Source: https://cac.org/love-god-in-what-is.....ou-2016-01-17/


The God Jesus incarnates and embodies is not a distant God that must be placated. Jesus’ God is not sitting on some throne demanding worship and throwing down thunderbolts like Zeus. Jesus never said, “Worship me”; he said, “Follow me.” He asks us to imitate him in his own journey of full incarnation. To do so, he gives us the two great commandments: 1) Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and 2) Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28-31, Luke 10:25-28). In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus shows us that our “neighbor” even includes our “enemy” (Luke 10:29-37).

So how do we love God? Most of us seem to have concluded we love God by attending church services. For some reason, we thought that made God happy. I’m not sure why. That idea probably has more to do with clergy job security! Jesus never talked about attending services, although church can be a good container to start with, and we do tend to become like the folks we hang out with. The prophets often portray God’s disdain for self-serving church services. “The sanctuary, the sanctuary, the sanctuary” is all we care about, Jeremiah shouts (7:4). “I hold my nose at your incense. What I want you to do is love the widow and the orphan,” say both Isaiah and Amos (Isaiah 1:11-17, Amos 5:21-24), as do Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Micah, and Zechariah in different ways. The prophetic message is absolutely clear, yet we went right back to loving church services instead of Reality. I believe our inability to recognize and love God in what is right in front of us has made us separate religion from our actual lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is real life.

The only way I know how to teach anyone to love God, and how I myself can love God, is to love what God loves, which is everything and everyone, including you and including me! “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “If we love one another, God remains in us, and [God’s] love is brought to perfection in us” (1 John 4:12). Then we love with an infinite love that can always flow through us. We then are able to love things in their “thisness” as John Duns Scotus says—for themselves and in themselves—and not for what they do for us. That takes both work and surrender, and the primary work is detachment from our selves—from our conditioning, our preferences, our prejudices, our knee-jerk neurological reactions. Only the contemplative and trustful mind can do that.

As our freedom from our ego expands—as we get ourselves out of the way—there is a slow but real expansion of consciousness so that we are not the central reference point anymore. We are able to love in greater and greater circles until we can finally do what Jesus did: love and forgive even our enemies. Most of us were given the impression that we had to be totally selfless, and when we couldn’t achieve that, many of us gave up altogether. One of Duns Scotus’ most helpful teachings is that we should seek “a harmony of goodness,” which means harmonizing and balancing necessary self-care with the constant expansion beyond ourselves to loving others in themselves and for themselves. Imagining and working toward this harmony keeps us from giving up on impossible and heroic ideals. Now the possibility of love is always right in front of us and always concrete; it is no longer a theory, a heroic ideal, or a mere distant goal.

https://youtu.be/ewHk_wL_cwk

If God is love, and we are created in the image of God, then the first word of our story is love. Nothing we do or think we are will ever overcome that first word.

~Spartan

Source: http://cac.org/love-is-stronger-tha.....th-2016-01-08/

I believe the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus is summed up in the climactic line from the Song of Songs (8:6) that I translate as “love is stronger than death.” If the blank white banner that the Risen Christ usually holds in Christian art should say anything, it should say: “Love will win!” Love is all that remains. Love and life are finally the same thing, and you know that for yourself once you have walked through death.

Love has you. Love is you. Love alone, and your deep need for love, recognizes love everywhere else. Remember that you already are what you are seeking. Any fear “that your lack of fidelity could cancel God’s fidelity, is absurd” (Romans 3:3), says Paul. Love has finally overcome fear, and your house is being rebuilt on a new and solid foundation. This foundation was always there, but it took us a long time to find it. “It is love alone that lasts” (1 Corinthians 13:13). All you have loved in your life and been loved by is eternal and true. Two of the primary metaphors of final salvation are Noah’s ark (Genesis 6:19) and “the Peaceable Kingdom” (Isaiah 11:6-9). Interestingly enough, both are filled with images of animals—as worth saving and as representative of paradise regained.

My fellow Franciscan friar, Father Jack Wintz, has written a theologically solid book on why we can consider all things loved, loving, and lovable as participating in eternity, including animals. [1] What made us think we were the only ones who loved and are lovable? If unconditional love, loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then my black Labrador, Venus, will surely be there long before me, along with all the dear animals in nature who care for their young at great cost to themselves and accept their fate far better than most humans.

[1] Jack Wintz, O.F.M., Will I See My Dog in Heaven? (Paraclete Press: 2009).

