It gets me pretty upset that the word Christian pretty much means nothing anymore. Of course, you're probably thinking, "It's a follower of Christ, duh," but please, let's try to be realistic here. What does a follower of Christ do?
Go to church every Sunday. Check.
Youth Group at some point in life. Check.
Have a conversion story ready. Check
Date a Christian. Check.
Talk a big game with church friends then screw up in real life...unfortunately, usually check.
Then you have your different kinds of Christians out there. Everybody has opinions but I can only speak for my experience:
Us Catholics think we're the best and are sometimes prideful because of that. Evangelicals think we're the whore of Babylon headed for Hell (it's actually Jerusalem, read your Bible in context). Other Protestants think we're idolaters who think we can earn salvation and are only most likely going to Hell. Everybody else thinks we hate women, rape little boys and are stuck in the middle ages.
The over-generalized stereotypes I've noticed:
Fundamentalist don't believe in metaphors except for John 6 ( and other Catholic leaning verses). Evangelicals are like the embarrassing little brother who talks too much and won't listen to logic or science. Baptists are either black or have a Southern accent, hate fun, and sing gospel music. Anglicans even confuse themselves on if they're Protestant, Catholic, both or neither. Methodists are halfway between Anglicans and Baptists. Episcopals have gay ministers. Non-denominatial Christians are just a denomination that doesn't think details matter but they have really fun names for their churches (ie: The Church Without Walls, The Refreshing Church or La Iglesia). Mormon's have lots of wives and get their own planets and even though they believe weird things and ride bikes they seem so normal and are REALLY nice.
The problem is that being Christian doesn't have anything to do with any of this. Even being nice is only a minuscule element to the everyday life of a Christian. Now, we're almost to what you've been waiting for, or skipped to since it's bolded and you just wanted the list anyway. Christians, if we are truly followers of Christ must lay down our entire lives as witnesses of God. We will the good of all others no matter the cost (love/charity). People should be able to tell by the way we live that we are Christian. How? That's where the three things come in.
I'm not going to explain them because I'm lazy. No, really it's because I want to encourage you to meditate on them in your prayer time today. These are three things that I think are relatively uncommon to be found consistently all in one person and I think I have none of them consistently.
1) Let everything you say be true.
2) Take responsibility for everything that you do, except the good things.
3) Do everything you do like it's a once in a lifetime experience.
Make the word Christian mean something. I'll be working on it too.
Peace.
P.S. I want to clarify that I am not a blogger. I'm a guy with a blog. Bloggers blog consistently and sometimes blog for the sake of blogging. I post a blog when I have something to say. Sorry to be lame.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Update!!!
Here are a few updates on the fight against the HHS Mandate, link style.
Overview by Aggie Catholic
and just for good measure.
...so this is what it feels like to be Drudge or HuffPo.
Peace.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Christian Unity: "How Not To"
Most of what I am about to say has already been said by people far exceeding me in understanding, knowledge and (particularly) wisdom. The problem is that not many people hear what they have to say, so I am going to attempt to share some of the knowledge that I have retained from reading and listening to those who have given testimony on the possibility of Christian unity.
First let me give Peter Kreeft's simple list of nine false grounds for Christian unity that have been tried without any real success and WILL NEVER WORK (caps stuff is usually important). I'll complicate each one for you with an explanation.
1. Reasonable compromise
- It is unacceptable that anyone of the Christian faith would attempt this because of the implications of compromising faith in Christ. To compromise of faith in Christ means to compromise Christ; to compromise Christ means compromise the Truth (since Christ is Truth); compromise the Truth is to compromise Love (for loving anything untrue is idolatry).
- Each of those direct and inevitabile effects is a tragedy in itself, which makes compromise wholly objectionable.
2. Education and Understanding
- The idea that we can study scripture and philosophize (it's a word) with open hearts and minds and all come to the same conclusions is not a reasonable one. Knowledge and reason can help us to understand parts of God, and this is obviously not a bad thing to do, but we are imperfect people and so this is not reasonable.
3. Mystical Experience
- "If you only have [a mystical experience] you will understand and believe." Kreeft's blunt definition is enough to steer us from thinking this.
