I go to a pentecostal church. My pastors talks to us about this… 1)That we are visionary people. We need to be obedient to the Lord’s calling in our life. 2) He talks a lot about evangelism. 3) He talks about receiving mercy and grace and not focus on condemning ourselves. He covers the full bible, the full gospel.
He never once preached about homosexuals activist.
My Pastor does Prison outreach. He ministers to the sex offenders who are in prison for life. He said he wouldn’t be able to do this without the Lord.
Not only do the homosexuals need to be ministered too but all those who are actively living in sin. Or those who are living life without receiving the free gift of Salvation from Jesus.
I participated in the Charismatic movement of the early 1970s, and was centered in a Charismatic church for ten years. Thereafter I went from Colorado to Delaware to be a University Instructional Designer and Media Design instructor thereafter–having the responsibility of constructing a television studio for teaching purposes there as well. It felt like I was literally ripped apart by the move.
The church in COlorado began with many impressionable young married folk, recently then having received the spontaneous Gift of the Spirit, through direct conversion to faith in Jesus, who were easily duped into believing that the self declared anointed teachers and Pastor were “hearing from God”, and were thereby “God’s anointed” to be “submitted to” out of fear and reverence “for God”. The young families were of souls who were easily impressionable, and easily manipulated over time by the mix of statements about the human condition (normal feelings, some hormonal levels of normal adult attractions, as were mixed with statements out of context about the “total depravity” of humankind, and the psychological guilt having such feelings and a declared state of being imposed on us–all needing “the Spirit” and the leadership to continually replenish our witness of what was declared in that context as being “the Full Gospel”). Assembling was always predicated on “worship” which pumped us up and whipped us up to a creshendo, after which the lull of no sound and music was the reprise for hearing “the message”. The message essentially was about personal prophecy for the group from the group, as orchestrated by the meeting rhythms, and the leaders’ teachings following thereafter.
Naturally people talk together, and those of us who then felt acutely connected and codependent on the group meetings, the atmosphere so generated, and the “messages of the anointed leaders” noticed over time how empty we would feel when not getting our dose of these meetings. There was, at first anyway, the Message of Christ; later substituted by hearing the teachings of the anointed chosen leaders. The Bible was always used, with passages out of context, and with the intermixing of psychological status and guilt status statements, which certainly rang true in our young hearts and minds.
The “Holy Spirit Teaching Mission” leaders, from Florida, also were carefully followed as to ongoing prophetic direction, devotion, and awe. Over the ten years the assembly build a church building with our own hands, conducted many conferences, and related assembly events. I got to go back and forth to other family connections on the east coast and in the midwest, where my nonreligious parents and relatives were concerned about the level of commitment and God/Holy Spirit talk we constantly made when connecting at given junctures. Prior to this I heard the message of prophetic fulfillments in the Tenach/Old Testament by traveling young preachers in summers in campsites in Colorado, was converted by reading Matthew and John, and asking Jesus if He were really real, the Messiah (which He supernaturally confirmed in a transaction on my knees while waiting for a militarydraft physical back at my grandmother’s home in Illinois). I also completed one of the first internships so undertaken by writing a proposal to do so shortly after Pat Robertson’s “Shout it from the Rooftops” was published. Like many new believers I hung on every word of the powerful anointed ones who spoke in tongues and uttered words of wisdom, prophecies, and interpreted the Bible around such fulfillments.
The ten years in Colorado in the movement led to apostacy, with the leadership substituting itself for the voice of Christ in scripture, as the authoritative voice of the Lord. Don’t misunderstand me, these were Christians, with their roles going straight to their heads, and who commanded details of many devoted to their assemblies. Over those years I saw the subtle working of human religion replacing the Holy Spirit and testimony of Jesus, even though all along the Bible was used from the pulpits of those first anointed during the Jesus Movement of 1971 to lead us.
Many other groups and churches spontaneously popped up around the USA, and thereafter either went to the kind of whip em up pump em up “full gospel” claim of the one I was in (which directly added to what Paul declared as his own Gospel throughout his writings, i.e. the Message of the Good News of Jesus Christ, as is found proclaimed from the forefront of the letters of the NT, and the book of Acts). I write here now because, in my young impressionable youth, to differ with our anointed leaders as to what the Spirit would emphasize as vitally important in a given assembly, and to do so out of conviction and a different understanding of the Gospel according to the NT was simply not perceived as a possibility, nor a calling (as it was to believers who responded to the Reformation, for example, in their return to the sole authority of Scripture, with the Word in the common language of everyday citizens, not only for application of the anointed chosen leaders).
I cannot tell you how I and many others became disillusioned and conflicted within over time by the substitutionary teaching of the voices of authority–of the self appointed Priests of that movement–for the actual NT words of Christ and His Apostles. There is no other Gospel than the one stated as “Gospel” by the NT writers, and, especially as chosen directly by Jesus to go to the Gentile Nations, the Apostle Paul. There is an amazing testimony of Jesus as the Christ chosen for the Nations in the New Testament, and without the middle man situation of interpreters of every detail of existence in the mix of faith and devotion to the Head, Christ Jesus.
“We preach Him, and not we outselves, and work as as your servants, for His sake” stated Paul of the Apostles (found in II Cor 3-5, CHECK IT OUT). My heart came to state in a quiet voice from within during that season, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, we don’t have our own voice, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, we don’t have our own choice,” while outwardly conforming to the orchestrated worship and prophetic utterance assemblies of that era.
The liberty we have in the Messiah, the Christ for the Nations, and the Gospel of His life, death, and resurrection–then sending the Promise to any and all who call upon his Name (Acts 2:38 & 39)–cannot be substituted by religious codependency, fear of human leaders as being somehow greater in God than the average person standing in the midst of an assembly, nor should anyone be duped by any claims of a greater Gospel than Paul, Peter, James, and John affirmed.
Grace and Peace to you from God our father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
A second comment. Discerning the voice and gentle urging of the Holy Spirit within is well qualified by Paul in Rom 6-8, James’ comment on the Wisdom from Above, Jesus’ own words in John 13:13-chapter 16 as to what the Spirit will do, reveal, and bear testimony of, and Paul and John’s other statements on way of the Spirit vs. the flesh (i.e. the way which develops the fruit of the Spirit, as Paul called it). Peter would state in his 2nd letter, 1st chapter, later that believers had all they needed to build character upon with the basic Gospel.
While I was being duped toward the middle and end of the ten year cycle of building my own religious dependency, other denominational churches were faithfully reproducing in adult classes what is actually stated in the New Testament as to living the life of a disciple of Jesus.
It is interesting to read of some early Charismatic teachers later realizing that those churches, where the Gifts were not focused upon as much as in the Pump em Up, Whip em Up circles, actually matured believers at a rate which outstipped the movement of phenomena to which I had responded. The still small voice within finally realized that it is perverse to seek signs, rather than seeking a knowledge of the Lord himself, as reflected in the written down mind of Christ in the Gospels, and from the Apostles in the letters and Revelation.
Are we willing to let Jesus be our teacher, and us His disciples, or do we want our ministry, our appointments and anointings to be sought out and followed. A faithful disciple will mirror the image of Jesus, not Pump em Up and Whip em Up in place of that relationship. Once the following of Jesus becomes an internalied desire of the heart, there is no stopping the association with His Word, His Gospel and continuing in His word setting one free of religious and the OT Law’s obligations.
What is developed after that realization does not seek the approvals of men, or Pastors and teachers, but the mind of Christ for living. I noticed that since that so labeled “movement”, with its preoccupations with anointing, power, and the gifts, signifiant discipleship has been in the Way of the gentleness of Jesus, the devotion of Jesus’ very heart, and values which He proclaimed as the “weightier matters (or intentions) of the law”. Even those who went on with Him started calling themselves Evangelicals over time, no longer following the old preoccupations.
Andew Yoeman has written in a recent Kingdom of God article in the Voice of Revolution Magazine, routed by this mother site, a great clarification to sharing the Kingdom through the Gospel, and waiting on the Lord himself to complete the process in the new believers hearing that Word. It is refreshing that that realization–of an inability to command God’s works and manifestations–rests in the Ways and means of the Messiah’s earthly visitation.
A final comment. The fruit and gifts of the Promised Spirit given to believers in Jesus Christ permeates the devotional literature of the Churches formed over centuries…with hearts and minds centered in Jesus Christ. The dilemmas and contradictions of being human, the desires of one’s heart changing from self centeredness to waiting on the Way of Christ, with hope for others encountered in life, and the still small voice of affirmation of connection to the Head is the carion call to all who will continue with Him, want to come to know Him, and want to be His on that Day.
