Perhaps the most significant difference between our generation of church members and previous generations of Christians is that, if we even notice our low level of Christian experience, we aren’t desperate to escape from it. Continue reading “There must be more than this.”
Compensating for deafness
Most American Christian activity is compensation for not actually having an intimate relationship with God. When you can’t hear his voice at every moment, you have to develop a theology that doesn’t require it. When you don’t have the power to do God’s will, even if you happened to know what it was, you have to make some adjustments.
Pyramid evangelism
Sometimes, personal evangelism reminds me of dubious multi-level marketing schemes, where the appeal is the desire for wealth without effort, not appreciation and enjoyment of a quality product. “Well no, it hasn’t worked for me yet, but if you can recruit people to sell it for you, think of where you’ll be someday!”
If you need to be coaxed into sharing your faith in Christ, maybe your faith isn’t worth sharing. Get a living faith and then you can’t help but share it.
Our Pops, who art in heaven
Jesus thought of God as “Abba”; literally, “Daddy.” When the early Christians called God “Daddy,” it was an intimacy born out of gratitude and honor.
The infinite, awesome God is honored when his children love him without fear. But we want to love him without awe.
We don’t come to him as a small dependent child would. We come to him jauntily, careless of our need, careless of what he would give us if we would come to him as our Daddy.
When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up, did he pray casually, as we do? Could you pray casually, if you saw God?
What do you see?
Imitation Me
I’m told that we learn to talk by imitating our mothers, and that disturbs me. I don’t think I sound much like my mother, nor do I want to. I thought I sounded like air naturally passing through my larynx and past my tongue and lips. Maybe that isn’t so.
Continue reading “Imitation Me”
I think I am, therefore I am
Neumatikos writes:
“So many people believe that they have the Holy Spirit because they are Christians, and Christians are, by definition, those who have the Holy Spirit. This is backwards; it cannot be! Continue reading “I think I am, therefore I am”
Imaginative conversions
For years, I was involved with Christian theater. In fact, three of my acquaintances became Christians through evangelistic drama and films. Later, the first became a Marxist. The second became a Rotarian. The third murdered his wife.
Oh, that explains it.
God’s fire only falls on sacrifice. An empty altar receives no fire!
What have you been saved from?
If you don’t know, maybe you weren’t saved at all.
Right makes might
Might without right creates wrong. Vengeful allies after World War I helped create Hitler. An autocratic Hitler helped create the alliance that defeated him. Corrupt colonizers helped create corrupt post-colonial rulers, who helped create the opponents who toppled them. Avenging Muslim fundamentalists helped create an avenging America, whose policies helped to create more avenging Muslims. Retribution creates only retribution.
Abraham Lincoln said it: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” He said it as an unannounced candidate for President under the banner of a party that had never won a presidency, before he had political might.