4. Tolerance
- Division of God's Church is a serious matter, so while loving everyone for Who they were made by is not optional, accepting that Christianity is split lacks an understanding of the Church that Christ established. Jesus himself said that He desires for His kingdom to be one, so if the kingdom on Earth is the Church, why should we be ok with a separated, not-one Church.
5. Subjectivism (Relativism)
- Your truth is cool. My truth is cool. We all have a truth but none of us has The Truth. So, truly, none of us really has a truth at all. In truth, if a truth isn't true, then it is not a truth. True? True.
6. Skepticism
- We can't ever really know who is right, so if everyone just keeps doing what they're doing we'll all be ok. This is closely related to subjectivism only instead of rejecting that there is one truth, it tries to say there's no way we can know the one Truth so we basically have to settle for our partial truths. It's a castrated relativism.
7. Rational Argument
- This helps sometimes, but persuading people only through rational argument is a ridiculous idea. Argument can help some open minds come into the Truth, but a man can spend his whole life researching arguments and dogmas only to find that he can't decide which one is right. Even if he did find the right one, God is more than just a dogma. He's a person and reason alone, while it can lead us to a person, is not the ultimate end, the person of Jesus Christ.
8. Vague Optimism
- "Something will turn up" is not an acceptable attitude to have when it comes Christ is clearly not a passive being. We are the body of Christ, so how can the head be active while the body lethargically thumbs up and sits idly. No, Christ called us to live actively by going to the ends of the Earth proclaiming the Good News.
- Also, the Body that we are all parts of is broken and bleeding. "Splitting the Church is not" as Kreeft says, "a division of subdivision in an organization, but rather an amputation of limbs." We must be active in putting ourselves back together. If we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we must pick up the pieces of the mess we've made and allow the Spirit to be the glue that holds us together. We must be actively fighting for this or we will fall into the comfortable counterfeit of active faith: passive, mind my own business, only pray on Sunday, presumptuously apathetic and secularistic apathy.
9. An Ecumenical Jihad (a temporary common enemy)
- "Good, but not enough" We can unite for a time, and this can be very successful, but there has to be a perfect unity. This represents an imperfect unity, that is essentially a negative movement against a negative force or enemy. God is the ultimate positive and subtracting negative one trillion is not the same as adding infinity. (I hope that doesn't just make sense in my head.)
I think that each of these tried and failed "false grounds" for Christian unity can be considered shortcuts. They're shortcuts. God doesn't do shortcuts. It's unsure exactly how God's going to do it but we know it will be through insane amounts of grace to endure suffering and through blood. Christ's work is never without blood. We can be sure of that.
It also can't be done without saints. Not without people who totally surrender to God. Kreeft begs to question our ability to fathom even a dozen John Paul the greats and mother theresa's around the world. We can't. It would be astoundingly beautiful. We know that much.
Let's leave the practicalities to the next installment. Dream of a world filled with saints for now.
Peace.
**Disclaimer** If there were any good ideas in here, they were most likely Dr Peter Kreeft's found on his Ecumenism talk.
First let me give Peter Kreeft's simple list of nine false grounds for Christian unity that have been tried without any real success and WILL NEVER WORK (caps stuff is usually important). I'll complicate each one for you with an explanation.
1. Reasonable compromise
- It is unacceptable that anyone of the Christian faith would attempt this because of the implications of compromising faith in Christ. To compromise of faith in Christ means to compromise Christ; to compromise Christ means compromise the Truth (since Christ is Truth); compromise the Truth is to compromise Love (for loving anything untrue is idolatry).
- Each of those direct and inevitabile effects is a tragedy in itself, which makes compromise wholly objectionable.
2. Education and Understanding
- The idea that we can study scripture and philosophize (it's a word) with open hearts and minds and all come to the same conclusions is not a reasonable one. Knowledge and reason can help us to understand parts of God, and this is obviously not a bad thing to do, but we are imperfect people and so this is not reasonable.
3. Mystical Experience
- "If you only have [a mystical experience] you will understand and believe." Kreeft's blunt definition is enough to steer us from thinking this.