Typos! Clarion call to believers, if anything living for meeting based hyper experiences and behaviors, as cited, becomes a carion call over time. Living to Jesus calls in solitude to the inner man, to trust and obey Him, out of love, not for the stimuli of religious obligation.
Jabez,
I had a very similar experience when I was young in the Lord. I also realize now, a decade later, that my immaturity(not in a “bad” way, just factual) was a large part of the equation. I don’t know if it fed a cycle of dependency with leadership, or, if I was just naturally clinging to leadership because that’s what “young children” do.
I guess my question would be do you think than it is more the leadership’s responsibility to cause us to be dependent on Christ rather than themselves and their overly specific instruction…to learn the “wisdom from above” as you mentioned? This has been my thinking about it so far, any thoughts?
The thing which sent my blood-pressure through the roof was that idiotic advert. It was the sheer ignorance of it, twisting what should be a national disgrace into a “minority rights” issue.
The problem is that (if the US is anything like the UK) schools themselves are unfit for purpose, and bullying is endemic in them. It’s not just “a gay-thing”. My own decade or so attending state schools here in Britain showed me that nearly everybody gets bullied: hence the statistics given in the advert would hold true for just about all pupils bar the most vicious, who sit atop the dunghill meting out the punishment. A few others might get off relatively unscathed (because they are especially good at sport or have the “right” friends”), but are always quick to forget those who don’t.
Homosexual tendencies are merely just one in a whole array of differences, any of which will guarantee one is bullied: in my school, kids were bullied for being viewed as ugly, having few friends, being conscientious, not being sporty, wearing the “wrong” clothes, crying, having ginger hair (the ginger kids often got the worst of it, since bullying based on skin-colour was potentially risky, but redheads are widely accepted as a laughing-stock in Britain); and it only got worse as sex came into the equation (and it did increasingly, from ages eleven onwards) — you name it, if it made you different, you were in for it. (Unless you were the sort to smash your tormentors hard in the face.)
Almost everyone got humiliated at some point. Nothing was too cruel (one instance springs to mind of a lad who, through no fault of his own, had diarrhoea during a cross-country run, and was humiliated and bullied for it until he left the school). School was vile. The teachers were more worried about simply looking concerned in front of parents, rather than actually doing anything to address the problems — I think many of them were just overwhelmed by the scale of it (not that this is an excuse to let kids suffer). I wouldn’t board my dog at a state school.
It’s shocking to realise what has happened to public schooling, which was pioneered largely by churches, and governed along strict Christian lines, treating orphans and disadvantaged children as daughters and sons — complete with the understanding that “He that spareth his rod hateth his son” (something which is today rejected even by people who call themselves Christians).
But nowadays, where Christianity and godly discipline once were, we have Socialism and a sort of enlightened secular indifference. The results are teen sex, widespread bullying and the failed touchy-feely approach to tackling it — a national outrage which is brought to light only during inquests into school suicides. (The same unjust, anti-punitive Left-wing dogma has failed in tackling criminality, and allowed crime to explode in this country — and there are many highly educated liars defending that, too.)
I spent some years in teaching, and recall the first time I went to sit in on a maths lesson at the local state school. It was overseen (one really can’t say “taught”) by a young woman who had neither control over the class nor any serious sanction for misbehaviour. The kids were loud, unruly — many were bigger than she — and they clearly neither respected her nor feared the consequences of running amok. Truth be told, they needed a burly man with a scowl and a stick. But instead they had a weak, hand-wringing young lady, who could no doubt expatiate about their “needs” whilst failing totally to understand or meet them. Accordingly, boys raced in and out of the classroom, shouting and goading each other, throughout the lesson, learning precisely nothing.
After that, I was shown into the staff-room: it was like a bunker in a war-zone, and as I entered all eyes fixed suspiciously upon me, the stranger in their midst — perhaps they thought I was a school inspector about to take issue with the whole fiasco. Out of the window, within their sight, was barely restrained anarchy. But the adults remained ensconced comfortably indoors, chatting over coffee and biscuits, and regaling one other with innuendos and banter. My questions about the things I’d seen were met with knowing amusement — the teachers regarded all this as perfectly normal. In the light of which, it should be no surprise that educational standards in Britain have been sliding steadily down the toilet for several decades.
And then, some years later, I was suddenly struck by a thought… (I had a feeling something akin to that described by Colonel Kurtz at the end of Apocalypse Now: you know, the bit where he says, “And then I realized — like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead.”) Why on earth do we send our kids to such places? Really? Think about it for a moment. The average adult who had to face daily humiliation/bullying, both verbal and physical, either at a seat of higher education or place of work would simply refuse to put up with it (particularly if the wages were zero). He or she would either litigate or leave (and there would be many an advocate rushing to their cause).
…Yet adults pack their children off to school, where their youthful heads are filled with humanism, “safe sex”, evolution, the gay agenda and all the other soft-Marxist agitprop in the classroom, before being sent out for a good punching in the playground! (That’s what it’s been like for British boys, anyway.) Where’s the outcry? Normal adults wouldn’t stick that for a week — why should kids be put through that?
I’ve no doubt that when we stand before God, He will demand of us an account of why we did this to the most vulnerable in society, all in the name of “progress”. I’m damned if I’ll send a kid of mine to such a place — even if that means my family has to downsize to the freezing two-room hovel I once inhabited, and live on only rice and beans. And if the authorities object, then they’ll have to pry my children from my cold, dead arms. Our little ones are a blessing from God, not something to be disposed of. They belong at home, not farmed out in schools with a bunch of strangers.
Perhaps my greatest bone of contention is with those teachers who continue to maintain the pretence that state schools are basically good: this fiction is a betrayal of children. For years feminists and Leftist fellow-travellers peddled the lie that the traditional family unit is oppressive to women and harrowing for kids. My experience is precisely the opposite: that Western state schools, run along Socialist and feminist principles, are places of great misery for children — and often for the women who are deceived into abandoning their own kids for a career in teaching. What price “fulfillment”?
It’s also (scandalously) true that “those who can’t do, teach” — it was certainly true of many I’ve known, and indeed of me (I ended up in teaching after failing to find a worthwhile job which used my twenty-odd years of “education” — and I did a hard science degree, not one of the mickey-mouse numbers they hand out these days). Amongst my colleagues, those teachers who were truly called, or who had always wanted to teach, were the exception rather than the rule.
…And if you’re otherwise useless, simply go into the academy or the teaching profession — you’ll be safe there! In Britain at least, teachers are almost unsackable. Do you know how many British teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the last forty years? Eighteen. No, not eighteen hundred — eighteen.
The BBC recently disclosed that little gem, yet nothing’s been done about it. …Despite the fact that I could name half a dozen incompetents in my own experience (including, inter alia, the muscular 6’5″ Left-wing firebrand who swore his way through his English “lessons” and who, during a cricket match outside of school, broke a boy’s nose simply for bowling him out). No, anyone who dares to criticise teachers is hung out to dry, since teaching, like medicine, is held to be synonymous with altruism, regardless of how violent or unruly our schools are, how ill-educated their alumni, or how many pupil-teacher sex scandals break.
My own overlong schooling ended when I realised that my two decades of education were worthless (I finally saw the light after five years as a postgraduate, concluding that I really didn’t want to sit down and write a doctoral thesis that no-one would read: after much protestation from my supervisors, I just jacked it in and left — something for which I thank God, whose hand in those events I can now see clearly). Schooling has truly become a false god, and Romans 1:22 pretty much encapsulates the idolatrous attitude to learning in the West.
If Christians want to make sure their kids’ minds are tended properly, then they should see to it themselves, rather than abrogating their responsibilities: a Christian’s children should learn from his or her Christian kin, either within the home or within the church family, who are, of course, kin in Christ. Never should the minds of Christian children be entrusted to the world.
During my interminable years of state schooling, I learned nothing of use to me in the real world, save perhaps some basic mathematics, which could easily have been taught to me by my parents or learned from a book. (I’d been taught to read by my mother — thankfully, she knew this was her job, and didn’t place my literacy in the hands of the useless schooling system, which now routinely diagnoses as “dyslexia” the disastrous results of years of fashionable pedagogy.) …And the ability to solve quadratic equations is simply not worth eleven years of misery.
