Opus 2011-170, On the Street: Separation of Church and State, Not!

I was forced to attend an unannounced assembly at our middle school this week.  We knew it was coming, just not when.  Years ago is was in celebration of Cinco de Mayo.  Since no one in our schools seems to be able to get anything done on time they changed the name to Latino Heritage Assembly.  It was getting strange celebrating Cinco de Mayo in June.

It had some quality, educational moments.  A group of children from one of our elementary schools did a couple of dance numbers.  They were dressed in beautiful flowing dresses.  They twirled and swayed.  They were good but they were only about 10% of the assembly.  Another major feature was girls in tight clothes dancing and bouncing in such a way that would have made me think of nothing but sex if I were a middle school boy.  They were having fun but could not even stay in step. 

The part that interested me the most was the anti-Christian bias of the program.  As they worked through some of the Latin American celebrations they came to Las Posadas.  This is a tradition that comes from Spain and celebrates the journey of the Holy Family looking for a place to stay.  They claimed the word meant “journey.”  According to the article in Wikipedia it means “lodging or accommodation.”  The entire celebration is steeped in the Christmas story and the Nativity.  The school version made no mention of the Holy Family or the Christian faith.  It was described as a family festival where neighborhoods took turns having everyone over for a meal and a party.

When it came to the Day of the Dead there was a different approach.  It was described as a combination between the Catholic and Aztec traditions of honoring the dead.  On the stage an altar had been constructed that had death masks and offerings to a dead couple.  As the lights were dimmed you could see candles burning on the altar.  Students wearing death masks came down the aisles of the auditorium carrying candles.  They went up on stage, knelt down in front of the altar and place the candles before it.  What we watched was a pagan worship rite. 

When it comes to Christian traditions the school is mute.  When it comes to demonstrating pagan rituals there are no restraints.  This is the separation of church and state that is taking place in the public square.  

Home schooling anyone?

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-169, Discernment Watch: Nuance and Neutrality

Western post-modern culture is rebelling against the traditional English language.  For centuries when generic gender was required English used “he.”  We talked about “man” as a term for all people.  Everyone understood.  Life was simple. 

With the rise of feminism and the advance of the anti-God and anti-Christians elites this has become unacceptable.  Now everything must be gender neutral.  It must be that way even if it goes against the original language of the scripture.  These are cultural modifications, not what God actually meant to say.

These people totally miss the nuances that are necessary in the covenant between a living, eternal God and people He created in His image.  Eternal truths are not always simple.  To quote C.S. Lewis,

“It is not good asking for a simple religion.  After all, real things are not simple.  They look simple, but they are not.”  Mere Christianity, p. 40

So in the Christian faith we have this balancing act between being one before God but having different roles in our relationships with others.  We have people with the gift of leadership.  They have greater responsibility, that does not make them superior.  That is part of the miracle of the American system.  We have adopted the acceptance of success and status without accepting the European idea that certain classes are innately superior. 

Compare this view of the roles of men and women with what you see in Muslim cultures.  In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive cars.  The Koran says that a man’s witness is worth four women.  Women are definitely second class citizens in every way.  And yet you still have Muslim women speaking out in favor of this system.   There is no nuance.  Women are inferior.  If you ever see a gender neutral Koran, Islam will be dead.

I am not sure that a gender neutral Bible doesn’t say the same thing about the religion of the translators.  If your choice of words is made to satisfy people who hate the God of the Bible, then you have rejected that God because you have rejected what He, yes I said “He,” said.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-168, Focus, Focus, Focus

I am in the process of re-reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  One of the reasons I don’t have time to read the newest, hot off the press, cutting edge books is that there are so many great books that deserve being read again.  The Screwtape Letters is one of those.  I am reading only one “letter” at a time and savoring it as I go.

Today the topic was the fear and suffering that is brought on by war.  Of course Lewis is talking about World War II but with our concerns about a nuclear Iran and international terrorism we are in a time with similar fears.