From one of my all time favorite people: Richard Rohr

Source:http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--Our-Foundation-Is-Love.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=8prteFDY4u4


[...] The most powerful, most needed, and most essential teaching is always about Love. Love is our foundation and love is our destiny. It is where we come from and where we're headed. As St. Paul famously says, "So faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

My hope, whenever I speak or write, is to help clear away the impediments to receiving, allowing, trusting, and participating in a foundational Love. God 's love is planted inside each of us as the Holy Spirit who, according to Jesus, "will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you" (John 14:26). Love is who you are.

All I can do is remind you of what you already know deep within your True Self and invite you to live connected to this Source. John the Evangelist writes, "God is love, and whoever remains in love, remains in God and God in him [and her]" (1 John 4:16). The Judeo-Christian creation story says that we were created in the very "image and likeness" of God--who is love (Genesis 1:26; see also Genesis 9:6). Out of the Trinity's generative, loving relationship, creation takes form, mirroring its Creator.

We have heard this phrase so often that we don't get the existential shock of what "created in the image and likeness of God" is saying about us. If we could believe it, we would save ourselves ten thousand dollars in therapy! If this is true--and I believe it is--our family of origin is divine. It is saying that we were created by a loving God to be love in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original sin. Our starting point is positive and, as it is written in the first chapter of the Bible, it is "very good" (Genesis 1:31). We do have a good place to go home. If the beginning is right, the rest is made considerably easier, because we know and can trust the clear direction of our life' s tangent.

The great illusion we must all overcome is the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). The Bible calls this state of separateness "sin." God's job description is to draw us back into this primal and intimate relationship. "My dear people, we are already children of God; what we will be in the future has not yet been fully revealed, and all I do know is that we shall be like God" (1 John 3:2).

Source: http://bronlea.com/2013/08/06/one-l.....ed-my-prayers/


I got that lead-balloon feeling on Sunday when our pastor pointed out all the things Paul didn’t pray for in his letters: people with cancer, busy schedules, promotions at work, successful ventures, hard pressed finances, strained relationships…. Not that those things don’t matter, or that we shouldn’t pray for them, or that God doesn’t care about the minutiae of our lives, but they weren’t on the apostles regular prayer card.

It raised the old question for me again: why do I always find my prayer list filled with immediate needs, when I know that matters like the Kingdom come, His will be done, missions, justice, global worship etc are weightier and worthy of prayer? Why is it that when I do sit down to pray (and my struggles with that are lengthy and complex) I pray for the “light and momentary afflictions”, and so seldom for the eternal things?

I don’t have an answer for that, but this weekend I found one little word which is helping me close the gap between the daily-needs-prayer and the weightier-matters-prayer.

Here it is: instead of praying “God, make it better”, I need to pray “God, make it count.”

God, my friend is dying. Don’t just make it better, make it COUNT. If she can be better, let it be so, but don’t let this suffering have been wasted. Work it for good. Please show up and show your grace. Make it count.

God, I’m so busy and so tired. I so badly want to pray “make it better! Make it stop!”, but I’m going to pray “make it count, please,” instead. Let me learn grace under fire. Let me learn to say no to the bad and even the good so that there is time enough to say yes to the best. Show your strength in my weakness. Make it count.

God, thanks for a lovely, sweet season in my marriage. Rather than saying “thanks, keep it up, make it better”, please Father, make it count. Help us to be thankful and still work hard at our marriage, not leaving prayer for the tough times alone. Let this good season count.

God, money is tight for so many dear ones. Everything in me wants to ask for more, to make it better. But please Lord, make these tight days count. Teach us to be wise stewards, teach us to give generously now while we feel hard pressed, teach us to pray for daily bread, and to learn the secret of contentment whether we have plenty or little. Make these days of economic hardship count.

God, I’m at my wits end with my kids. They won’t eat, sleep, poop or obey as I’d hoped they would. I want it to be better, please Lord… I know you can make it better, but instead I will pray “make it count”. Help me to be patient with my slow to learn kids, as you are patient with slow to learn me. Help me to show love to them in their immaturity, as you show love to me in mine. Lord, make these trials in parenting count: let them teach me and my children what YOU are like as a parent. Make these long days of relentless loving discipline count.

God, now that I think about it, please don’t just make it better. Not if it doesn’t count.

Please make it count, so that these light and momentary afflictions do the work of preparing us for a weight of glory that outweighs then all.

God, this is my life: in all it’s gritty, knotted and messy glory.

These are my loved ones.

These are my tears.

Please, please, please… Make it count.