Dave, I wrote on the codependency factor at length on another blog. Codependency is unclarity as to where another starts and one leaves off. It is a fact of life of immaturity. Yes, I believe that the NT shows real leaders lead us to Christ and not to themselves for the reason that flesh begats flesh and the spirit the spirit. Often people that are teaching new believers to crawl up on the altar are themselves in the flesh and out of control (just check their body weight for beginners, or other forms of indulgence). A real leader will themselves go the Way of the cross of Jesus to be a signpost pointing that way, without a big salary, etc.
Phenomenologically it is interesting how the Purpose Driven Life book met the needs of so many empty pump em up dependent Charismatics and Pentecostals. Emotion is part of life, but not the substance of linkage with the Spirit of Christ.
To respond to the question on themes in my current assemblies (1. A Messianic Minyan. Primarily a contemplative prayer meeting to support the renewal of Israel, and the Gospel to Jewish believers, and attendees souls, and Building life on the Word of God. 2. An Evangelical Free Church [Sunday AMs and misc meetings during the week, e.g. an early AM weekly Men’s meeting, and later AM weekly Women’s meetings] A. Devotion to the Jesus of the NT, in various means consistent with the teachings of the Apostles, B. Discipleship using the NT, C. Counseling themes on various life challenges. D. The Men’s meeting does deal with sexuality matters and issues, though primarily presenting cultural temptations saturating our society with Pornography, where books and materials are available on this, and, yes, mention of the related homosexual matter and issue being contrary to the lifestyle of devotion to Jesus Christ.
Dr. B., You have to realize that you are on the frontline of the issue of homosexuality and combatting its cultural drift. Few really are, yet too most evangelical churches believe in outreach to any sinner or needy soul for the message of the Gospel. Usually the Evangelical churches I have connected with do not accept homosexuality, have some literature or counseling available on the subject, and on pornographic temptation, but not as a focus. Most will not permit anyone practicing sexual sin to be in any leadership position whatsoever. There is always the phenomena of those professing faith in Jesus Christ also being associated with homosexuality, and them developing a unique, errant, and separate apologetic to justify the pattern sin lifestyle. This is sad, for I have known some of these folks over the years, including one Pastor I had in my charismatic church days, who, like T. Haggart eventually had the radical contradiction become the demise of their own “ministry”. Considering what I shared above, I find it sad and misleading for many pump em up whip em up so-called “leaders” to be working in the flesh in the name of the Spirit, and how easily whole congregations can be duped as to having little discernment on such, when and where it occurs. I am leary of supposed leaders who are power focused and power centered, for I find little witness of this in the NT as being the stuff of its own kind of associated leadership as allied with the Jesus of the first century, and the Promise He and the Father sent those receiving Him. I am also disillusioned with Evangelical institutions who are enamoured with themselves, and spend a great deal of time and effort marketing themselves, including conservative Seminaries and Bible schools, where so. But it is a dilemma, how to have the funding needed to organize and do the work of the Gospel, while at the same time being faithful to the Spirit of the Word and Person of the Gospel.
Jabez,
Could you refer me to the location of the blog?
Thanks.
Putting man on a pedestal is not good. Men will fail and hurt us. God will never do that.
Dave, These comments appeared under the blog section entitlted “Are We Required to Keep the Dietary Laws”, after #260 or so. I had to look up recommending this to another here, I regret that I do not have the date. I think it was in the spring, but am uncertain.
The Purpose Driven Life, by R. Warren. And the Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard are helpful regarding balancing one type of assembly propensity with other devotions and service. (Though it is difficult for me to associate “Driven” with the Message of Christ, there are many practical applications of service within the Ekklesia discussed in that book, which was timely for the Body of Christ when it was written. If you have any doubts about R.W. what he states about who is a Child of God should put them to rest).
Let me also say that I appreciate the openness to comment here, for I feel I have something to contribute. I regret that my name then appears so often as it does in the “recent comments” lead page section of Dr. Brown’s great site. I look to a certain NT writer as a model, I guess.
Let me also say that I appreciate the openness to comment here, for I feel I have something to contribute. I regret that my name then appears so often as it does in the “recent comments” lead page section of Dr. Brown’s great site. I look to a certain NT writer as a model, I guess.
Dave: Je. 16, 2010. There are over 400 comments, so keep on looking,
P.H. I read your details with interest, where you spent so many years investing your days in academia, apparently in Europe? You seem to have removed yourself from such engagement and come away with some cynicism about it all being somehow meaningless, or, as such, against godly pursuits. My elementary children attend “public school”, in a District, roughly along County lines, in Colorado, in the USA. I do not share your totality of negative outlook, though I can be challenged as a parent regarding some of the values accepted as appropriate by the School District involved in policy making for the school.
There are challenges related to cultural values, secularism, humanism, equality myths, etc. related to our childrens’ enrollment–yet too there is some excellence of think it through learning processes for their age groups. Bullying was only a problem for our son for a year or so there, it is more a problem in our neighborhood of residency since that tough year of the past for him. It is an elected school, limiting enrollment by that election process. There is a Christian parent external to in school building prayer support group for our attending children.
I wonder from what you wrote how you maintained a Christian faith and witness where you obviously felt quite isolated, perhaps some of being personally existential, and some of it being because of a lack of fellowship in the schooling environment? Were you able to seek out fellowship in either academic or cultural setting? What did you do then that worked and did not work to maintain a relationship with Jesus, and what do you do now?
Jabez,
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I have to affirm some of what P.H. wrote. When I substitute taught in the local middle and high school, I was appalled at the lack of discipline in the classroom. I learned, however, how to maintain the environment I needed to be able to impart some instruction. I found it actually made me more popular with the students, though I wasn’t striving for popularity, because they really actually hated it when they were allowed to run amok. Children may do this when there are no clear boundaries, but they actually appreciate well-defined limits.
Some of the things I noticed: reading and writing were NOT at all up to par. Only a handful of students in each class could read well. Cheating was rampant, with most students copying others’ work (until caught) through note-passing (which is generally a cause to be sent to Detention). That it is so ubiquitous only means that disciplinary measures are not stringent enough.
The favorite insult among students was to call someone “gay”, surprisingly,despite what may have been an attitude of acceptance by parents. Any form of perceived weakness was labeled “lame” and subject to taunts. I recall spending one class trying to deal with the bullying alone, especially after one student confided that the bullied child was openly threatening suicide. I wrote a letter to his regular teacher (being a sub that day) about the need to totally stop this on his watch, since it was apparent that those particular bullies were well-practiced and had no fear of reprisal.
Growing up in the sixties, I remember when you could hear a pin drop in elementary school. By high school (late seventies), I remember being told by my literature teacher to “read anything you want and write about it” — an example of deregulating curricula. The idea in the air was that we were all becoming more open and free from a rigidly-controlled past. By the time my children were in elementary school, “chaotic” would be how I’d describe the experience of their classrooms. Attention spans became shorter and the ability to concentrate greatly compromised, and the fruit of it all is apparent now. I can see why parents are concerned about their children going to public schools — they should be! People talk about “fixing the schools” instead of abandoning them. Funding cuts are always decried. But people taught successfully with only rudimentary equipment a century earlier because rudeness and rowdiness in the classroom were not tolerated; and teachers focused on firming up the foundational subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic. I found few students in my experience who could do basic math (such as multiplication) without a calculator! When they read aloud, they could mouth words more or less correctly, but did not really understand them. It seems the schools today are more interested in creating politically-correct mindsets. This becomes fertile ground for gay activism.
The U.S. Constitution, however, creates the separation of church and state even if it is not explicitly stated in that language — because it allows for the freedom to be godless. Since so many of the framers were themselves Masonic Deists who held a universalist perspective (and some were vehemently anti-Christian) they ploughed the ground for universalism’s profusion of blooms to this day.
What to do? I’d advise parents to take much more control of their childrens’ education.
In the same school district we applied for an elected elementary school and were pleased to receive our childrens’ appointment to it on the third lottery. Their area school had signs in the hallways about what was considered discrimination, including discrimination about sexual preferences. The signs only reiterated District Policy. When I was retraining in a University in the 1990’s business texts also talked about this not being permitted in business as well, so, the cultural drift ethic on belief that sexual preference matters were publicly reinforced equality issues, or civil rights issues were already permeating the society’s normalizing references. Get into the schools and you have the minds and hearts at an early age. I also have noticed that much pacifistic assumption regarding “Nationalism” and wars is also assumed in such settings.
