize they are the "Temple of God" now. Jesus changed all the old Judaic principles, yet it only took less than 200 years for Christians and the traditions of men to replace truth for lies. Origen, one of the so called early church fathers did it for the person of the Bishop being elevated to the level of Christ himself and Constantine did it for the building of fancy and ornamental temples, full of pagan and Christian alike. Life for Christians in community has been pretty messed up since. Thus individuals hop from one building to another, hoping to find relationship with others and Christ, not membership in a club or religious activity.
Today, most American individuals will go to the "temple" often at least once a week, do they really realize the risen Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit is alive "in them" and is making them into a permanent dwelling place for God. Paul, put it this way, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Is this life being lived out through you, are you abiding in this hope? Is this the truth for you daily?
The body of Christ could through very minimal efforts of "giving" turn the world upside down on issues of healthcare, if they would lose the idea of building temples that God will never dwell in and that they are there only for the people to assemble in. The purpose of the Pastor is to bring others to maturity in Christ, not keep them as babies, drinking milk instead of eating meat. This pastoralship is a multiple eldership of leaders not a single one man show. This protects the believer from wolves in sheep clothing. God knows, we have enough of them out there.
Would God's people only learn to smile again, to laugh again, and to share that laughter and joy with others and take outdoors what they claim they are getting indoors, we could as it was said about the early Christians, "turn the world upside down." Lest we forget the Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Do we think for a moment that Christians in heaven are divided over their purpose and worship, and other things already settled by Christ himself.
I say no, they are laying their crowns at the feet of Jesus. When will we lay down our crowns, and have a cheerful heart, and be a cheerful giver to things that are eternal?
The healing of lives, broken in pain of body, mind and spirit is a great calling, and that calling is ours, each of us, as Christ is the Great Physician. It is He who lives in each believer.
We are the walking, talking "temple of the Lord", we need the return of joy to our lives, that brings healing to others.
Thank God for the Patch Adams of this world who have learned and practice - "A cheerful heart is good medicine." I don't know if Patch is a Christian or not, but He is living a principle, that is Christian and is the heart of the Gospel, to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Have you ever been in need of medical care and can't afford it. Wouldn't it be nice if we could start free healthcare, right here in Athens, Texas?
You may not agree with much I have said here, but honestly don't you desire that God's Kingdom became more of a reality now and that man's just a little less?
May God Bless you and keep you, Patch.
Dr. J.
The verse in proverbs reads like this: "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Patch Adams went and still is going up against traditional medicince that in most cases has created a very cold professional, whose work has come to more the philosphy of making money and carrying a title, than the original Oath of Hippocrates.
Patch is a wonderful individual, who reminds us that a positive attitude and laughter can heal or at least make life have more value. I want to place in copy here a description of Patch and his dream.
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Extraordinary! One man I can look up to and respect, Incredibly, mind blowing and memorable, and Incredibly inspiring, amazing human being, invaluable to hear him first hand …are among the words heard from participants’ after experiencing Patch Adams, the real person behind the hit movie Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams.
Patch is both a medical doctor and a clown…but he is also a social activist who has devoted 30 years to changing America's healthcare system, a system which he describes as expensive and elitist.
He believes that laughter, joy and creativity are an integral part of the healing process and therefore true health care must incorporate such life. Doctors and patients in his model relate to each other on the basis of mutual trust, and patients receive plenty of time from their doctors. Allopathic doctors and practitioners of alternative medicine will work side by side. If you think that all sounds like a utopian impossibility, it isn't. Patch and his colleagues practiced medicine at the Gesundheit Institute together in West Virgina that way for 12 years in what he calls their pilot project. They saw 15,000 patients. Patch Adams has devoted his life to the study of what makes people happy.
Through the success of this program at the Arlington, Virginia location, a model health care facility is being planned on 310 acres purchased in Pocahontas County, WV. The Institute will include a 40-bed hospital, a theater, arts and crafts shops, horticulture and vocational therapy. Over five years ago, Dr. Adams and staff temporarily stopped seeing patients so that they could coordinate plans for raising $5 Million needed for the Institute's permanent and expanded home, a model health care community. Currently planned is an immediate phase of this dream, a $400,000 WV facility so that their medical service to patients can resume within the next two years.