My favorite Christmas song:

https://youtu.be/bK8xB1opuQ8

~Spartan

"... The Eucharist raises profound questions that a church must ask itself. If our church was taken away- from our city, put neighborhood, our region- who would protest?

Only the people who are members?

Only those who are a part of it?

Only those who attend its services?

Single mothers?

Refugees?

Atheists?

Because the Eucharist, after all, is a meal.

We saw Isaiah's declaration that Egypt, Assyria, and Israel would worship together.

Egypt? The enemy?

Assyria? The hated?

If the prophet were to speak to us today, painting pictures of what it will look like when Jesus comes to town, what would he give us?

Who are our enemies today? What would be the modern equivalent of this?

Taliban, my son?

Al Qaeda, my beloved?

The Eucharist is about the church setting the table for the whole world.

The Eucharist is about the new humanity.

The Eucharist is about God's dream for the world.

The problem isn't that our buildings are too big and too expensive. Ezekiel spoke of God's dream of a temple that the whole world could worship in. The problem is that our buildings aren't big enough. Bricks and stone and glass and sound systems aren't expansive enough for all that God wants to do in our world..."

- Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell

I went to a new church today and thought I'd share some of the experience (more later).

You'll have to go to our website to view this video.

The promise of Jesus' birth is just as subversive, powerful, and filled with hope today as it was thousands of years ago.

Seven perspectives. One Way.

~Spartan

http://www.openarmslgbtcc.com/blog/.....ay-in-a-manger

https://youtu.be/nRw_lwKUCMw

Most of the time we tend to think of life as a neutral kind of thing, I suppose. We are born into it one fine day, given life, and in itself life is neither good nor bad except as we make it so by the way that we live it. We make a full life for ourselves or an empty life, but no matter what we make of it, the common view is that life itself, whatever life is, does not care one way or another any more that the ocean cares whether we swim in it or drown in it. In honesty one has to admit that a great deal or the evidence supports such a view. But rightly or wrongly, the Christian faith flatly contradicts it. To say the God is spirit is to say that life does care, that the life-giving power that life itself comes from is not indifferent as to whether we sink or swim. It wants us to swim. It is to say that whether you call this life-giving power the Spirit of God or Reality or the Life Force or anything else, its most basic characteristic is that it wishes us well and is at work toward that end.

Heaven knows terrible things happen to people in this world. The good die young, and the wicked prosper, and in any one town, anywhere, there is grief enough to freeze the blood. But from deep within whatever the hidden spring is that life wells up from, there wells up into our lives, even at their darkest and maybe especially then, a power to heal, to breathe new life into us. And in this regard, I think, every man is a mystic because every man at one time or another experiences in the thick of his joy or his pain the power out of the depths of his life to bless him. I do not believe that it matters greatly what name you calls this power- the Spirit of God is only one of its names- but what I think does matter, vastly, is that we open ourselves to receive it; that we address it and let ourselves be addressed by it; that we move in the direction that it seeks to move us, the direction of the fuller communion with itself and with one another. Indeed, I believe that for our sakes this Spirit beneath our spirits will make Christs of us before we are done, or, for our sakes, it will destroy us.

-The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kimber.....homosexuality/

The other day Franklin Graham, in a self-righteous, power-coveting, ignorance-laced, fear-inducing rant on Facebook garnered over 147,000 likes, 58,000 shares and 18,000 comments by with a post about the sin of homosexuality.

And after much soul searching, prayer and study I’ve decided it’s time for me to tell the truth about the sin of homosexuality.

Now hang on, I’m not saying what you may think I’m saying or what the Franklin Fundiepants might hope I’d be saying.

Not even close.

The sin of homosexuality is being in the closet.

The sin of homosexuality is others expecting us to remain in the closet.

Furthermore – those who fear, loath, reject and shun LGBT children of God are actively participating in sin. Those who insist that I deny a core aspect of how God created me (or try to teach me to loathe myself), are actively participating in sin. And most importantly, those who deny me a seat at God’s table, are actively, egregiously participating in sin.

Let me explain.

As it turns out, there’s no such thing as sins – a list of what not to touch, what not to eat, what not to do and who not to love.

No – there is only sin, which is being in a state of separation from others, self and God.

Over half a century ago Christian theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich wrote and preached a sermon called You Are Accepted.