Screwtapes nephew, Wormword, is a junior demon.  He is tasked with destroying a certain human for eternity.  The advice given to him is “So do not allow any temporary excitement to distract you from the real business of undermining faith and preventing the development of virtues.” (page 22)  This is reminder to us.

In uncertain times we are not to be distracted by the enemy.  We are to continue to seek to grow as believers and followers of the living Christ.  We are to be upright and blameless. 

That does not mean we stop voting or writing letters.  It means that we are to do it all in the thoughtful loving style that is typical of people who follow a righteous, holy God who is also love.

Lewis, C.S.  The Screwtape Letters.  Norwalk, Connecticut:  The Easton Press, 2002.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-167, Headlines: Thank You, Harold Camping

End of the earth forecasts are common in history.  So far they have been wrong.  At least I think they have been wrong.  If I am one of those left behind on May 21 I seem to have a lot of company.

I want to thank the people that perpetrated the prophetic hoax.  It gave me a lot of chances to talk to people about Jesus and what the Bible really said.  I am a teacher and I respect parents desire that I not evangelize, but when kids ask questions, what is a believer to do but answer them?  It has been a good time.  I expect to repeat the fun as the 2012 end comes near.

The first few times I just told the kids the Bible says no one will know.  I realized that was being somewhat of a woosy, so I began to use the name of Jesus.  I would say, “Jesus said no one would know when He returned.  He said even He did not know.  If Jesus didn’t know I don’t think this guy knows.  He needs to read his Bible more.” 

Of course I make that recommendation to everyone.  It is one of those things in life that really seems to be one-size-fits-all.

Jesus discussed this many places but the best, short summary of His opinion of this kind of Bible manipulation is here:

(Mark 13:32 KJV)  But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Look it up and read the whole passage.  Evidently Rev. Camping didn’t.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-166, Labels: Postmodernism Really Isn’t

I was listening to Alistair Begg as usual.  He was repeatedly referring to “modern man.”  I said to myself that he should be referring to “post-modern man” instead.  That got me thinking about labels.

We are in what is called the “post-modern” age.  This would correspond nicely with the idea that we are now in a “post-Christian” age.  The two harmonize well.  The modern age was the age of science.  Logic, reason and the scientific method would solve all our problems.  Truth existed and we were on a journey to discover it.  Progress was real.

On one side this was based on the Judeo-Christian world view.  No other religion has allowed the development of what we consider science.  The scientific method depends on an understanding that the universe was created by an immutable God.  Because He is a god of principle and is eternally unchanging, the universe He created also has those qualities.  Thus, pure water will always boil at 212º F at sea level.  You can take it to the bank.  In all other religious systems the gods are free to be capricious and adjust the world to fit their whims.

The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, although many of its thinkers rejected God, was only possible because its philosophies were based on an understanding of the world based on the God of the Bible.

Post-modernism claims to have moved beyond that.  No longer can you know truth because truth is not absolute.  Truth is different for everyone.  Thus the Bible is a well meaning but corrupt work and Jesus is just one view of truth, no more valid than the ideas of Gandhi.  This is well illustrated by the heretical arm of the Emergent Church movement.  Here are a few more quotes from An Emergent Manifesto of Hope,

p. 228, “The modern age was ruled by science and structures of control....In the past modern milieu, the humanities are asserting themselves,...”

p. 228, “...in the world we live in now, facts alone are not adequate.”  (EO)

p. 191, “But Christianity’s idea that other religions cannot be God’s carriers of grace and truth casts a large shadow over our Christian experience.”

p. 203, “The more we lean into the tension between competing truths, the closer we are to the heart of God.”

One of their favorite illustrations would be the Blind Men of Indostan  explaining what an elephant is.  We only see part and miss the whole.

I believe this should be relabeled as either “pre-modernism” or “deja vu paganism.”  This philosophy does nothing more than adopt the ideas of eastern religions that are syncretic and pagan.  It is not a moving forward but an attempt to turn the clock back and reestablish the rule of sun and earth worship.