The Institute addresses, by action, four major issues in health care delivery: the rising cost of care, dehumanization of medicine, malpractice suits, and abuses of third-party insurance system.
Dr. Adams adds to his training as a physician, his experience as a street clown. In working with health and mental health professionals, he explores the relationship between humor and therapy using his unique blend of knowledge, showmanship and hands on teaching techniques. Says Dr. Adams, I interpret my experience in life as being happy. I want, as a doctor, to say it does matter to your health to be happy. It may be the most important health factor in your life.
Patch Adams, M.D., is a nationally known speaker on wellness, laughter, and humor as well as on health care and health care systems. He approaches the issues of personal, community, and global health with zestful exuberance, according to Time Magazine. Dr. Adams believes that the most revolutionary act one can commit in our world is to be happy.
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Patch is so right. While America looks for alternatives for Healthcare, Patch has founded an Institute that will not charge patients for their care. He has used the generosity of thousands who have donated to his cause. I have always held that if American's put their actions into taking care of the poor, the widow and the orphan which is a very large substance of a Christlike life, we wouldn't be looking for solutions to the healthcare problem in the United States. We have an organization called the "church", that devotes millions to building programs, and real estate accrual and other wasteful projects. Oh! yes ,there is money that goes to the poor, the widow and the orphan but in honesty the percentage taken in by churches and given to these things are very very small in relation to pastoral staff salaries and larger facilities and the cost involved. Do we think for a minute this is what the Lord came to give us, the same as Israel had in it's time. I don't. That system came to an end when the curtain veil was torn into. I have spent the larger portion of my life as a believer and a Spirit abiding Christian, fighting this deceitful system on the grounds of scripture and early Christian history. Teaching others who they are in Christ, and where the real church is.
I co-pastored home church for near 2 years with no salary or intake of funds. We gave, we didnt take. We helped people in the community with money, food or whatever they came to us and needed out of our own pockets, without a committee meeting or vote taken. Why don't we still meet, simple we discipled others and they have gone on to disciple others or dropped out. The idea was never to build an institution but to do as a number of individuals rather than one, to build Christians into maturity and then let them go. They are gone or are discipled and growing through and in Christ, so we don't meet anymore. Should the Lord open the opportunity again, I am willing. I am not against the assembly of believers, I am not against people meeting in buildings, I am against a system that has propped up Pastors to the position of High Priest and the building of Temples as where God dwells. It is wrong and is one of the greatest lies to steal truth from the believer in Christ. God no more dwells in anyone building in Athens, Texas or any other place in this world. God has come to indwell His people. I grow discouraged at times, when I constantly here someone say, aren't you glad you are in "the house of the Lord". Regardless of what their intention is, it creates and teaches a wrong view of the "ekklesia" of Christ. Peter as an individual was a little rock that Jesus would build his Big Rock on the church. Peter was not the first Pope. Peter as an individual who proclaimed Christ as the Messiah, became the beginning of many who would do the same. These are the EKKLESIA- the called out one's. They remain the dwelling place of God, once they are born again, by repentance, proclamation of Jesus as Lord, and baptism in His name. These being the work of God, not the work of men. He gives His Spirit unto them, to dwell in them, to live through them, to teach them and to sanctify and glorify them. The restoration of God not just with men, but "in men". Through Christ, eternal life is born in the believer then and there. They are the ekklesia and the many like them are, but any one building in the world with a sign outside is not the EKKLESIA, it is simply a building in which they gather with one another. They could meet in the parking lot, it wouldn't matter. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, His people would worship in Spirit and in Truth. Worship is what you do with your life, not an exercise on Sunday. It is an exercise done Monday through Sunday, week after week, year after year, and moment by moment in the life you life. Jesus said, where there are two or more gathered in my name, there I am. You can join with your wife in prayer, your child in worship on the playground and have "church". I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but I feel very strongly about these things.
