I’ll say before I begin this post that I am very angry. Firs I am on a caffeine high still from a cup of coffee this afternoon. I’m tired yet buzzed up, not a good combo.

Second, this is the second week in a row that I have gone to my Sunday night Bible study/gathering/church only to find it cancelled. The first time I was all right with, simple miscommunication, this week I am not happy. I called both leaders late this week to see what was going on and was told nothing that it would be cancelled. I could have led! I plan much of my weekend around this, and when it gets cancelled I get angry!

I’m beginning to…

…realize that parenthood is nothing more than legal bribery
…become concerned at my bad luck in finding a consistent fellowship that I fit into, I
thought this Sunday night thing at Copper Rock would work out, but I am becoming
more concerned every week
…realize that finding the balance between preaching the grace of love of Christ balanced
with the Final Judgment of God is a very delicate threshold
…understand that when a large pickup truck with a confederate flag comes screaming
down the road at me, they’re not stopping, I’d better get out of the way
...see that I want many things in life, many material things, and that I need to want the
things of God with just as much vigor
…enjoy reading books more than the Bible
…see how much I love my family and also that it is really difficult to understand the love
of God before one becomes a parent
…long for summer vacation!

Guess who’s back…JP’s back…

Sorry that it’s been so long, I never like to take more than a week off, but if you can believe it I’ve just had nothing to say.

Time for another one of my pet peeves. I hate it when people plan things and expect your attendance yet give you none of the details. “We are having dinner on Friday night…” No time, no attire, at least they give you a place. They must have forgotten how hard it is to be on time or get ready with kids, or they think we have no life and just wait around for them to say boo.

I was paging through the NY Times this evening and found an interesting article. It is titled “A Marriage of Unequals” and talks about a man and a woman who, though alike in many instances, come from different backgrounds, he from a working class family and she from money. What struck me though was, when talking about how they were alike, noted that “both love dancing, motorcycles, Bob Dylan, bad puns, liberal politics, and NPR.” At least these two liberals are not ruining two families, let them stick together.

I also received a book in the mail today I had been meaning to read for some time. It’s called “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.” Kind of a creepy title and book, but when I came across the review I knew I had to read it (kind of longer than I figured though, 550 pages). In the intro, the author talks about what led him to write the book, of course one point was the Holocaust itself, but another was how we didn’t learn from it and sat back while the Khmer Rouge, Serbians, and Rwandans slaughtered each other. He also notes how the world took a different approach to the Serbian slaughter than the others, and he cites how the fact that now Europeans were affected so intervention was necessary. I can’t believe how ignorant I had been that I never thought of this before. Who cares if millions of Africans or Hmong are being slaughtered, but let two Americans die or thousands of Albanians, and we take notice, the pressure rises. Makes me mad!

I ran across this quote in a book today and it sparked some thoughts:

It is my considered opinion that under the present circumstances we do not want revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years.

First, I think the author is exactly right. The church as a whole continues to pray for and seek revival, yet we have no idea what that means and if we did, if we knew the changes to our current ways of life it would entail, I think we would stop praying for it and settle for the form of Christianity we currently enjoy.

Second, I have to laugh at all of these churches who constantly preach how they "are a New Testament Church" or "are seeking to become a New Testament Church." What humors me is that they all have a different definition of what a NT church is. Some make it totally charismatic and focused on the gifts of prophecy and tongues, others go the other way with focus on service to the loss of the Gospel. No one knows what the NT church looked like exactly, we get bits and pieces and definitely some truths from the Epistles, but no model as a whole to be followed exactly. What we need to do is be a people of faith, to listen to the Spirit, to study the Word, and to love God and love others with everything we have. When we accomplish that, we will be a NT church.

Ahhhhhh...the signs of spring.

My bum sure is not ready for this though. I rode my bike to Copper Rock tonight and I can hardly sit.