So, in the sense that our fellowships become boundaried and differing “other culutres” than these “norms” will naturally have the unchurched view us as deviant over time, as these attitudes become normalized from elementary forward. It seems logical then to work on the matter through legislative and court venues, rather than through public opinion venues, since these are already disproportionally propogandized by the assumptions of signs, textbooks, and teacher reinforcements. Want to be labeled a “bigot”, as has Dr. B. by the proponents of these attitudes, simply stand up for Biblical morality. Around 60 years ago the foxes began to invade the vinyards of moral and spiritual abiding in the teaching of scripture.
I predict that by the middle of the next decade, due to economic and political pressures, what will be “normalized” will truly be appalling. The price of discipleship, for confessing believers, will become increasingly difficult and burdensome. The only attitude of forbearance we then can adopt is the attitude of Jesus at Gethsenamie.
Ruth,
You wrote:
The U.S. Constitution, however, creates the separation of church and state even if it is not explicitly stated in that language — because it allows for the freedom to be godless. Since so many of the framers were themselves Masonic Deists who held a universalist perspective (and some were vehemently anti-Christian) they ploughed the ground for universalism’s profusion of blooms to this day.
This is the truth. I’m not wanting to get off topic, but this really is essential to understanding the reality of our foundations as a country and getting Evangelical leaders in focus. I am dumbfounded by how so many Christians falsely adapt the constitution as a christian document. It IS a wonderful document…but it’s not a christian document. I don’t want our country to revert back to it’s masonic, deist roots. I want to see our country turn to God. Not “back to God” because it was never fully His. This isn’t to imply there weren’t many godly, moral men and women in the early formation of our country, because there were. But in all honesty, when lives are spent laboring every working hour just to be able to feed your family a strong, moral attitude is the only consideration if you don’t want to starve. When we are “rich and fat” we become morally compromising. We need the Lord much more than another “Christian moral right”. This alone will give us all the “right focus”, rich or poor.
Paine, Franklin, et.al., would have been pleased. By eliminating monarchy and Church authority at the outset, mankind is elevated as the supreme authority and the will of the people alone (not God’s will) be done. The echo of a man’s own mind may be his only god.
Eventually an entirely new species of secular humanists or unitarian universalists could be created in that social laboratory, through such an Experiment. But so can religions thrive, and all the evils produced by lawlessness and excess find a response in the spread of the Word of God.
And here we are.
Personally, I haven’t even heard the word “homosexuality” used in connection with “sin” anywhere else but from Dr. Brown. We are at such a level of sin in America, God only knows the extent of it, and leaders of all kinds are afraid. Afraid of political suicide if they take a stand — and for career politicians, looking to that golden plum on retirement, unpopular stands often mean no re-election. With the average person having to steel themselves for darts of disapproval from friends and their own family members if they take a Biblical stand on sexual immorality, people who must attract others to their message (such as religious or spiritual leaders) really need to possess an unwavering commitment to the gospel in order to remain standing at all.
And so it is. And few there seem to be at present. I hope the Lord will send more men who will stand..!
I have studied Jefferson and Adams over the years. Jefferson did recant anti-evangelical thinking toward the end of his days, and accept grace through faith; Adams did the opposite, and reinforced his longstanding deistitic outlook.
For Jefferson this was quite a recant, because of his obvious intellectual and scientific bent, his past support of various antifundamentalist causes, and his associations. But, looking into his actual life, his heart had to be hammered by the requirements of his dieing wife not to marry, his taking on a relationship with his slave woman, and his eventual loss of significance and wealth. Some times it takes the trials of life to hear the Spirit of God.
This is for the children which are all blessings.
Thank you to all for all your comments. How very interesting and educational. I am a single mother of 3 birth children and have had many children under my wings for various amounts of time. Most of these children found shelter under my wings because love was not to be found anywhere else. Some of them came at supper time, some of them after school for help with homework, some needed a ride, some needed someone just to acknowledge they existed. Over time I have become disgusted with how our gov’t treated these children. I learned children had NO rights. They are told to speak up so they can be told to shut up, they are told to speak louder so that we can hear them and then they are told it’s too loud. They are told to think and punished for thinking too hard. They are taught a life of controversy and double standards from the time they are born. Kids then speak out in ways that adults have no control. They change the language. We all have experienced doing it ourselves as kids, just think about it. We all came up with hip new sayings, new handshakes, new ways of saying something was great, or not great. And our parents, teachers, etc… had no idea what we were really saying. Two prime examples are; 1) ain’t- when I was a kid we were literally punished for using this word. However we still used it, made rhymes with it, loved it! Now you can find the word in the dictionary and you will not be marked down for using it in your book report. 2) gay- first it meant happy, then it meant homosexual, now it means stupid. Kids do not call each other gay saying someone is homosexual, that is reserved for the word homo or fag. Gay simply means stupid, as in the music, or the book, or the clothes mom wants me to wear, it has no sexual meaning at all anymore (except for adults and the gov’t using it). Now the trend is to call someone who is thought to be homosexual happy. They get in trouble for saying fag and homo so now they call it happy. And then a teacher congratulates them for being so nice.
Kids have also changed the rules. Yes I said the kids have changed the rules. Not the parents, not he teachers, the kids. How? By going on strike. They learned it from us adults. What do we do when we don’t get our way. Well most of us do nothing. We pout in one form or another; drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, have a cup of coffee, eat another donut, complain to someone else, the real go getters hire a lawyer and sue someone. So kids followed us. They quit minding, quit listening, quit studying, quit running, quit imagining, quit pretty much everything that they need to do. However since many are influenced to spare the rod the kids got away with it. Instead of insisting they listen we talk louder, instead of making them study and accept the consequences to not studying we lowered the standards, we said that’s okay if you can’t read we’ll just give you a special name and now it’s okay, we said it was okay to overeat we just won’t make you run, it’s okay to put yourself first, as long as it is at school. We have let them get away with everything that our grandparents died to teach us. And now the kids are grown adults, teaching the kids what they learned.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the big lesson kids come out of average schools and churches with today is that the truth is bad. Cover-ups are normal and okay. As a matter of fact everything will be okay as long as we just don’t care.
I understand all too well how confusing, frustrating, & lonely it is being raised myself under a complete dbl standard. In the end you get to thinking there just isn’t any love left out there, it’s all some weird conspiracy and none of this makes sense. Well that’s true to a certain extent, it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense that there is a failing economy with more many than ever before. It doesn’t make sense that we should be losing our ozone with energy available. It doesn’t make sense that we spend millions on research for cures to diseases when the cures are already available. How does starving people of any age in this country of obesity make sense? Why do we do things like send our kids to schools where they hand out free condoms and tell them it’s wrong, (illegal in some areas)? Isn’t that like giving them a straw and telling them cocaine is wrong but just in case you run into it… Why do we teach kids to do what is right and then tell them they’re wrong when they do so?
Last week I was talking to 2 lawyers explaining to them that a 7 yr. old boy had a BB gun aimed at him by his mother’s boyfriend. That the boy admitted the gun had no clip in it, however when the man pulled the trigger a BB came out and hit the boy in the back. I explained to them that no one should be pointing a gun at any one and that I was concerned. They said, “well it was just a BB gun” and shrugged their shoulders. I was appalled at the response. When I voiced my opinion they continued to tell me that “in a world where there is so much bad parenting, we can’t really enforce good parenting.”
Then one day it all made sense. It’s because the majority of people everywhere do not have Jesus. Because the majority denies Jesus there is no love. Without God there is nothing, nothing worth anything that is.
So thumbs up to the guy who said he’s never sending his kids to the failing public schools. (one thing to keep in mind, your kids could be spreading the good word by example if you sent them there)
Thumbs up to Ruth who noticed the children in the classroom, I find what you stated about kids wanting structure and limits quite obvious, however am constantly being told I’m wrong. I know from experience that you just “noticing” the kids will have an impact on their lives.
I think it’s an apostasy out there today. I can’t seem to find a place where I don’t feel that way. A place where people truly love. Love is our number one command from Our Father, not lust, greed, & pride. Which by the way are 3 things I find being taught to kids in public schools every day, and worse I see many being taught that at home. Especially pride, I wish everyone would just get over themselves, life’s about loving our neighbors not ourselves, and doing it all for the glory of God, not for our glory or to glorify ourselves.
If you read this whole thing then let me take you back to the beginning when I said that I was disgusted with how the gov’t treated the kids. I now know after many yrs of fighting gov’t. It’s not the gov’t. It is us to blame. Everyone of us who believe in God and don’t act on it. We must never sit down and we must not spare the rod. We are the gov’t, we must earnestly contend. We can spread the msg by example, and we will be persecuted, that just means we are on the right path. So let it be encouragement.