Let’s dive right in…

“Do we realize that sin does not mean an immoral act, that “sin” should never be used in the plural, and that not our sins, but rather our sin is the great, all-pervading problem of our life? Do we still know that it is arrogant and erroneous to divide men by calling some “sinners” and others “righteous”? For by way of such a division, we can usually discover that we ourselves do not quite belong to the “sinner,” since we have avoided heavy sins, have made some progress in the control of this or that sin, and have been even even humble enough not to call ourselves righteous…

…this kind of thinking and feeling about sin is far removed from what the great religious tradition, both within and outside the Bible, has meant when it speaks of sin…

…sin is separation. To be in a state of sin is to be in the state of separation. And separation is threefold: there is separation among individual lives, separation of a man from himself, and separation of all men from the Ground of Being.” Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations

When I was in the closet, I was separated from others (mamma, daddy, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jimmy, friends and my community), I was separated from myself (with guilt, disgust and seeping self-loathing) and separated from God (who sure as hell couldn’t love me in the state I was in).

But there is good news. Coming out is holy!

“…separation among individual lives…” begins to dissolve when we come out to, bring our whole, true selves, to others.

Some folks will accept us, some will reject us. Eventually, I got my mamma back, but my Uncle Jimmy chooses to remain in a state of separation. The key is that we are honestly, fully giving ourselves in a way that separates no part of our truth.

“…separation of self from self…” ends when we come out to and learn to love ourselves.

Over time and with years of soul-searching, prayer and study I have not only been reconciled with myself, I have learned to love the body, mind and spirit I have been given in this lifetime.

“…and separation from the Ground of Being” is replaced with grace when we love God with our whole hearts, minds and souls, and our neighbors and ourselves.

Coming out has been a long, ongoing, daily process. It involves an iterative acceptance of who God created me to be, saying to those I love and to the world around me, “here I am, just as God created me, how can I help?” Both of these moves have, for me, been grounded in a palpable love for God and finally an acceptance of God’s unparalleled grace.

But really, I can’t say it better than Tillich, so let us return to his sermon. I pray that you can hear it. Really hear it.

“He who is able to love himself is able to love others also; he who has learned to overcome self-contempt has overcome contempt for others. But the depth of our separation lies in just the fact that we are not capable of a great and merciful divine love toward ourselves…In our tendency to abuse and destroy others, there is an open or hidden tendency to abuse and to destroy ourselves. Cruelty to others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.”Thus, the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence.”

He later goes on to say:

“Grace is just as difficult to describe as sin…In grace something is overcome; grace occurs “in spite of” something; grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement. Grace is the reunion of life with life, the reconciliation of the self with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace transforms fate into meaningful destiny; it changes guilt into confidence and courage.”

Hang in there, here’s the crux of the matter…

“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”

If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.”



So let’s recap -

Sin is a state of separation from others, self and God. Thus, hiding from others, ourselves and God in the dark and lonely closet that denies a beautiful and blessed aspect of our sacred worth, is sin.

Coming out is grace.

Coming out is holy.

My ardent prayer is that you can accept yourself, that you can present your whole self to others, that they will embrace you with love and in so doing, with and through others, you will experience the amazing grace of God as you present your whole self to the Ground of Being.

You are accepted.
——

PS - Speaking of Franklin Graham…legalistic, power-hungry religious elite in collusion with the political state whipping the masses into a fear-based, murderous frenzy…where have I heard that story before? What could possibly go wrong?

This made me smile. Huzzah for breaking gender stereotypes!


https://youtu.be/TULVRlpsNWo

https://youtu.be/lcI8VP1kAp8

https://youtu.be/Wc7wEfL6aSI

Yesterday marked the 5th anniversary of this group's creation!

It's been quite the journey. Wes and I created this group in a hotel on the way back from MFM. We knew what we wanted to do, but we had no idea how successful this adventure would be. From the bottom of our hearts we thank everyone who has taken the time talk with us, ask us question, and leave positive comments. Never underestimate how much that helps keep us going.

To celebrate, I'm thinking we should give away some bumper stickers. Here's what they look like: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/5868378/

If you would like one just shoot us a note with your shipping info.

There may be some different stickers around here somewhere. If so I'll post about them later today.

Since we missed the perfect opportunity on a Tuesday, let's open up for some questions! We'll call it "What Do You Want To Know?" Wednesday.

Just leave your questions below and we'll try to answer them.

Thanks again so very much!

~Spartan and Wes

7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. [Genesis 2:7]


Have you ever felt disconnected from God? Like He's a million miles away? You go through the motions of prayer and worship, but it feels so hollow and empty because you don't even know where God is. We are constantly building churches, synagogues, and mosques to try to make Holy ground where we can find God.