You cannot be truly Christian and truly post-modern.  On one side or the other you are not a true believer. 

Pagitt, Doug and Jones, Tony, ed.  An Emergent Manifesto of Hope.  Grand Rapids:  Baker
    Books, 2007.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-165, Green Piece: Christians and the Environment

The condition of the world is a Christian concern.  God gave man the commission of caring for the physical world and the animals.

(Genesis 1:28 KJV)  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

I like the KJV use of the word “replenish.”  The NASB uses “fill.”  In one sense this means that God approves of the spread of mankind over the face of the world.  When I compared translations available on my computer they seemed to reinforce the idea that this means to have children and subdue the earth.  The idea of the glorious primeval wilderness is not of divine origin, even though I enjoy getting away from civilization.

The deeper meaning of “fill” is to complete.  It has the idea of bringing something to its intended state.  It is often translated “fulfill” with this in mind.  The human hand is part of the completeness that God had in mind for the world.  Of course that was before the fall.

The difference between the Christian view and the modern environmentalist is that the Christian believes that the world is to be maintained in stewardship so that it will serve man well.  Earth will be renewed in the end times and become a special place, but it is always a part of creation.  The pagan believes that the earth is to be maintained to make it happy and show that it is loved.  To the pagan the earth is a living being, a goddess.  You may have heard or seen the name Gaia.  It is the name of a pagan deity for the earth.

Man is given a responsibility. 

(Genesis 2:15 KJV)  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

The word “keep” is defined as “to keep, guard, observe, give heed.”  We are not to be wasteful or destructive.  We are to take care of the earth because it is on loan from God, not because it is a god.

The heretical arm of the Emergent Church movement has fallen into the trap of giving the physical earth a place it does not deserve.  One book I read was An Emergent Manifesto of Hope.  It is a collection of essays by leading thinkers in the Emergent Church movement and is published by what I used to think of as an orthodox publishing house.  Each of the following quotes comes from a different author in a different part of the book.

p. 67, “...that we aren’t the center of creation but called to worship it, to give ourselves up for it?”

p. 133, “God’s single mission - restoring Creation.”

p. 204, “As important as both right beliefs and right practices might be, neither was Jesus Christ’s primary mission,...In the incarnation, God became human as a continuation of God’s hope for creation.” 

Beware of those who want to make protecting the planet the major goal of Jesus.  Accept that we are to be stewards of the earth but don’t throw out eternity for the temporal.

Do I have a point?

Pagitt, Doug and Jones, Tony, ed.  An Emergent Manifesto of Hope.  Grand Rapids:  Baker
    Books, 2007.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-164, Bus Ministry

Years ago when I was a young pastor I had great insights into how the church should function and how certain “ministries” were shallow and pointless.  It was at the end of the heyday of evangelism through bus ministry.  I began to serve in a church that had a bus and a lady who was pouring her life into making it happen.  She was a saint.  She had a great attitude and she never allowed my youthful arrogance to dim her shine.  She considered the bus to be the answer.  I looked at it as a problem. 

My reasons were logical.  She was bringing in a boat load of kids.  The church was full of elderly who struggled to teach the classes.  In all the years of picking up kids, I could see no fruit.  We were spending our resources repairing and maintaining a bus.  The tail was wagging the dog.

I was wrong.  The bus ministry did serve a function.  It was laying the groundwork for future culture.  It may not have been building our local church but the kids it was touching were having seeds planted in their hearts that would influence their thinking for the rest of their lives.

Look at our culture.  Integrity has disappeared.  Monogamy is on the way out.  Perversion is becoming the expected norm.  Discipline is for chumps.  Obviously there are many reasons but I think one of them is that churches have withdrawn from Sunday School outreach as a major arm of the church.

Evangelism is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot win anyone by our clever arguments or education.  Witnessing is the work of the saints.  We need to get back into the neighborhood.  One way is through Sunday School. 

Who knows, maybe a bus would be in order.

homo unius libri