I go to a pentecostal church. My pastors talks to us about this…
1)That we are visionary people. We need to be obedient to the Lord’s calling in our life.
2) He talks a lot about evangelism.
3) He talks about receiving mercy and grace and not focus on condemning ourselves. He covers the full bible, the full gospel.
He never once preached about homosexuals activist.
My Pastor does Prison outreach. He ministers to the sex offenders who are in prison for life. He said he wouldn’t be able to do this without the Lord.
Not only do the homosexuals need to be ministered too but all those who are actively living in sin. Or those who are living life without receiving the free gift of Salvation from Jesus.
I participated in the Charismatic movement of the early 1970s, and was centered in a Charismatic church for ten years. Thereafter I went from Colorado to Delaware to be a University Instructional Designer and Media Design instructor thereafter–having the responsibility of constructing a television studio for teaching purposes there as well. It felt like I was literally ripped apart by the move.
The church in COlorado began with many impressionable young married folk, recently then having received the spontaneous Gift of the Spirit, through direct conversion to faith in Jesus, who were easily duped into believing that the self declared anointed teachers and Pastor were “hearing from God”, and were thereby “God’s anointed” to be “submitted to” out of fear and reverence “for God”. The young families were of souls who were easily impressionable, and easily manipulated over time by the mix of statements about the human condition (normal feelings, some hormonal levels of normal adult attractions, as were mixed with statements out of context about the “total depravity” of humankind, and the psychological guilt having such feelings and a declared state of being imposed on us–all needing “the Spirit” and the leadership to continually replenish our witness of what was declared in that context as being “the Full Gospel”). Assembling was always predicated on “worship” which pumped us up and whipped us up to a creshendo, after which the lull of no sound and music was the reprise for hearing “the message”. The message essentially was about personal prophecy for the group from the group, as orchestrated by the meeting rhythms, and the leaders’ teachings following thereafter.
Naturally people talk together, and those of us who then felt acutely connected and codependent on the group meetings, the atmosphere so generated, and the “messages of the anointed leaders” noticed over time how empty we would feel when not getting our dose of these meetings. There was, at first anyway, the Message of Christ; later substituted by hearing the teachings of the anointed chosen leaders. The Bible was always used, with passages out of context, and with the intermixing of psychological status and guilt status statements, which certainly rang true in our young hearts and minds.
The “Holy Spirit Teaching Mission” leaders, from Florida, also were carefully followed as to ongoing prophetic direction, devotion, and awe. Over the ten years the assembly build a church building with our own hands, conducted many conferences, and related assembly events. I got to go back and forth to other family connections on the east coast and in the midwest, where my nonreligious parents and relatives were concerned about the level of commitment and God/Holy Spirit talk we constantly made when connecting at given junctures. Prior to this I heard the message of prophetic fulfillments in the Tenach/Old Testament by traveling young preachers in summers in campsites in Colorado, was converted by reading Matthew and John, and asking Jesus if He were really real, the Messiah (which He supernaturally confirmed in a transaction on my knees while waiting for a militarydraft physical back at my grandmother’s home in Illinois). I also completed one of the first internships so undertaken by writing a proposal to do so shortly after Pat Robertson’s “Shout it from the Rooftops” was published. Like many new believers I hung on every word of the powerful anointed ones who spoke in tongues and uttered words of wisdom, prophecies, and interpreted the Bible around such fulfillments.
The ten years in Colorado in the movement led to apostacy, with the leadership substituting itself for the voice of Christ in scripture, as the authoritative voice of the Lord. Don’t misunderstand me, these were Christians, with their roles going straight to their heads, and who commanded details of many devoted to their assemblies. Over those years I saw the subtle working of human religion replacing the Holy Spirit and testimony of Jesus, even though all along the Bible was used from the pulpits of those first anointed during the Jesus Movement of 1971 to lead us.
Many other groups and churches spontaneously popped up around the USA, and thereafter either went to the kind of whip em up pump em up “full gospel” claim of the one I was in (which directly added to what Paul declared as his own Gospel throughout his writings, i.e. the Message of the Good News of Jesus Christ, as is found proclaimed from the forefront of the letters of the NT, and the book of Acts). I write here now because, in my young impressionable youth, to differ with our anointed leaders as to what the Spirit would emphasize as vitally important in a given assembly, and to do so out of conviction and a different understanding of the Gospel according to the NT was simply not perceived as a possibility, nor a calling (as it was to believers who responded to the Reformation, for example, in their return to the sole authority of Scripture, with the Word in the common language of everyday citizens, not only for application of the anointed chosen leaders).
I cannot tell you how I and many others became disillusioned and conflicted within over time by the substitutionary teaching of the voices of authority–of the self appointed Priests of that movement–for the actual NT words of Christ and His Apostles. There is no other Gospel than the one stated as “Gospel” by the NT writers, and, especially as chosen directly by Jesus to go to the Gentile Nations, the Apostle Paul. There is an amazing testimony of Jesus as the Christ chosen for the Nations in the New Testament, and without the middle man situation of interpreters of every detail of existence in the mix of faith and devotion to the Head, Christ Jesus.
“We preach Him, and not we outselves, and work as as your servants, for His sake” stated Paul of the Apostles (found in II Cor 3-5, CHECK IT OUT). My heart came to state in a quiet voice from within during that season, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, we don’t have our own voice, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, we don’t have our own choice,” while outwardly conforming to the orchestrated worship and prophetic utterance assemblies of that era.
The liberty we have in the Messiah, the Christ for the Nations, and the Gospel of His life, death, and resurrection–then sending the Promise to any and all who call upon his Name (Acts 2:38 & 39)–cannot be substituted by religious codependency, fear of human leaders as being somehow greater in God than the average person standing in the midst of an assembly, nor should anyone be duped by any claims of a greater Gospel than Paul, Peter, James, and John affirmed.
Grace and Peace to you from God our father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
A second comment. Discerning the voice and gentle urging of the Holy Spirit within is well qualified by Paul in Rom 6-8, James’ comment on the Wisdom from Above, Jesus’ own words in John 13:13-chapter 16 as to what the Spirit will do, reveal, and bear testimony of, and Paul and John’s other statements on way of the Spirit vs. the flesh (i.e. the way which develops the fruit of the Spirit, as Paul called it). Peter would state in his 2nd letter, 1st chapter, later that believers had all they needed to build character upon with the basic Gospel.
While I was being duped toward the middle and end of the ten year cycle of building my own religious dependency, other denominational churches were faithfully reproducing in adult classes what is actually stated in the New Testament as to living the life of a disciple of Jesus.
It is interesting to read of some early Charismatic teachers later realizing that those churches, where the Gifts were not focused upon as much as in the Pump em Up, Whip em Up circles, actually matured believers at a rate which outstipped the movement of phenomena to which I had responded. The still small voice within finally realized that it is perverse to seek signs, rather than seeking a knowledge of the Lord himself, as reflected in the written down mind of Christ in the Gospels, and from the Apostles in the letters and Revelation.
Are we willing to let Jesus be our teacher, and us His disciples, or do we want our ministry, our appointments and anointings to be sought out and followed. A faithful disciple will mirror the image of Jesus, not Pump em Up and Whip em Up in place of that relationship. Once the following of Jesus becomes an internalied desire of the heart, there is no stopping the association with His Word, His Gospel and continuing in His word setting one free of religious and the OT Law’s obligations.
What is developed after that realization does not seek the approvals of men, or Pastors and teachers, but the mind of Christ for living. I noticed that since that so labeled “movement”, with its preoccupations with anointing, power, and the gifts, signifiant discipleship has been in the Way of the gentleness of Jesus, the devotion of Jesus’ very heart, and values which He proclaimed as the “weightier matters (or intentions) of the law”. Even those who went on with Him started calling themselves Evangelicals over time, no longer following the old preoccupations.
Andew Yoeman has written in a recent Kingdom of God article in the Voice of Revolution Magazine, routed by this mother site, a great clarification to sharing the Kingdom through the Gospel, and waiting on the Lord himself to complete the process in the new believers hearing that Word. It is refreshing that that realization–of an inability to command God’s works and manifestations–rests in the Ways and means of the Messiah’s earthly visitation.