In Genesis 2, the writer tells us that God takes ordinary dirt and shapes it and then breathes life into it to create man. It is the very breath of God that gives us life. When we are born we have to breathe and when we can breathe no longer we die and return to the dirt.

Dirt.

Breath.

Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths and feel the breath and spirit of God inside you.

We are these holy dirt-clods, made in the image of The Creator, who are filled with life because God is close enough to give us breath. You are a sacred creation and God's breath flows through you and the person next to you.

We try so hard to find God sometimes. We build churches, temples, and mosques trying to set aside holy ground for God. When you leave here I want you to remember that you don't have to go looking for God on holy ground because YOU are Holy ground.

~Spartan

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/former.....trine-of-hell/


The violence we’re seeing at the hands of ISIS is disgustingly barbaric. If mass beheadings, taking people into slavery, and throwing gay people off the tops of buildings wasn’t enough, they’ve now of course taken to burning people alive. First, it was a single pilot, but now they are parading 17 Kurds in cages with the promise that they’ll be burned alive too.

Burning people alive isn’t anything new, and certainly isn’t unique to ISIS– as Christians we have a long history with this practice as well. Many of the early Anabaptists faced this same fate for the “sin” of baptizing adults, as well as people who had the crazy idea that the Bible should be translated into common language for everyone to read for themselves. Heck, even Calvinism was founded by someone (John Calvin) who had a theological enemy burned alive for disagreeing with his theology (okay, in fairness to Calvin, he tried to do him a favor and get him beheaded instead).

Nonetheless, it’s 2015. Civilized culture has grown beyond the days of burning people alive, recognizing the practice as something that is completely offensive to any rational person. And, not just offensive- we consider it morally repulsive to the degree that many Christians want the perpetrators wiped off the face of the earth.

I must say, those instincts are correct– torturing people by burning them alive is morally repulsive. And so, we pray to God that he would intervene on behalf of these people who are suffering such unimaginable barbarism.

But here’s the irony of it all: while we find burning people alive morally repulsive when ISIS does it, most Christians seem to have no moral qualms about believing in a God they think will do precisely that. In fact, the traditional doctrine on hell paints God in a far worse light than ISIS– instead of just burning people to kill them, this doctrine believes that the people will never die– but will be tortured by the pain of the flames for all eternity. And somehow, they believe God will pronounce this as being good.

The doctrine of “eternal, conscious torment” can get even sicker depending how far one wants to take it: instead of people like Hitler being eternally tortured ISIS style, many would believe that folks like indigenous tribes living in the jungle who have never met a missionary or seen a Bible will all be tortured in the flames too. In fact, some areas of Christianity, such as extreme Calvinism, actually believe that God created most of humanity for the express purpose of torturing them in flames and that they have no right to complain or object– because God has every right to create things for whatever purpose he has in mind, including ISIS style torture.

I’d hope that if we could all detach from our individual Christian tradition for a moment and step back, we’d be able to see that this is actually sick.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that we were all created in the image and likeness of God, and that God has planted in our hearts a sense of justice and morality. When we see hostages paraded in orange jump suits, caged up and about to be tortured, we feel moral outrage– and I believe this moral outrage comes from the spirit of God within us, reminding our consciences that it’s never okay to torture a fellow image bearer.

That same moral outrage at images of hostages about to be burned alive (such as the image above) should also cause us to pause for a moment and rethink what we actually believe about God and his character. Is God perfectly moral in all his ways? Is God altogether good? Is he altogether lovely? Does God look exactly like Jesus– the one who said “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”?

If God is– and I believe he is– this alone should cause us to be willing to rethink and reexamine the traditional doctrine on hell as “eternal, conscious torment.” Because if we don’t, we’re saying that burning people to torture them is sick and twisted when ISIS does it, but that it’s good and wonderful when God does it.

I’m tired of the canned statements designed to stifle actually using the hearts and minds God planted inside of us.

“But you don’t understand God’s justice.”

“You have no right to question God.”

“Being tortured is what we all deserve.”

“What is moral for God is different than what is moral for us.”

And you know what, I call BS on all of it.

It’s time to question. It’s time to rethink.

Is it possible that our views on hell have been more shaped by medieval barbarians who practically burned their enemies for the sport of it than the actual words of Scripture and the nature and character of Jesus?

Is it possible that we have taken these concepts given to us by people who enjoyed burning their enemies and then read them into the pages of scripture?

Is it possible that God is actually Jesus on the cross dying for his enemies and not an ISIS terrorist torturing his enemies?

