TEOTWAWKI. Apocalypse, Gathering

Given the massive strife here in the US, and the evil blossoming from the Middle East, and all the dystopia and apocalyptic shows and movies, I sometimes wonder. I’m not so concerned about the apocalypse, but TEOTWAWKI, The End Of The World As We Know It. 

Will Europe still be Europeans, will we have anything even close to privacy with all the government and corporate surveillance, will the hatred exhibited by Black movements (Black Lives Matter, New Black Panthers, Black Panthers), White Supremacy and the racist clash between the two result in a race war?

The meme for Comic Book based TV shows. I’d hate to live in the DC world. Good guys teaming up and arguing with each other, blaming themselves for things they have no control over, bickering, while the evil guys are focused and kicking ass. In the Marvel world much the same. 

In movies, film scholar Kristen Thompson: “…twenty-five disaster movies appeared throughout the eighties. But in the nineties fifty-six disaster movies were released… From 2000-2009 over sixty apocalyptic films were released, and about the same 2010-2016. 

Incessant doom and gloom. Incessant race and cultural conflict. Incessant climate doom and gloom, we’re all going to die soon. Much of the angst is because of all the divisions between groups, male against female, race against race, governments doing terrible and stupid things, corporations doing terrible and stupid things. What do we turn to? More government, more breaks for corporations, more riots, more technological surveillance, and more political failure. Just doubling down on what got us here in the first place. Before when we talked about apocalyptic events, they were religious or spiritual. All those things mentioned earlier, are all secular. Yet we keep turning to secular solutions.

The idea of this arose out of the sermon today, based partially on Isaiah 56:1-2.

1: This is what the Lord says:

“Be just and fair to all.

Do what is right and good,

for I am coming soon to rescue you

and to display my righteousness among you.

2: Blessed are all those

who are careful to do this.

Blessed are those who honor my Sabbath days of rest

and keep themselves from doing wrong.

Gathering on the Sabbath, whatever day you select, shows the answer is in gathering together. At our jobs we have all races, all religious backgrounds and beliefs and work together just fine. Gathering together on the Sabbath, looking beyond secular solutions, to corporately share something outside that secular life we experience daily, has the answer. More technology, business and government don’t. 

Just for starters, if every person that calls himself/herself a Christian actually gathered with other Christians on the Sabbath, how calming that would be? 

Apocalypse means unveiling, revelation. From that we know that on the other side of it, will be revealed good news; it is an ending to all this horribleness and divisiveness. Our not going to experience that, the gathering to reconnect with each other outside of the secular, leaves us almost entirely with the secular and solutions that don’t work. 

At the center of any Sabbath gathering is the Eucharist, Communion, sharing at the table, sharing bread and wine. Nothing is more important than doing this every time Christians come together. That gathering for that ritual, brings us all so very close together, brings a calm. 

Personally, I’m not a calm man, and this centering every week is vital to me. If it’s vital to one, then that means it vital for many, and I hope for all. All Christians going to Church would have a profound impact on the conflict and hatred rampant in the world. There are about 247 million people in the US that claim to be Christian. Think of the calming effect on the nation if we all went to Church. That experience moves out into the secular world. We know this “apocalyptic” time looks to gloomy and ultimately destructive because no one, including Christians that don’t gather, can see beyond the secular. They can’t see God’s heavenly creation beyond: can't see what is revealed. 

Think how much conflict and hatred would be reduced, if millions more that professed Christian faith, would gather together. How helpful that it would be to be just and fair to all, and do what is right and good, and know that Christ will come to rescue us, and see heaven and righteousness, and how blessed all of those that do this thing would be.

Pie in sky? I think not, but Christ in the sky, revealing Good News? I think so.  

Moving Out of Snuggly Christianity

I’ve written in the past few posts (just scroll down) about how the church I belong to at the national level has embraced Secular Statism and placed its beliefs, orthodoxy, and aggressive intolerance before Christ and Scripture. The “leadership” of my, and several other mainline Protestant domination's, have jumped to the racist, environmental, gender, central command government model, and that includes attacking Christianity and Jews.  

I’ve wondered for years, given that governments usually end up slaughtering Jews, how and why do they side with government ahead of Yahweh and Torah. It’s because they have made government their religion, and more specifically Statist Atheistic government, their religion. Now western Christians are doing it. I hear stuff being said by Christians, in and out of church saying the darndest things. I’ve got to wonder, if they have read scripture, or if they have do they understand any of it, or if they do, do they believe it.

I hear them side with gay marriage, multiple genders, speech against traditional marriage, pro-abortion, and equality of result in life (in the name of fairness). I have to wonder, if people identifying themselves as Christians professes belief in these things, why?