When Paul faced the first questions of legalism trying to sneak back into the belief system of early Christians, the one thing, that the early eldership of Apostles agreed on was that the church was to "remember the poor".
We have got so busy with our lives and our organizations that we have forgotten this admonition and earliest and part of the only creed set by the Apostles themselves in Jerusalem. I promise you, if it was practiced, healthcare wouldn't be a great issue, nursing homes wouldnt be a great issue, and many people would be healed by the mere generosity of Christians and their genuine care and cheerfulness to give to them, whether it is time, a home or money they offer. The problems may not cease altogether but they would be minimized by the action of Christ in the believer.
We have lost the joy of the Lord to bureaucacy and institutions that so often, are based on what they can get rather than what they can give. Truth is truth, and often I make people mad when I state my opinion about these things. I could go on for hours on the failing "institution" and the glory that is awaiting beleivers if they would only return to the things the Lord taught and early Christians did.
Yes, the organization and institution can fail, there are many churches closed now, and pastors no longer pastoring, but the real "EKKLESIA (church-the called out one's)" of Christ, his people, the Universal church, Hell will not be able to prevail against it.
We have for over 1800 years propped up a system, that the Lord never intended, one of great cathedrals, great temples, and great ownership title and position.
We must never forget the words of Stephen that so angered the Pharisees.
Acts 7:48
..however, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? Or will be my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things?
This along with a few other things Stephen had to say so angered the Jews who wanted to keep God in a building and themselves as the guardians of truth as high priest, it resulted in the stoning death of Stephen.
The greatest awakening needed in the church today, is that those proclaiming the name of Jesus as individual beleivers realize they are the "Temple of God" now. Jesus changed all the old Judaic principles, yet it only took less than 200 years for Christians and the traditions of men to replace truth for lies. Origen, one of the so called early church fathers did it for the person of the Bishop being elevated to the level of Christ himself and Constantine did it for the building of fancy and ornamental temples, full of pagan and Christian alike. Life for Christians in community has been pretty messed up since. Thus individuals hop from one building to another, hoping to find relationship with others and Christ, not membership in a club or religious activity.
Today, most American individuals will go to the "temple" often at least once a week, do they really realize the risen Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit is alive "in them" and is making them into a permanent dwelling place for God. Paul, put it this way, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Is this life being lived out through you, are you abiding in this hope? Is this the truth for you daily?
The body of Christ could through very minimal efforts of "giving" turn the world upside down on issues of healthcare, if they would lose the idea of building temples that God will never dwell in and that they are there only for the people to assemble in. The purpose of the Pastor is to bring others to maturity in Christ, not keep them as babies, drinking milk instead of eating meat. This pastoralship is a multiple eldership of leaders not a single one man show. This protects the believer from wolves in sheep clothing. God knows, we have enough of them out there.
Would God's people only learn to smile again, to laugh again, and to share that laughter and joy with others and take outdoors what they claim they are getting indoors, we could as it was said about the early Christians, "turn the world upside down." Lest we forget the Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Do we think for a moment that Christians in heaven are divided over their purpose and worship, and other things already settled by Christ himself.
I say no, they are laying their crowns at the feet of Jesus. When will we lay down our crowns, and have a cheerful heart, and be a cheerful giver to things that are eternal?
The healing of lives, broken in pain of body, mind and spirit is a great calling, and that calling is ours, each of us, as Christ is the Great Physician. It is He who lives in each believer.
We are the walking, talking "temple of the Lord", we need the return of joy to our lives, that brings healing to others.
Thank God for the Patch Adams of this world who have learned and practice - "A cheerful heart is good medicine." I don't know if Patch is a Christian or not, but He is living a principle, that is Christian and is the heart of the Gospel, to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Have you ever been in need of medical care and can't afford it. Wouldn't it be nice if we could start free healthcare, right here in Athens, Texas?
You may not agree with much I have said here, but honestly don't you desire that God's Kingdom became more of a reality now and that man's just a little less?
May God Bless you and keep you, Patch.
Dr. J.
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