I believe a solid case can be made from scripture that hell as a place where God eternally tortures people because they grew up in a jungle without Christian missionaries, is actually unbiblical (you can find the archive of my hell articles, here). But even before we get to the biblical arguments, our moral outrage at ISIS burning people alive presents a completely good and valid reason to begin questioning and rethinking this doctrine. God gave us a conscience that bears witness to his– let’s use it.

Because I am convinced that if we rethink, reexamine, and attempt to rediscover, we might just see that God is not like an ISIS terrorist burning his enemies– but God is actually Jesus on the cross dying for his.

Today we remember the 14th anniversary of the terrible terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Today we pray for the families of the almost 3,000 Americans who lost loved ones on that day.

But today, let us also remember in our prayers the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed in the last decade and a half of war.

Let us pray for the combatants on both sides who have been maimed or wounded. Pray for the families who have had their lives forever changed.

Most importantly, let us pray for peace. Pray for the cycle of violence to end. Pray for the healing of hearts and minds. Pray that we learn to love our fellow man.

Pray that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

~Spartan

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a little something with you before I go to work.

Are you familiar with the story of Jesus changing Simon's name to Peter? If not, it goes something like this:

18 And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” (MATTHEW 16:18-19)

If you're like me you've probably heard this story so many times that you're ready to skim over it and move on to whatever comes next. However, there is something really beautiful going on here that we've missed in the translation over time. In the original language of the New Testament (Greek) the word for Peter is "petra," which we usually translate to mean "rock." But that's not really correct. You see there's a deep cultural context behind that word that changes the story. "Petra" actually translates as the word "stone" and is translated that way in almost every other usage in the New Testament.

Rock...stone... what's the difference?

In ancient Hebrew culture "stone" is something that is indefatigable, incorruptible, perfect. The modern equivalent would be like saying that Simon is "gold" or "diamond."

Now look at verse 19. Are you seeing things differently? Simon is stone and Simon will not be overcome. There's also a deep cultural meaning to being given the "keys of the kingdom" and "binding and loosing," but that's a journal for another time.

So what can we take from this? By our view, Peter was anything but incorruptible and perfect. Peter would deny Jesus 3 times, and doubt while walking on water. Peter was also what we would call an "insurgent" in that he was for armed revolt against the rule of Rome. Peter was anything but perfect.

Let me tell you a secret. YOU are stone. No matter what you've done or who you think you are, you are stone. God sees you as perfect, God believes in you, God seeks you out and forgives you because you have always been stone. Nothing you can do will ever change that. Doesn't matter if you're gay, what name you call God, or even if you don't believe in God.

You. Are. Stone.

And for me, one of the greatest joys of Christianity is realizing what you already are and what you have the potential to become, but that is also a journal for another day.

So may you, my brothers and sisters, realize who and what you are. May the love of God warm your heart and may the love of Jesus carry you through the times when you feel like anything but stone. Be blessed and be a blessing.

With all my love,
Spartan

Gun violence is a touchy subject and I admit this will probably upset some of you, but when has that ever stopped me? As always, I try to share my heart and what I've come to believe as I've grown over the years.

Source: http://johnpavlovitz.com/2015/08/27.....heart-problem/




“This isn’t about guns at all. People who want to be violent will always be violent. This isn’t a gun problem, it’s a heart problem.”

Just stop it all already.

You and I both know that’s a lie.

We both know you’re not being completely honest here.

Yes, we all have heart problems but here’s the thing:

People with heart problems don’t mow down dozens of soft-faced first graders with a handful of rocks.

People with heart problems don’t often ravage movie theater goers with a bag of bricks.

People with heart problems aren’t purposefully murdering scores of strangers and co-workers and ex-lovers every single day with sticks and shards of glass.

People with heart problems aren’t ripping holes through other’s bodies on live TV with baseball bats they bought from Wal-Mart.

When people’s heart problems cause them to snap and to do the unthinkable in a moment of grief or rage or paranoia, they don’t usually reach for a broken bottle or a hammer or even a car.

That’s because bullets are a far more accessible and successful method of brutality—and people with heart problems know it.

You know it. I know it. So let’s stop kidding ourselves.

As a pastor, I live every day in close proximity to the human heart.
I make it my life’s work to set up residence there and to try and bring healing and restoration.
I know the kind of hatred we all can cultivate.
I understand the vile darkness we all nurture.
I get that all people are equally capable of really terrible things.