4. Tolerance
- Division of God's Church is a serious matter, so while loving everyone for Who they were made by is not optional, accepting that Christianity is split lacks an understanding of the Church that Christ established. Jesus himself said that He desires for His kingdom to be one, so if the kingdom on Earth is the Church, why should we be ok with a separated, not-one Church.
5. Subjectivism (Relativism)
- Your truth is cool. My truth is cool. We all have a truth but none of us has The Truth. So, truly, none of us really has a truth at all. In truth, if a truth isn't true, then it is not a truth. True? True.
6. Skepticism
- We can't ever really know who is right, so if everyone just keeps doing what they're doing we'll all be ok. This is closely related to subjectivism only instead of rejecting that there is one truth, it tries to say there's no way we can know the one Truth so we basically have to settle for our partial truths. It's a castrated relativism.
7. Rational Argument
- This helps sometimes, but persuading people only through rational argument is a ridiculous idea. Argument can help some open minds come into the Truth, but a man can spend his whole life researching arguments and dogmas only to find that he can't decide which one is right. Even if he did find the right one, God is more than just a dogma. He's a person and reason alone, while it can lead us to a person, is not the ultimate end, the person of Jesus Christ.
8. Vague Optimism
- "Something will turn up" is not an acceptable attitude to have when it comes Christ is clearly not a passive being. We are the body of Christ, so how can the head be active while the body lethargically thumbs up and sits idly. No, Christ called us to live actively by going to the ends of the Earth proclaiming the Good News.
- Also, the Body that we are all parts of is broken and bleeding. "Splitting the Church is not" as Kreeft says, "a division of subdivision in an organization, but rather an amputation of limbs." We must be active in putting ourselves back together. If we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we must pick up the pieces of the mess we've made and allow the Spirit to be the glue that holds us together. We must be actively fighting for this or we will fall into the comfortable counterfeit of active faith: passive, mind my own business, only pray on Sunday, presumptuously apathetic and secularistic apathy.
9. An Ecumenical Jihad (a temporary common enemy)
- "Good, but not enough" We can unite for a time, and this can be very successful, but there has to be a perfect unity. This represents an imperfect unity, that is essentially a negative movement against a negative force or enemy. God is the ultimate positive and subtracting negative one trillion is not the same as adding infinity. (I hope that doesn't just make sense in my head.)
I think that each of these tried and failed "false grounds" for Christian unity can be considered shortcuts. They're shortcuts. God doesn't do shortcuts. It's unsure exactly how God's going to do it but we know it will be through insane amounts of grace to endure suffering and through blood. Christ's work is never without blood. We can be sure of that.
It also can't be done without saints. Not without people who totally surrender to God. Kreeft begs to question our ability to fathom even a dozen John Paul the greats and mother theresa's around the world. We can't. It would be astoundingly beautiful. We know that much.
Let's leave the practicalities to the next installment. Dream of a world filled with saints for now.
Peace.
**Disclaimer** If there were any good ideas in here, they were most likely Dr Peter Kreeft's found on his Ecumenism talk.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Deaf to the Master?
This morning I read this : "We are Still Deaf too the Master"
He basically says we don't appreciate the musical genius of Beethoven properly. This differs from the way we treat other famed artist's work such as Shakespeare's literature. I guess he's right and I want to try to do something about it (at least in my own life) so all day I've been studying to this:
Hammerklavier (there are six parts to it)
and this:
String Quartet Op. 127
and others but these were my favorites.
Enjoy.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Open Your Mind So We Can Suck Out Your Soul
Open mindedness has got to be the most misunderstood concept by pretty much everybody who uses the term. I don't really get how it happened. Oh, wait! I forgot how powerful the media was for a second. Now don't get me wrong, I do NOT think that open mindedness is a bad thing. However, what we're being taught about open mindedness is incorrect, harmful and even destructive.
Question: What does having an open mind REALLY mean?
Answer: To be open minded is to be deliberately thoughtful about everything we hear. There are gazillions of lies out there but there is also truth. So to be open minded is an active search for the truth.