I have started the book I have been meaning to write for some time. The title is "The Starfish Revolution: How Individuals and Corporations are Changing the World One Person at a Time" (thanks for the title Adam). I have about sixteen pages written by my estimation, the intro is done and I have an idea of what the rest of the book will look like, now I just have to do the interviews. I don't know if anyone will want to read it, but I am excited.

Another poem from one of my students. Please pray for this young lady as she has a very difficult life:

Lost...unable to understand
youtalk to me but all I do is see
I can't make out the words you say
My mind has wandered away
My world has been falling for days
Why does life have to be such a maze?
Finding your way or finding dismay?
Feeling confused.
Never knowing what to do
Overcome with depression when everyone seems to fail you.
Why do they disappear?
Why do they turn on you?
Leave you all alone
Sitting home just waiting for someone to come.
Wasting time
I'm losing my mind
I'm lost
Why won't they save me?
Why won't they notice me?

The sage of the "Runaway Bride" continues. Tonight on MSNBC the debate was whether she needs help. She doesn't need help, she got wet feet, ran away, made up a story to get herself out of a jam like anyone else would and got caught. Now her story dominates the airwaves. I'm losing faith by the minute in our print and TV news media.

I am a man of many pet peeves. My latest is those who have to be involved in everything, and then they complain about it. "Oh, I have to drive three hours again this weekend for my friend's cousin's wedding..." "I can't believe how busy I am, Parish Council tonight, Yoga tomorrow, youth group on Wednesday, Thursday night out with the girls, then a weekend away..." DON'T GO TO THE WEDDING, DON'T HAVE TO BE AT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS, STAY HOME AND ENJOY TIME TO YOURSELF! LET YOUR KIDS KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO SPEND TIME WITH MOM AND DAD AND NOT BEING SHUFFLED FROM DAY CARE TO DAY CARE AND NURSERY TO NURSERY.

It all stems from our cultural attitude where we base our worth on what we do and what we are involved in. And it's no different in the church as we bear that old "Protestant work ethic" where our value comes not from being a child of God but what we do for Him. I'm always struck by the paradigm that, and I fall into this trap as well, we say we are saved by grace but our actions once we are saved indicate we still believe in a works-based salvation. We feel if we don't do the right things, God will forsake us, if we aren't involved in the right ministries, our salvation will be lost, if we don't get our act together, we will no longer be one of God's children and he can't or won't use us until we get all of the junk out of our lives. What strikes me is that this thinking is so antithetical to how the New Testament reads. We have inherent dignity, value, and worth simply because God created us and loves us and died on the cross for us to bring us back into relationship with Him. It's good to get all the junk out of our lives and live as children of light, but it doesn't make God love us any more, He can't! It doesn't mean our salvation will be lost, that can't happen! My good friend John continues to tell me how messed up our theology is, and he says he has never seen it so bad as the Fox Valley. Not fully understanding what he means or the theology of different areas around the country or world, I can't comment, but I tend to trust his opinion quite often.

I was walking through Menards this evening and saw an “Animated Deer Head.” My thoughts ranged from “Why in the world…” to “Who would pay that…” Crazy stuff.

I came across another report of corporate fraud this week, excuse me, but am I the only one who finds the hypocrisy in this. Don’t get me wrong, when execs steal from the company, they need to be punished. What gets me is when they are punished for the perks they receive as part of the job. What I find so hypocritical is that there is not a person I know that does not receive some extra benefits as part of their job. Even if it as simple as making copies for personal use or taking company time to run some errands, even using the company vehicle on the weekends for that trip up north, we all stand convicted. The perks of the rich are just on a larger scale, they may use the company plane for a vacation or use the Board Room for a birthday party. And these perks are not available to us, so we want them punished. Totally hypocritical in my mind.