But when people want to do terrible things, guns make it almost effortless to do those terrible things and to do them more quickly, violently, irrevocably, and to many more people than they otherwise could—and that’s a problem.

Guns magnify the horror of the human heart. They explode the evil we harbor there. They conveniently multiply the carnage.

So no, this is not a heart problem. It’s a gun problem.

Because if as you say it’s all about the heart, then let’s not screen people getting on planes anymore. Let’s let everyone carry anything they’d like onboard, because terrorists just have heart problems and they’ll always find a way to bring aircraft down.

Let’s allow our teenagers to go to school with any kinds of weapons and drugs and pornography, because the destructive stuff they do to themselves and others is really all about heart problems, and they’ll find a way to engage in all that stuff even if we ban it.

And if up until now, you’ve been crusading to outlaw abortion, I imagine you’ll agree that those women really just have heart problems and they’ll find a way to terminate pregnancies anyway, and you will be silent.

That’s not how life works. It’s now we function as a civilized society. That’s not how we protect ourselves from damage, or others from themselves, or the vulnerable from the violent, or anyone from anything we see as a threat to the population.

Regardless of the dangers in the world, we never attempt to legislate the human heart but we do legislate to protect others from when those hearts fail and become toxic.

You know, the more I think about it; the fact that you choose to say over and over again that this is all just a heart problem—that’s the real heart problem here.

To witness the daily, bloody, deadly atrocities our nation is enduring and to willfully ignore the very instrument of all of it, shows a coldness and lack of compassion that simply staggers and frightens me.

Unless you’re willing to offer a foolproof, immediate, measurable, sustainable plan for fully fixing all of our heart problems and you’re ready to start implementing it today, I’m going to have to assume that you simply value guns more than you value the dozens of lives they take every single day, and will take on this one.

If you’ll fight more passionately for your own right to protect yourself from an imagined bogey man you’ll very likely never face, than for those innocent souls who will most surely die if we don’t change our national response to gun violence, then I’m gravely concerned for your heart too.

I’m worried about the collective heart of America.

As for my heart, it is breaking again.

Source: http://www.biblestudyandthechristia.....what-the-hell/


By Matthew Ryan Hauge, Ph.D.

Hell has always occupied a special place in my heart.

As a child growing up amidst American Evangelicalism, the prospect of eternal fiery damnation haunted my early Christian experience.

The horrors of this metaphysical reality was truly disabling. I suffered from salvific insecurity that fueled an altar-call addiction that lasted for well over a decade.

I cannot remember how many times I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I cannot remember how many times I said that prayer or in how many different ways. Did I use the right words? Did I say them in the correct sequence? Did I remember to say “in Jesus’ name”?

My fear of hell drove me to a state of religious insanity. I went through the same ritual over and over again, but could not escape this prison of perpetual fear of the unknown.

This prison of fear was further perpetuated by popular Christian practices, such as the “hell house.”

In the documentary film, Hell House, George Ratliff captured the production of a Christian haunted house (i.e., “hell house”) sponsored each Halloween by Trinity Assembly of God Church in Dallas, Texas.

The film documents the emergence of this American phenomenon, which began in 1990 and has since spread to hundreds of churches worldwide.

Thousands of guests each year are escorted by tour guides, dressed as demons, through a series of grisly scenes depicting school massacres, date rape, A.I.D.S. related deaths, fatal drunk driving accidents, and botched abortions.

After their death, the sinners are dragged away by demons to the eternal torments of hell.

The final room of the house depicts heaven and the rewards for those who are righteous; the participants are then given the chance to meet with counselors to repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.

Despite the popularity of this modern American Christian practice, there is only one biblical tradition that even remotely resembles the narrative of the “hell house” – the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.

That story was the subject of our previous post in the Afterlife blog series – Do Christians Belong in Hades? In that story the only “grisly scene” that is depicted is one of excessive wealth and abject poverty. After they die, both men transition to the classical Greek abode of all the dead – hades – and the poor man is comforted and the rich man is tormented.

The fact that the socio-economic condition of the two men determined their fate after they died deeply troubled a segment of our readership. I understand. It deeply troubles me as well. That’s the point.

Unbeknownst to Trinity Assembly of God, their “hell house” is participating in an ancient literary tradition that made use of postmortem visions for the purpose of social commentary.

The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is one of these visions.

The purpose of this type of story is not to make definitive claims about life after death. The purpose of this type of story is to inform the manner in which we live. The purpose of this type of story in the Gospel of Luke is to narrativize the discursive claim of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to
the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19 [NRSV]).