- What it is NOT is a passive state of being, which so many people think it is. These are the people who tell others that they aren't open minded. It mainly comes up when atheists condemn religion, and when political issues arise like gay marriage or abortion. Why? Two reasons:
- Emotions aren't bad; they're actually good. We naturally have feelings and thankfully they keep all us from becoming Spocks. I'm happy that we have emotions (see I used one to make a point).
- When issues like the ones I mentioned earlier arise, people get wound up really quickly. It's sad that so many lies are out there about each side, and propaganda is pushed usually by both sides at least to some degree. It's almost always propaganda aimed at emotion and not reason. Accusation is more effective in triggering emotions than logic; yelling rather than calm conversation; public attention rather than a small group or one on one.
- Another way to abuse emotion is shown perfectly on the topic I wrote about in my last article Tell Me Again How I Hate Rape Victims. Who doesn't have compassion for rape victims? Maybe only rapists and/or total jerks. Unable to resist, the pro-choice movement picked up on this lie and hammered it into people's heads that if you aren't pro-choice, you hate rape victims and women in general. To anyone who sits down with any slightly educated pro-lifer, it's obvious that this claim just isn't true.
- Things change when emotions are triggered (exponentially so if we already had trust for the source) and the filters of our mind like common sense and logic (and philosophy if you get crazy) turn off and the brainwashing begins.
- It's natural to get riled up and lost in emotion, of course, but think about what that does to our "active' search? It slows it, often stops it in its tracks. Unfortunately, if something is not active, it's passive, right? By letting our emotions get the better of us we we turn off our minds and anyone who happens to be listening. It's very important keep emotions under control to become and remain an open minded individual.
 |
| The pride before the fall? |
2) Pride
- What better tool to block someone from the truth but by the person themself. This is sort of the case with emotion, but emotion isn't all bad. Pride is all bad. Confidence is good, but pride is not. It's the line between the two that's important, and I think that the way to tell where confidence ends is to realize where we become passive in our search for truth. It looks different in all of us. So I'll give a few examples.
- Suppose I take a position, then realize I see the truth somewhere else but am too embarrassed to admit it. That's pride.
- Suppose I assume a group of people is stupid/insane because of something about them. Then I go even further as to treat them as if I am intellectually superior, giving no thought to anything they say. I smell pride.
- Suppose I'm reading/hearing/watching something I disagree with. If I'm sitting there saying, "Wrong! Wrong!" without even trying to understand the point, much less the perspective of what being presented, then give me a merit badge cause I'm in the pride patrol.
- Suppose I argue a point repeatedly trying to convince myself that I'm right by using someone else to argue against (psh, I never do this, right mom?). Yep, that's pride.
Ok? Cool.
So what are the ways that we can avoid falling into an open mind counterfeit?
First, a truly an open mind tries to have understanding for the who and where from a fact, opinion or argument is coming. People aren't usually evil, so they often do have either good logic, faulty logic, no logic or logic clouded by emotion. It's not only helpful to actively listen to others when they talk; it's also the right thing to do.
So, I would say then that we must develop a love for the truth. With a love for the truth, we can learn to drop both unnecessary emotion and the need to be right. That second part might seem a little contradictory to some people, but think about it. If figuring out the truth matters more to someone than proving themselves right, suddenly the pride that keeps them from admitting they were wrong is gone.
The worst and most damaging kind of passive attitude is what some falsely label "tolerance". This idea that if someone disagrees with the way I live, then they're oppressing me and intolerant. This demand that we all embrace false "tolerance" is nothing less than discrimination. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are. Calling someone a bigot because they believe in right and wrong is slander, or at the very least ignorant. It's just incorrect unless the definition of bigot has changed too.
How is the only sin left in society to believe in sin?
The only ones who are stood against, are those who stand for something concrete?
How bad is this attack on right and wrong for us, especially us Christians? It's the most unnatural and publicly destructive movement for the reason that 'ol Snakebite gives in Peter Kreeft's book. Sin is the only thing that is clearly and unmistakably visible to anyone who looks around on the street, flips on the news or has come into contact with even one other person at some point in life. Without the possibility of absolute truth, right and wrong are defined by humans, so they are not real in the least bit. Without being able to perceive sin there is no perceived need for salvation.