A final comment. The fruit and gifts of the Promised Spirit given to believers in Jesus Christ permeates the devotional literature of the Churches formed over centuries…with hearts and minds centered in Jesus Christ. The dilemmas and contradictions of being human, the desires of one’s heart changing from self centeredness to waiting on the Way of Christ, with hope for others encountered in life, and the still small voice of affirmation of connection to the Head is the carion call to all who will continue with Him, want to come to know Him, and want to be His on that Day.
Typos! Clarion call to believers, if anything living for meeting based hyper experiences and behaviors, as cited, becomes a carion call over time. Living to Jesus calls in solitude to the inner man, to trust and obey Him, out of love, not for the stimuli of religious obligation.
Jabez,
I had a very similar experience when I was young in the Lord. I also realize now, a decade later, that my immaturity(not in a “bad” way, just factual) was a large part of the equation. I don’t know if it fed a cycle of dependency with leadership, or, if I was just naturally clinging to leadership because that’s what “young children” do.
I guess my question would be do you think than it is more the leadership’s responsibility to cause us to be dependent on Christ rather than themselves and their overly specific instruction…to learn the “wisdom from above” as you mentioned? This has been my thinking about it so far, any thoughts?
The thing which sent my blood-pressure through the roof was that idiotic advert. It was the sheer ignorance of it, twisting what should be a national disgrace into a “minority rights” issue.
The problem is that (if the US is anything like the UK) schools themselves are unfit for purpose, and bullying is endemic in them. It’s not just “a gay-thing”. My own decade or so attending state schools here in Britain showed me that nearly everybody gets bullied: hence the statistics given in the advert would hold true for just about all pupils bar the most vicious, who sit atop the dunghill meting out the punishment. A few others might get off relatively unscathed (because they are especially good at sport or have the “right” friends”), but are always quick to forget those who don’t.
Homosexual tendencies are merely just one in a whole array of differences, any of which will guarantee one is bullied: in my school, kids were bullied for being viewed as ugly, having few friends, being conscientious, not being sporty, wearing the “wrong” clothes, crying, having ginger hair (the ginger kids often got the worst of it, since bullying based on skin-colour was potentially risky, but redheads are widely accepted as a laughing-stock in Britain); and it only got worse as sex came into the equation (and it did increasingly, from ages eleven onwards) — you name it, if it made you different, you were in for it. (Unless you were the sort to smash your tormentors hard in the face.)
Almost everyone got humiliated at some point. Nothing was too cruel (one instance springs to mind of a lad who, through no fault of his own, had diarrhoea during a cross-country run, and was humiliated and bullied for it until he left the school). School was vile. The teachers were more worried about simply looking concerned in front of parents, rather than actually doing anything to address the problems — I think many of them were just overwhelmed by the scale of it (not that this is an excuse to let kids suffer). I wouldn’t board my dog at a state school.
It’s shocking to realise what has happened to public schooling, which was pioneered largely by churches, and governed along strict Christian lines, treating orphans and disadvantaged children as daughters and sons — complete with the understanding that “He that spareth his rod hateth his son” (something which is today rejected even by people who call themselves Christians).
But nowadays, where Christianity and godly discipline once were, we have Socialism and a sort of enlightened secular indifference. The results are teen sex, widespread bullying and the failed touchy-feely approach to tackling it — a national outrage which is brought to light only during inquests into school suicides. (The same unjust, anti-punitive Left-wing dogma has failed in tackling criminality, and allowed crime to explode in this country — and there are many highly educated liars defending that, too.)
I spent some years in teaching, and recall the first time I went to sit in on a maths lesson at the local state school. It was overseen (one really can’t say “taught”) by a young woman who had neither control over the class nor any serious sanction for misbehaviour. The kids were loud, unruly — many were bigger than she — and they clearly neither respected her nor feared the consequences of running amok. Truth be told, they needed a burly man with a scowl and a stick. But instead they had a weak, hand-wringing young lady, who could no doubt expatiate about their “needs” whilst failing totally to understand or meet them. Accordingly, boys raced in and out of the classroom, shouting and goading each other, throughout the lesson, learning precisely nothing.
After that, I was shown into the staff-room: it was like a bunker in a war-zone, and as I entered all eyes fixed suspiciously upon me, the stranger in their midst — perhaps they thought I was a school inspector about to take issue with the whole fiasco. Out of the window, within their sight, was barely restrained anarchy. But the adults remained ensconced comfortably indoors, chatting over coffee and biscuits, and regaling one other with innuendos and banter. My questions about the things I’d seen were met with knowing amusement — the teachers regarded all this as perfectly normal. In the light of which, it should be no surprise that educational standards in Britain have been sliding steadily down the toilet for several decades.
And then, some years later, I was suddenly struck by a thought… (I had a feeling something akin to that described by Colonel Kurtz at the end of Apocalypse Now: you know, the bit where he says, “And then I realized — like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead.”) Why on earth do we send our kids to such places? Really? Think about it for a moment. The average adult who had to face daily humiliation/bullying, both verbal and physical, either at a seat of higher education or place of work would simply refuse to put up with it (particularly if the wages were zero). He or she would either litigate or leave (and there would be many an advocate rushing to their cause).
…Yet adults pack their children off to school, where their youthful heads are filled with humanism, “safe sex”, evolution, the gay agenda and all the other soft-Marxist agitprop in the classroom, before being sent out for a good punching in the playground! (That’s what it’s been like for British boys, anyway.) Where’s the outcry? Normal adults wouldn’t stick that for a week — why should kids be put through that?
I’ve no doubt that when we stand before God, He will demand of us an account of why we did this to the most vulnerable in society, all in the name of “progress”. I’m damned if I’ll send a kid of mine to such a place — even if that means my family has to downsize to the freezing two-room hovel I once inhabited, and live on only rice and beans. And if the authorities object, then they’ll have to pry my children from my cold, dead arms. Our little ones are a blessing from God, not something to be disposed of. They belong at home, not farmed out in schools with a bunch of strangers.
Perhaps my greatest bone of contention is with those teachers who continue to maintain the pretence that state schools are basically good: this fiction is a betrayal of children. For years feminists and Leftist fellow-travellers peddled the lie that the traditional family unit is oppressive to women and harrowing for kids. My experience is precisely the opposite: that Western state schools, run along Socialist and feminist principles, are places of great misery for children — and often for the women who are deceived into abandoning their own kids for a career in teaching. What price “fulfillment”?
It’s also (scandalously) true that “those who can’t do, teach” — it was certainly true of many I’ve known, and indeed of me (I ended up in teaching after failing to find a worthwhile job which used my twenty-odd years of “education” — and I did a hard science degree, not one of the mickey-mouse numbers they hand out these days). Amongst my colleagues, those teachers who were truly called, or who had always wanted to teach, were the exception rather than the rule.
…And if you’re otherwise useless, simply go into the academy or the teaching profession — you’ll be safe there! In Britain at least, teachers are almost unsackable. Do you know how many British teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the last forty years? Eighteen. No, not eighteen hundred — eighteen.
The BBC recently disclosed that little gem, yet nothing’s been done about it. …Despite the fact that I could name half a dozen incompetents in my own experience (including, inter alia, the muscular 6’5″ Left-wing firebrand who swore his way through his English “lessons” and who, during a cricket match outside of school, broke a boy’s nose simply for bowling him out). No, anyone who dares to criticise teachers is hung out to dry, since teaching, like medicine, is held to be synonymous with altruism, regardless of how violent or unruly our schools are, how ill-educated their alumni, or how many pupil-teacher sex scandals break.
My own overlong schooling ended when I realised that my two decades of education were worthless (I finally saw the light after five years as a postgraduate, concluding that I really didn’t want to sit down and write a doctoral thesis that no-one would read: after much protestation from my supervisors, I just jacked it in and left — something for which I thank God, whose hand in those events I can now see clearly). Schooling has truly become a false god, and Romans 1:22 pretty much encapsulates the idolatrous attitude to learning in the West.
If Christians want to make sure their kids’ minds are tended properly, then they should see to it themselves, rather than abrogating their responsibilities: a Christian’s children should learn from his or her Christian kin, either within the home or within the church family, who are, of course, kin in Christ. Never should the minds of Christian children be entrusted to the world.
During my interminable years of state schooling, I learned nothing of use to me in the real world, save perhaps some basic mathematics, which could easily have been taught to me by my parents or learned from a book. (I’d been taught to read by my mother — thankfully, she knew this was her job, and didn’t place my literacy in the hands of the useless schooling system, which now routinely diagnoses as “dyslexia” the disastrous results of years of fashionable pedagogy.) …And the ability to solve quadratic equations is simply not worth eleven years of misery.