Time magazine this week has an article titled “Faith and Frat Boys” exploring faith in secular colleges, specifically how Christians seek to live out their faith and reach out to their classmates in an environment that is hostile toward them. One quote struck me, “In the past five years, ‘attention to spirituality has been especially strong.’ But committed Christians seem to want more than just spiritual living. They’re looking for something deeper…” I think that serves as a very accurate assessment of the Christian culture in America today. I know it is true of our family, and if I had a dime for every family I have talked to in the past few months who have expressed the same desires to me, I’d be a much richer man. Simple consumerism is not a sufficient attitude in the Kingdom of God, drive through religion (taking up a seat for an hour on a Sunday morning) does not suffice for a powerful Christian walk. It never was, we were ever meant to do this alone, we were built for community with both the Lord and each other. Adam, with complete access to God, was not complete without Eve, we are not meant for isolation. Yet that seems to be more and more of what we are finding today. Churches preach small groups and community, yet theory is different than practice. We still exist as just a talking head with some band members up front and surface level community. We desire something deeper, deeper relationship with the Lord and each other today more than ever, and the church is not meeting those needs. It’ll be interesting to watch what the next step is in the church in America, will we continue to exist as always, or will we change our ways to seek after Kingdom living?

This post appeared on Vox Day's blog site from a guest blogger. I've thought along these lines for some time, but I had nothing to back it up. Thus, I was very pleased to see I am not the only one:


Without further ado, let’s discuss the Crusades and the Islamic Jihad. We’ll take a unique tack, addressing these events from a historical perspective, rather than that of a leftist soundbite.

First the Jihad. Upon Muhammed’s death in A.D. 632, Muslims controlled much of the Arabian Peninsula, including Palestine. This trend of expansion continued under his successors, the caliphs. A century after his passing, Muslims had conquered territory stretching from Afghanistan to Spain. Portions of India, Anatolia (ancient Asia Minor or modern Turkey), Sudan, and the Balkans fell under Islamic ascendancy. It’s important to point out that this imperialism and proselytization with the sword was a continuation of Muhammed’s own tactics--not a deviation from his grand scheme. The ultimate goal of Jihad was and is Islamic domination of the planet through Sharia law.

Why the history lesson? Because it sheds light on the motivations behind the Crusades. When Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade in 1095, the Islamic Jihad against the West already had been an unrelenting plague for over 460 years. If one understands nothing else about the Crusades, one should realize that they were not imperialistic wars of aggression against peaceful easterners--but a response to centuries of blood-soaked conquest instigated by the Islamic world. Finally suppressing age-old petty rivalries and internal bickering (to a degree), European Christians mustered the will for bringing a halt to Muslim expansion, and a reoccupying of the Holy Land--stolen centuries before.

Militaristic and religious aspects of the Crusades cannot be divorced. Not just exercises in revenge and reclamation, they entailed the qualities of a pilgrimage. Some went on crusade as an act of penance; others for the receipt of indulgences; still others for a tiny glimpse of the past home of Jesus and his disciples. Rationales were as diverse as the people themselves. Most crusaders were poor folk sincerely seeking God’s will, knowing that months if not years would pass before laying eyes on their loved ones, again. Many departed expecting never to return to the lands of their birth.

Don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t a defense of the Crusades. Both sides perpetrated atrocities against innocent people. Neither was of sterling character or saintly guise.
But an accurate rendition of the Crusades rarely is offered for public consumption. In the past fifty years or so, the mainstream media, certain Islamophile historians, popular television programs, the public indoctrination machines (euphemistically known as "schools"), and even U.S. presidents have utterly mischaracterized the Crusades.
Examples--

From a U.S. News headline: "The Truth About the Epic Clash Between Christianity and Islam," followed by "During the Crusades, East and West first met." The article continues by proclaiming the Crusades "The First Holy War." Later, it suggests that "For Muslims, imperialism is a dirty word." Of course, all of this demonstrably is false.

After 9/11, Bill Clinton remarked: "Indeed, in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple mound…. I can tell you that that story is still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it."