But what do I know, anyway? Not much, so that's why I'm keeping an open mind, looking for the truth constantly.
...but what if what they say is true?
What if there really is no truth? *gasp*
Don't worry. I contend that it's impossible, just look at math. What does a number look like, feel like, taste like? It doesn't because it doesn't exist in the physical world just like truth. And just like math tells us that 4 is the square root of 16, we can know that there is right and wrong. It exists outside of the physical and still functions in reality as it governs every aspect of our lives. Yet, we have free will and I can say that the square root of 16 is 95 million as often as I want, but I'll be incorrect every time. In the same way, there is absolute good and evil and we can freely choose which one we want to go on. We are free to be right or wrong, but living and believing in the goodness makes as much sense as living with the understanding that 1+1=2 every time I try it, no matter how many times I try to tell it that 1+1=7 for me.
You have your truth and I have mine?
That's like saying 1+1 =2 and 1+1 =7 at the same time.
Don't be closed to truth. Open your mind.
Peace.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Tell Me Again How I Hate Rape Victims
Why is it that every time I flip over to MSNBC I feel completely misunderstood, persecuted, slandered and ignored.
You're probably thinking, "Don't get all emotional on us Jacob." Well, sorry.
Seriously, I flipped the channel over to Rachel Maddow the other night because I feel I need to hear everything that's being put out there. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment in that way so it's my own fault for watching, but this one idea is a real pet peeve of mine. I truly can't stress enough just how untrue this view I'm about to reveal is. The notion I'm referring to is the one that claims that Pro-Life advocates don't care about rape and incest victims.
The claim has been taken to my face multiple times with virtually the same conversation every time, and twice with an ultra-liberal English teacher. It goes like this.
*shocked voice* "You think that it's wrong for a rape victim to have an abortion?!"
"Yes"
*appalled voice* "You would force her to carry the rapist's child through a pregnancy?!"
"Yes, and try to offer help as muc-"
*horrified voice* "That's horrible! And you call probably yourself a Christian, don't you?!" *sneer*
But then no one actually listens to why. Why are pro-lifers against abortion in the first place? Is the pro-life movement just a huge reversion back to pre-19th Amendment days? Just a massive undertaking by men and women both who want to take away the rights of women?
NO! People who insinuate this are lying!
What are truly pro-life people fighting for? Let's make a brief list.
1) To end abortion because it is killing a person, and human life is sacred (though pretty much no one know what that word "sacred" means anymore).
2) To end distribution of abortifacient drugs. Those cause abortion too. Consistency is necessary, so this is not an optional view for any pro-lifer.
3) To end the death penalty where possible. All human life is sacred, so anyone who is truly pro-"life" would never support a punitive death penalty.
4) To aid all current/future/possible mothers in every feasible way so as to protect the life of the child and to give the mother the support she needs to carry the baby to term.
Wow, that sounds "surprisingly" positive.
Yes, rape victims should carry their babies to term, but by no means should they do it alone. The situation isn't the issue though. As much dignity, love and care as we owe to the pregnant victim, we owe the same dignity, love and care to that human life inside her. Why? Because it's is human, and alive just as much as you and I are. No one can deny that fact because biology proves it. It has a full set of human DNA and is living and growing from the very moment of conception.
But the mother will have to carry a living reminder of the worst moments of her life for 9 months!?
- - Would you rather her turn herself from a victim into a predator?
Ok, it's alive, but it's not a person. It doesn't have rights.
- - Really? What if you're wrong? We've been wrong about this kind of thing before haven't we? In Andre Schutten's article "Do we know what's human? We've been wrong before", he gives us a few examples of that.
1) “In the eyes of the law… the slave is not a person.” - Virginia Supreme Court, 1858
2) “An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution.” - George Canfield, American Law Review, 1881
3) The meaning of “qualified persons” does not include women. - Supreme Court of Canada, 1928
4) “The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews… as ‘persons’ in the legal sense.” - German Supreme Court decision, 1936
5) “The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights.” - Supreme Court of Canada, 1997
Wow, so what if the government is wrong again on deciding who has personhood and who doesn't get the human rights they deserve? Who is actually "behind the times" and will hopefully soon make their way through the swamps of delusion into the currently disregarded truth.