Dave, I wrote on the codependency factor at length on another blog. Codependency is unclarity as to where another starts and one leaves off. It is a fact of life of immaturity. Yes, I believe that the NT shows real leaders lead us to Christ and not to themselves for the reason that flesh begats flesh and the spirit the spirit. Often people that are teaching new believers to crawl up on the altar are themselves in the flesh and out of control (just check their body weight for beginners, or other forms of indulgence). A real leader will themselves go the Way of the cross of Jesus to be a signpost pointing that way, without a big salary, etc.
Phenomenologically it is interesting how the Purpose Driven Life book met the needs of so many empty pump em up dependent Charismatics and Pentecostals. Emotion is part of life, but not the substance of linkage with the Spirit of Christ.
To respond to the question on themes in my current assemblies (1. A Messianic Minyan. Primarily a contemplative prayer meeting to support the renewal of Israel, and the Gospel to Jewish believers, and attendees souls, and Building life on the Word of God. 2. An Evangelical Free Church [Sunday AMs and misc meetings during the week, e.g. an early AM weekly Men’s meeting, and later AM weekly Women’s meetings] A. Devotion to the Jesus of the NT, in various means consistent with the teachings of the Apostles, B. Discipleship using the NT, C. Counseling themes on various life challenges. D. The Men’s meeting does deal with sexuality matters and issues, though primarily presenting cultural temptations saturating our society with Pornography, where books and materials are available on this, and, yes, mention of the related homosexual matter and issue being contrary to the lifestyle of devotion to Jesus Christ.
Dr. B., You have to realize that you are on the frontline of the issue of homosexuality and combatting its cultural drift. Few really are, yet too most evangelical churches believe in outreach to any sinner or needy soul for the message of the Gospel. Usually the Evangelical churches I have connected with do not accept homosexuality, have some literature or counseling available on the subject, and on pornographic temptation, but not as a focus. Most will not permit anyone practicing sexual sin to be in any leadership position whatsoever. There is always the phenomena of those professing faith in Jesus Christ also being associated with homosexuality, and them developing a unique, errant, and separate apologetic to justify the pattern sin lifestyle. This is sad, for I have known some of these folks over the years, including one Pastor I had in my charismatic church days, who, like T. Haggart eventually had the radical contradiction become the demise of their own “ministry”. Considering what I shared above, I find it sad and misleading for many pump em up whip em up so-called “leaders” to be working in the flesh in the name of the Spirit, and how easily whole congregations can be duped as to having little discernment on such, when and where it occurs. I am leary of supposed leaders who are power focused and power centered, for I find little witness of this in the NT as being the stuff of its own kind of associated leadership as allied with the Jesus of the first century, and the Promise He and the Father sent those receiving Him. I am also disillusioned with Evangelical institutions who are enamoured with themselves, and spend a great deal of time and effort marketing themselves, including conservative Seminaries and Bible schools, where so. But it is a dilemma, how to have the funding needed to organize and do the work of the Gospel, while at the same time being faithful to the Spirit of the Word and Person of the Gospel.
Jabez,
Could you refer me to the location of the blog?
Thanks.
Putting man on a pedestal is not good. Men will fail and hurt us. God will never do that.
Dave, These comments appeared under the blog section entitlted “Are We Required to Keep the Dietary Laws”, after #260 or so. I had to look up recommending this to another here, I regret that I do not have the date. I think it was in the spring, but am uncertain.
The Purpose Driven Life, by R. Warren. And the Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard are helpful regarding balancing one type of assembly propensity with other devotions and service. (Though it is difficult for me to associate “Driven” with the Message of Christ, there are many practical applications of service within the Ekklesia discussed in that book, which was timely for the Body of Christ when it was written. If you have any doubts about R.W. what he states about who is a Child of God should put them to rest).
Let me also say that I appreciate the openness to comment here, for I feel I have something to contribute. I regret that my name then appears so often as it does in the “recent comments” lead page section of Dr. Brown’s great site. I look to a certain NT writer as a model, I guess.
Let me also say that I appreciate the openness to comment here, for I feel I have something to contribute. I regret that my name then appears so often as it does in the “recent comments” lead page section of Dr. Brown’s great site. I look to a certain NT writer as a model, I guess.
Dave: Je. 16, 2010. There are over 400 comments, so keep on looking,
P.H. I read your details with interest, where you spent so many years investing your days in academia, apparently in Europe? You seem to have removed yourself from such engagement and come away with some cynicism about it all being somehow meaningless, or, as such, against godly pursuits. My elementary children attend “public school”, in a District, roughly along County lines, in Colorado, in the USA. I do not share your totality of negative outlook, though I can be challenged as a parent regarding some of the values accepted as appropriate by the School District involved in policy making for the school.
There are challenges related to cultural values, secularism, humanism, equality myths, etc. related to our childrens’ enrollment–yet too there is some excellence of think it through learning processes for their age groups. Bullying was only a problem for our son for a year or so there, it is more a problem in our neighborhood of residency since that tough year of the past for him. It is an elected school, limiting enrollment by that election process. There is a Christian parent external to in school building prayer support group for our attending children.
I wonder from what you wrote how you maintained a Christian faith and witness where you obviously felt quite isolated, perhaps some of being personally existential, and some of it being because of a lack of fellowship in the schooling environment? Were you able to seek out fellowship in either academic or cultural setting? What did you do then that worked and did not work to maintain a relationship with Jesus, and what do you do now?
Jabez,
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I have to affirm some of what P.H. wrote. When I substitute taught in the local middle and high school, I was appalled at the lack of discipline in the classroom. I learned, however, how to maintain the environment I needed to be able to impart some instruction. I found it actually made me more popular with the students, though I wasn’t striving for popularity, because they really actually hated it when they were allowed to run amok. Children may do this when there are no clear boundaries, but they actually appreciate well-defined limits.
Some of the things I noticed: reading and writing were NOT at all up to par. Only a handful of students in each class could read well. Cheating was rampant, with most students copying others’ work (until caught) through note-passing (which is generally a cause to be sent to Detention). That it is so ubiquitous only means that disciplinary measures are not stringent enough.
The favorite insult among students was to call someone “gay”, surprisingly,despite what may have been an attitude of acceptance by parents. Any form of perceived weakness was labeled “lame” and subject to taunts. I recall spending one class trying to deal with the bullying alone, especially after one student confided that the bullied child was openly threatening suicide. I wrote a letter to his regular teacher (being a sub that day) about the need to totally stop this on his watch, since it was apparent that those particular bullies were well-practiced and had no fear of reprisal.
Growing up in the sixties, I remember when you could hear a pin drop in elementary school. By high school (late seventies), I remember being told by my literature teacher to “read anything you want and write about it” — an example of deregulating curricula. The idea in the air was that we were all becoming more open and free from a rigidly-controlled past. By the time my children were in elementary school, “chaotic” would be how I’d describe the experience of their classrooms. Attention spans became shorter and the ability to concentrate greatly compromised, and the fruit of it all is apparent now. I can see why parents are concerned about their children going to public schools — they should be! People talk about “fixing the schools” instead of abandoning them. Funding cuts are always decried. But people taught successfully with only rudimentary equipment a century earlier because rudeness and rowdiness in the classroom were not tolerated; and teachers focused on firming up the foundational subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic. I found few students in my experience who could do basic math (such as multiplication) without a calculator! When they read aloud, they could mouth words more or less correctly, but did not really understand them. It seems the schools today are more interested in creating politically-correct mindsets. This becomes fertile ground for gay activism.
The U.S. Constitution, however, creates the separation of church and state even if it is not explicitly stated in that language — because it allows for the freedom to be godless. Since so many of the framers were themselves Masonic Deists who held a universalist perspective (and some were vehemently anti-Christian) they ploughed the ground for universalism’s profusion of blooms to this day.
What to do? I’d advise parents to take much more control of their childrens’ education.
In the same school district we applied for an elected elementary school and were pleased to receive our childrens’ appointment to it on the third lottery. Their area school had signs in the hallways about what was considered discrimination, including discrimination about sexual preferences. The signs only reiterated District Policy. When I was retraining in a University in the 1990’s business texts also talked about this not being permitted in business as well, so, the cultural drift ethic on belief that sexual preference matters were publicly reinforced equality issues, or civil rights issues were already permeating the society’s normalizing references. Get into the schools and you have the minds and hearts at an early age. I also have noticed that much pacifistic assumption regarding “Nationalism” and wars is also assumed in such settings.