Sadly, the modern “hell house” fails to recognize that Jesus proclaimed “good news to the poor.” Sadly, the modern “hell house” fails to recognize that the only biblical story that remotely resembles their practice is the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus and that story is exclusively concerned with socio-economic constructs.

In other words, if they wanted to be faithful to the biblical presentation of the postmortem consequences of our lifestyle, they would need only one scene.

A scene in which a rich man, clothed, sheltered, and well fed is juxtaposed with a poor man, naked, exposed, and starving.

However, this scene would not be intended to instill fear, which is clearly a motivating factor of the “hell house.” The purpose of this scene would be to instill change. The age of the “good news to the poor” has begun, but we have to choose to embrace and embody that “good news.”

It might seem obvious to some, but postmortem visions do not possess any meaning for those that are already dead. They are dead.

Postmortem visions are meaningful for the living. These visions are meaningful insofar as we consider the consequences of the manner in which live.

Despite the modern American Christian preoccupation with the torments of hell, the Bible rarely treats the punishment of the wicked dead. And when it does, we do not care for the message.

The purpose of the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is to inspire us to re-imagine the world in such a way that “rich” and “poor” no longer exist. As long as there is excess and there is need – side by side – we as Christians have work to do to bring about the world as it ought to be – to fulfill the mission of the “good news to the poor.”

Let’s get to work. Not because we have to, but because we get to.




https://youtu.be/wjLlLPZderk

Source: http://www.advocate.com/boy-scouts-.....-adults-lifted


As widely expected, the Boy Scouts of America made it official today, lifting the blanket ban on gay and bisexual adults serving as volunteers and employees.

The BSA’s national executive board today ratified a resolution, which had received unanimous support from its executive committee July 10, to end the ban, the group’s president, Robert Gates, announced in a video (watch below) this afternoon. The resolution, which goes into effect immediately, passed with 79 percent support, according to a BSA statement.

“As I said during our national annual meeting in May, due to the social, political, and legal changes taking place in our country and in our movement, I did not believe the adult leadership policy could be sustained,” said Gates, who, as secretary of Defense, oversaw the end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Maintaining the ban, he said, would have resulted in numerous lawsuits at great cost to the organization, and lifting it will allow the BSA to continue focusing on its core mission.

This means the organization will no longer discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or require local troops and councils to do so, but the local groups may still set their own policies for employees and volunteer leaders — meaning, for instance, that a Scout troop sponsored by a conservative church could refuse to let gay people serve. About 70 percent of troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations, many of them with antigay beliefs.

LGBT groups praised the move generally but objected to the religious exemption. “Today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults to work and volunteer is a welcome step toward erasing a stain on this important organization,” said a statement issued by Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin. “But including an exemption for troops sponsored by religious organizations undermines and diminishes the historic nature of today’s decision. Discrimination should have no place in the Boy Scouts, period.”

Zach Wahls, the son of two mothers who is executive director of Scouts for Equality, told The Washington Post it’s “disconcerting” that many faith-based groups will continue to discriminate against gay adults. “Scouting is a place to hone important life skills and a moral compass,” he said. “And that should not be sullied by discrimination, I think that’s really self-evident.”

Attorney Evan Wolfson noted that the vote shows much has changed since he argued the case of gay Scouting leader James Dale, in which the Supreme Court 15 years ago upheld the BSA’s ban on openly gay youth and adults alike. But more must be done, he told BuzzFeed. “I hope that Boy Scouts will finish the job as soon as possible in order to be attractive to parents and young people who only want to participate in an organization that lives up to its own values of respecting all people,” he said.

The BSA’s executive board lifted the ban on gay youth members in a 2013 vote, with the policy going into effect at the beginning of 2014.

Hey everyone,

I'm a few hours behind on TMI Tuesday, but who cares?

Haven't done one of these in a while.

~Spartan

Hey everyone,

There's a story floating around about a man suing Bible publishers over offensive scripture and I'd like to address it.

The story goes something like this:

Barack Obama and the Supreme Court are to blame for suits like this that are occurring all over the country.

A gay man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, claiming that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him great emotional distress.

Daily Headlines reported that Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

This story is complete bullshit. These events happened in 2008 which, for those who count, is seven years before the landmark SCOTUS ruling and even before President Obama was elected to the White House.

The man's laughable case was appropriately, and immediately, thrown out. So no, the Bible isn't under attack, and even if this case was taking place in present day it would be is idiotic now as it was then.

Source: http://m.snopes.com/gay-bible-lawsuit/

~Spartan