Though it contains a kernel of truth, this observation lacks even a glimmer of historical context.
I see manifold reasons for such comments. Multiculturalism, ignorance, western self-loathing, hatred toward Christianity, disassociation from reality, and perhaps even heavy drug use all contribute to this mentality.

Most people blissfully go about their lives, hindered by a PC wall from seeing the ramifications of modern terrorism. And yet the Jihad continues--sometimes in sporadic fits; sometimes with grim monotony--an engine of destruction chugging onward.

Osama bin Laden’s World Islamic Front subcategorizes itself as a "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," and issued a fatwa to that effect, in 1998.
Osama understands that the Jihad is alive and kicking.
Even if we don’t.

And to paraphrase the Muslim philosopher, Avicenna, "To make the whole world Islamic, you first have to break a few infidels."

The following was a part of a threaded discussion I took part in this afternoon for an online class I am taking. The question is posted in red, my response is in blue, and another member's response to my response appears in green:

How important is accountability, anyway? Has this become a faddish idea that is overplayed and overvalued? As Christians, doesn’t accountability, in some ways, open the door to legalism and the performance trap?

It's interesting that I was just in a discussion last night that dealt with this very issue. We surmised that of course accountability is not a bad thing, however, it has become just as the question states, an "open door to legalism and the performance trap." The problems seems to be accountability groups, at least the ones I have been involved in, have become more about following the rules our Christian culture in America has set as proper instead of setting our hearts toward following the Lord. It has become about doing what is right for those in charge versus doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Jesus discussed this very thing in Matthew 15, which was the basis for our discussion last night. I won't go into it, but he rips on the Pharisees and teachers of the law for this very thing.

Examples abound, our culture in the church in America has said that alcohol is not proper, and maybe properly so, yet where is the biblical evidence of that. Of course drunkenness is wrong, and we have to be careful around former addicts, but otherwise we have liberty in this issue. In accountability groups, we judge those who may have a beer with dinner or head out with the guys after a basketball game. Again, the issue becomes external obedience to a set of commands versus our heart's attitude toward the Lord.

One more example is that we tend to set certain sins against others. We'll explain away hoarding as providing for the future of one's family, we'll excuse gluttony, which the Bible notes as sin, but chastise someone who smokes, which the Bible says nothing about. Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Fellowship in Seattle, wrote about this in his book, as a new believer asked how the pastor, who was severely overweight, could judge him for smoking. This and others like it are great questions, questions that non-believers are asking, and we in the church need to get right with or suffer with the stigma that the world has placed on us.

Again, accountability can and is great when we enter into a relationship where we hold each other accountable to following the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength instead of simply following the rules our society has put forth.

Jason:What a powerful answer and perspective. I absolutely agree with you! When I returned to Christ three, nearly four years ago, I started to attended a non-denom. church that is part of a very large and popular movement in the country (and internationally really). While attending, my friend and I (mostly him, I think I was viewed as a sort of rogue) were contacted by the leadership and advised that we ought to join a discipleship group. The word accountability came up, of course. A popular series of books were used in this men's small-group (not the Bible). I appreciated the perpective of the church on what was needed to "firm up" my walk...I was all for anything that drew me closer to Jesus. As time went on, it was evident that the discipleship group was more interested in conforming people through something akin to behavior modification activities. In our walk with Christ, I would agree that there is a degree of conforming that the individual Jesus follower must do (after all we indeed serve the King of kings...it is a monarchy!). I found, however that the accountability groups were more of a way to stop certain activities and behaviors that, in some cases, were not intrinsically wrong (Scriptually speaking). Of course alcohol and finances often came up.

Accountability is an important thing in our walks with Jesus and in the team. What I think must be remembered at all times, is that a person is never ultimately accoutable to any teammate, pastor, CEO, or any other human. Each person is accountable to his or her Creator...God, Jesus, the Spirit.

I personally think that it is a sad, sad thing that the Christian church serves largely as an institution of behavior modification, and thusly santizes and make too civil a very exciting, raw, and in some respects a very primal faith that is ancient.