So, in the sense that our fellowships become boundaried and differing “other culutres” than these “norms” will naturally have the unchurched view us as deviant over time, as these attitudes become normalized from elementary forward. It seems logical then to work on the matter through legislative and court venues, rather than through public opinion venues, since these are already disproportionally propogandized by the assumptions of signs, textbooks, and teacher reinforcements. Want to be labeled a “bigot”, as has Dr. B. by the proponents of these attitudes, simply stand up for Biblical morality. Around 60 years ago the foxes began to invade the vinyards of moral and spiritual abiding in the teaching of scripture.
I predict that by the middle of the next decade, due to economic and political pressures, what will be “normalized” will truly be appalling. The price of discipleship, for confessing believers, will become increasingly difficult and burdensome. The only attitude of forbearance we then can adopt is the attitude of Jesus at Gethsenamie.
Ruth,
You wrote:
This is the truth. I’m not wanting to get off topic, but this really is essential to understanding the reality of our foundations as a country and getting Evangelical leaders in focus. I am dumbfounded by how so many Christians falsely adapt the constitution as a christian document. It IS a wonderful document…but it’s not a christian document. I don’t want our country to revert back to it’s masonic, deist roots. I want to see our country turn to God. Not “back to God” because it was never fully His. This isn’t to imply there weren’t many godly, moral men and women in the early formation of our country, because there were. But in all honesty, when lives are spent laboring every working hour just to be able to feed your family a strong, moral attitude is the only consideration if you don’t want to starve. When we are “rich and fat” we become morally compromising. We need the Lord much more than another “Christian moral right”. This alone will give us all the “right focus”, rich or poor.
Paine, Franklin, et.al., would have been pleased. By eliminating monarchy and Church authority at the outset, mankind is elevated as the supreme authority and the will of the people alone (not God’s will) be done. The echo of a man’s own mind may be his only god.
Eventually an entirely new species of secular humanists or unitarian universalists could be created in that social laboratory, through such an Experiment. But so can religions thrive, and all the evils produced by lawlessness and excess find a response in the spread of the Word of God.
And here we are.
Personally, I haven’t even heard the word “homosexuality” used in connection with “sin” anywhere else but from Dr. Brown. We are at such a level of sin in America, God only knows the extent of it, and leaders of all kinds are afraid. Afraid of political suicide if they take a stand — and for career politicians, looking to that golden plum on retirement, unpopular stands often mean no re-election. With the average person having to steel themselves for darts of disapproval from friends and their own family members if they take a Biblical stand on sexual immorality, people who must attract others to their message (such as religious or spiritual leaders) really need to possess an unwavering commitment to the gospel in order to remain standing at all.
And so it is. And few there seem to be at present. I hope the Lord will send more men who will stand..!
I have studied Jefferson and Adams over the years. Jefferson did recant anti-evangelical thinking toward the end of his days, and accept grace through faith; Adams did the opposite, and reinforced his longstanding deistitic outlook.
For Jefferson this was quite a recant, because of his obvious intellectual and scientific bent, his past support of various antifundamentalist causes, and his associations. But, looking into his actual life, his heart had to be hammered by the requirements of his dieing wife not to marry, his taking on a relationship with his slave woman, and his eventual loss of significance and wealth. Some times it takes the trials of life to hear the Spirit of God.
This is for the children which are all blessings.
Thank you to all for all your comments. How very interesting and educational. I am a single mother of 3 birth children and have had many children under my wings for various amounts of time. Most of these children found shelter under my wings because love was not to be found anywhere else.
Some of them came at supper time, some of them after school for help with homework, some needed a ride, some needed someone just to acknowledge they existed.
Over time I have become disgusted with how our gov’t treated these children. I learned children had NO rights. They are told to speak up so they can be told to shut up, they are told to speak louder so that we can hear them and then they are told it’s too loud. They are told to think and punished for thinking too hard. They are taught a life of controversy and double standards from the time they are born.
Kids then speak out in ways that adults have no control. They change the language. We all have experienced doing it ourselves as kids, just think about it. We all came up with hip new sayings, new handshakes, new ways of saying something was great, or not great. And our parents, teachers, etc… had no idea what we were really saying.
Two prime examples are;
1) ain’t- when I was a kid we were literally punished for using this word. However we still used it, made rhymes with it, loved it! Now you can find the word in the dictionary and you will not be marked down for using it in your book report.
2) gay- first it meant happy, then it meant homosexual, now it means stupid. Kids do not call each other gay saying someone is homosexual, that is reserved for the word homo or fag. Gay simply means stupid, as in the music, or the book, or the clothes mom wants me to wear, it has no sexual meaning at all anymore (except for adults and the gov’t using it). Now the trend is to call someone who is thought to be homosexual happy. They get in trouble for saying fag and homo so now they call it happy. And then a teacher congratulates them for being so nice.
Kids have also changed the rules. Yes I said the kids have changed the rules. Not the parents, not he teachers, the kids. How? By going on strike. They learned it from us adults. What do we do when we don’t get our way. Well most of us do nothing. We pout in one form or another; drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, have a cup of coffee, eat another donut, complain to someone else, the real go getters hire a lawyer and sue someone. So kids followed us. They quit minding, quit listening, quit studying, quit running, quit imagining, quit pretty much everything that they need to do. However since many are influenced to spare the rod the kids got away with it. Instead of insisting they listen we talk louder, instead of making them study and accept the consequences to not studying we lowered the standards, we said that’s okay if you can’t read we’ll just give you a special name and now it’s okay, we said it was okay to overeat we just won’t make you run, it’s okay to put yourself first, as long as it is at school. We have let them get away with everything that our grandparents died to teach us.
And now the kids are grown adults, teaching the kids what they learned.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the big lesson kids come out of average schools and churches with
today is that the truth is bad. Cover-ups are normal and okay. As a matter of fact everything will be okay as long as we just don’t care.
I understand all too well how confusing, frustrating, & lonely it is being raised myself under a complete dbl standard. In the end you get to thinking there just isn’t any love left out there, it’s all some weird conspiracy and none of this makes sense. Well that’s true to a certain extent, it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense that there is a failing economy with more many than ever before. It doesn’t make sense that we should be losing our ozone with energy available. It doesn’t make sense that we spend millions on research for cures to diseases when the cures are already available. How does starving people of any age in this country of obesity make sense? Why do we do things like send our kids to schools where they hand out free condoms and tell them it’s wrong, (illegal in some areas)? Isn’t that like giving them a straw and telling them cocaine is wrong but just in case you run into it… Why do we teach kids to do what is right and then tell them they’re wrong when they do so?
Last week I was talking to 2 lawyers explaining to them that a 7 yr. old boy had a BB gun aimed at him by his mother’s boyfriend. That the boy admitted the gun had no clip in it, however when the man pulled the trigger a BB came out and hit the boy in the back. I explained to them that no one should be pointing a gun at any one and that I was concerned. They said, “well it was just a BB gun” and shrugged their shoulders. I was appalled at the response. When I voiced my opinion they continued to tell me that “in a world where there is so much bad parenting, we can’t really enforce good parenting.”
Then one day it all made sense.
It’s because the majority of people everywhere do not have Jesus.
Because the majority denies Jesus there is no love. Without God there is nothing, nothing worth anything that is.
So thumbs up to the guy who said he’s never sending his kids to the failing public schools. (one thing to keep in mind, your kids could be spreading the good word by example if you sent them there)
Thumbs up to Ruth who noticed the children in the classroom, I find what you stated about kids wanting structure and limits quite obvious, however am constantly being told I’m wrong. I know from experience that you just “noticing” the kids will have an impact on their lives.
I think it’s an apostasy out there today. I can’t seem to find a place where I don’t feel that way. A place where people truly love. Love is our number one command from Our Father, not lust, greed, & pride. Which by the way are 3 things I find being taught to kids in public schools every day, and worse I see many being taught that at home. Especially pride, I wish everyone would just get over themselves, life’s about loving our neighbors not ourselves, and doing it all for the glory of God, not for our glory or to glorify ourselves.
If you read this whole thing then let me take you back to the beginning when I said that I was disgusted with how the gov’t treated the kids. I now know after many yrs of fighting gov’t. It’s not the gov’t. It is us to blame. Everyone of us who believe in God and don’t act on it. We must never sit down and we must not spare the rod.
We are the gov’t, we must earnestly contend.
We can spread the msg by example, and we will be persecuted, that just means we are on the right path. So let it be encouragement.