Fear of the politically correct groupthink crowd? Have they put cultural acceptance ahead of God? Have they put political expediency ahead of God? I can understand, and even acknowledge that kind of thinking, wrong as it is. What is disconcerting are Christians that do put Christ front and center in their lives, yet remain silent or just acquiesce to the hatred, intolerance and bullying.

To those I say, it’s time to speak up, speak back to, challenge. Of course there will be push back, name calling….homophobe, racist, bigot, and the rest that we get thrown at us. This isn’t as bad as what Jesus, the Disciples, Paul and the martyrs experienced. This isn’t ancient Rome, though we do have our self-important politicians and cultural celebrities, our circuses to distract us from the horrors of our civilization brought upon us by those very same people.

If we state what we should, that is from scripture, we will, to be sure, be called out of touch, bigots, haters, insensitive, narrow-minded, intolerant, and all the rest. But like the early Christians, we must speak the truth.

The truth is this. That God created Man and Woman. When Man and Woman come together they become one flesh. From that marriage come children. Those children are sacred human lives, including when they are still in the womb. Made in the image of God. Marriage is sacred, sexual morality as is should be was stated two thousand years ago. This comes from traditional, scriptural, Christian orthodoxy. If we accept that and state it, we are rejecting the zeitgeist, the secularist statist humanist view, and it is more and more at our peril.

Christians must do as Christ commanded, “If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me”. Seems to me there are less and less Christians willing to take up that cross. We’ve been accepted without challenge for a long time. We are all snuggled in our comfort.

Why do so many allow this? Comfort to be sure; so is it that many think they really don’t have to work at their Faith, take the effort to maintain, grow and defend Christianity?

If we are truly disciples we must witness, proclaim the gospel as true. We must be willing to be attacked and insulted. Are you willing to stand with Christ?

Don’t believe it when the forces assembled against us say we can’t win, God is dead, Christianity is dead, the traditional family is dead, traditional marriage is dead, the sanctity of human life is dead, we are only to stand in the judgement of other men and their anti-humane, Godless laws, rules, and punishments.

Only God can judge. Only God’s laws are true and just. Not the people arrayed against the Gospel Truth, Christians and our Churches.

Are you for speaking the gospel? For witnessing God’s word? Stand on the side of truth. Stand with Christ. Have Christian integrity. Walk the talk, live the walk, speak the truth.

Like the early Christians, it’s time to start living outside our comfort zone. We’ll experience discomfort, but at least won’t be eaten by lions or slayed by gladiators.

Step out of the comfort zone. Speak the gospel Truth.    

   

Apostle Paul's Suffering and Our Christian Lives Now

Paul's Jail Cell in Philippi

Tonight we're reading in 2nd Corinthians, where the Apostle Paul is taking some pretenders to task. Some preachers and self described apostles have moved in on the church he had founded, and were teaching lies for personal  profit and gain. Paul is reduced to exposing them by defending himself, the founder of the church. During the nearly three thousand miles of travel, mostly walking, and a lot of time on dangerous boats in dangerous waters, he suffered much.

While he was pushing back against these 'false apostles' he sums up his suffering. All what he went through to bring God's truth into pagan society, into Jewish culture and belief, is spread through much of the New Testament, so it's a bit diluted.  It's shocking to imagine the sacrifice, agony and pain of this magnitude when condensed like he does here.  

Take a listen:

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.  Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.  From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;  in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;  in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—  besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?

 Beaten with rods, stoned and left for dead. The forty minus one lashings was was to avoid breaking the law's limitation of forty lashes. Five times he received this. What scaring his body had to have been covered with. I think of Christ's suffering, to absolve us of our sins, followed by Paul's sacrifice and suffering to lay the foundation of our Church.

We in turn live in luxury, and scarcely speak of what we believe, and know to be true. We personally are diminished by our lack, our church is diminished, those we could reach out and touch are diminished, our neighborhoods are diminished, our loved ones diminished, and it keeps going until our nation is diminished, and our world is diminished.

To have just a portion of Paul's passion for the Good News, for love of God, to so dedicate all my heart and all my soul, all my mind to Him. I'm so stressed and tired from work at the end of the day I just want to withdraw and be done; but so was Paul making tents and running his business. Yet he made the time, had the passion to speak, teach and pray. If we all could do a just a little more, just 2% a day more, loving God 2% more, loving others 2% more, praying just 2% more than the day before.

I pray for myself the discipline to do this, and pray for other Christians to speak their faith in public a little more, reach out a little more, love God a little more, be Christlike a little more, pray a little more. When we do it we don't get 39 lashes, stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked or imprisoned. It's got to be a heck of a lot easier than what Paul went through.