But her situation should allow her to choose what to do with her own body?
- - I won't disagree that she can do what she wants with her body, but let's look at her situation in relation to the other human life still in the picture that is so often disregarded as inconsequential. We shall look at this through Pascal's lens as it is focused for our eyes by Peter Kreeft. Kreeft begins by making the important distinction between life and personhood. Plants and animals are alive, but aren't persons deserving rights.
From there we must ask the question, "Is the human fetus a person?" There are two possibilities: yes or no. By taking one of these positions all of us are either right or wrong. Are you with me so far? So, by looking at these facts objectively we can derive that there are four options as seen in this nifty chart I made:
But the mother will have to carry a living reminder of the worst moments of her life for 9 months!?
- - Would you rather her turn herself from a victim into a predator?
Ok, it's alive, but it's not a person. It doesn't have rights.
- - Really? What if you're wrong? We've been wrong about this kind of thing before haven't we? In Andre Schutten's article "Do we know what's human? We've been wrong before", he gives us a few examples of that.
1) “In the eyes of the law… the slave is not a person.” - Virginia Supreme Court, 1858
2) “An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution.” - George Canfield, American Law Review, 1881
3) The meaning of “qualified persons” does not include women. - Supreme Court of Canada, 1928
4) “The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews… as ‘persons’ in the legal sense.” - German Supreme Court decision, 1936
5) “The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights.” - Supreme Court of Canada, 1997
Wow, so what if the government is wrong again on deciding who has personhood and who doesn't get the human rights they deserve? Who is actually "behind the times" and will hopefully soon make their way through the swamps of delusion into the currently disregarded truth.
But her situation should allow her to choose what to do with her own body?
- - I won't disagree that she can do what she wants with her body, but let's look at her situation in relation to the other human life still in the picture that is so often disregarded as inconsequential. We shall look at this through Pascal's lens as it is focused for our eyes by Peter Kreeft. Kreeft begins by making the important distinction between life and personhood. Plants and animals are alive, but aren't persons deserving rights.
From there we must ask the question, "Is the human fetus a person?" There are two possibilities: yes or no. By taking one of these positions all of us are either right or wrong. Are you with me so far? So, by looking at these facts objectively we can derive that there are four options as seen in this nifty chart I made:
One by one let's look at the possibilities.
~ Upper Left: If the human fetus is a person and we're sure of it then abortion is murder. So, no matter what abortion is wrong.
~ Upper Right: The human fetus is a person but we're either not sure or we think it's not a person. Killing a fetus in this situation is like running over a man shaped pile of clothes with a car that actually turns out to be a man. This would be manslaughter, and it is wrong.
~ Lower Left: In this situation we have some way of knowing for sure that the human fetus is not a person, and so it wouldn't have rights and abortion would not be wrong.
~ Lower Right: The human fetus is not a person but we don't know for sure. Even in this case abortion is a criminal and morally impermissible act. The act would be the same as shooting a gun into a bush or fumigating a room that may or may not be occupied by a person. These actions are criminally negligent by legal standards and morally defined as unacceptable action. The clothes analogy applies here as well.
We see that logic is 75% against abortion and a shaky 25% for it and this is completely objectively. That 25% is also unusable as evidence since the science can't prove otherwise and even if it could abortion wouldn't be a good thing. Abortion would be wrong to encourage even in that situation because by being what develops into a person it deserves at least some dignity.
So Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell, please stop saying pro-lifers hate rape victims. It's just a outright lie. In contrast to what you tell people about us, we love every human life and we certainly want the very best care for all rape victims in their terrible circumstances. BUT, the ends don't justify the means. Situations outside the womb don't change the very real situation inside the womb.
I realize it's all driven politics but since when does that make lying about the other side ok? Never, but people always seem to think it does. We can't tolerate this.
It's propaganda driven mind control. Escape it.
Peace.
Starring Ruth as the Bride
Please take the time to read this article on the an image of the Church in the book of Ruth. Trust me when I say it is worth your time. Far more worth your time than anything I write.
Peace.
Peace.
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