100th blog

        I've been waiting for the 100th blog in order to reminisce a little bit on why I am doing this. I'm speaking to myself tonight, as well as you. I knew that our troubles were not going to pass easily or quickly toward the end of the Presidential campaign. The economy was collapsing fast and we were going the bailout route. A President had been elected whose credentials were a state senate, a short time as a U. S. Senator, mostly spent running for President, dubious friends and associates, socialism in his blood and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank and Joe Biden to advise and work with him...and of course Hillary in the wings.
          Our adversaries were chomping at the bit. Americans had voted their pocket books with Bill Clinton in "92" and had voted their Netflix membership card in this one. If you could find a church that preached Christ, you were extraordinarily lucky. Christians participation in politics was one of isolation. They commanded a large block but were unable to persuade. Three months later and it is unbelievably worse as monumental pork/stimulus bills have mortgaged the future and Hillary Clinton is in charge of foreign policy.
         Harry Blamires had written a book that has become a Christian classic in The Christian Mind. He was lamenting the loss of such a mind. I'm lamenting the absence of the "Christian Citizen." We need to take a fundamentally different tact. When "you" approach another person with the purpose of debating an issue, you are at an immediate disadvantage. Your opponent has the luxury of calmly answering while you excitedly reel off statistics or admonitions. It is psychological in that since you have initiated the conversation, you must be the aggressor. Your opponent can show confidence instead of aggression, calmness instead of agitation.
          It is generally perceived that Sarah Palin did not do well in her interview with Katie Couric. Why is this? She should have had the advantage of calmly taking the aggressive questions and giving "food for thought" instead of trying to appease Couric. Reagan was a master. He calmly deflected antagonistic questions. When he was on the attack, it was in a forum where he was in charge, such as his speech at the Berlin Wall where he adamantly said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Dick Cheney was good in an interview, President Bush was not. A Republican Senator recently strongly inferred that the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility was settled as the voters decided the issue in the primaries. A simple response to this can be unsettling to the Senator, as it should be. We simply contact him with a short note that says something like this "Senator, we are not a nation where popular opinion decides a constitutional issue. That is something for the Supreme Court to decide. Your lack of discernment demonstrates why we need a new breed of Republicans in the Senate."
          In these posts I wanted to give a synopsis on how to dialogue with those who disagree with us. I wanted to be an example of a Christian witness in that we are not short on proclaiming our belief in God but we cannot forget that we are still sinners. Theological error does not help. Modern Evangelicalism is Arminian in that it believes that all have a choice, and they have made the choice to believe. It will say that only by God's grace can this happen but ultimately "we" made the decision and so should others. God's Word says something different. We never would have come to belief because even though we have free will, we have something else and that is a fallen nature that will dominate the free will. I spent about half of my Christian walk as an Arminian and since then as a Biblical Christian on this issue, or "Calvinist" as it is nicknamed. I know the subtle difference this makes in looking at ourselves and non-believers.
         When we speak about how America has rejected the God whose mercies alone account for our existence, we should make every effort to make it clear that we all have failed. Lastly, I wanted to show myself in two very distinct ways. The politics of America dominate much of my day, for six days of the week, for our children's future will be bleak if we do not discern the times, but it does not enter into Sunday, which is the Lord's Day. God has devised it this way and we have rejected His design. Consequently, we lack discernment in secular affairs because we are not attentive on the day that He distributes wisdom.
         I particularly want to address the topic of talking politics in one moment and God in the next. It is here that we need modification. Consequently, when the talk of politics turns to Jesus, we wind up walking away feeling anything but having expressed the love of Christ. I don't feel that way when I write on the War on Terror one day and Christianity the next. I struggled with this for a long while. Should my personality change? I tried it and it doesn't work. We have become a bit schizophrenic on this. My final determination, weak though it may be, is that we are not people of this world who leave it to go to church on one day. We are pilgrims who leave the confines of the Lord's Day for six days in Vanity Fair. I'm sure, that when a soldier leaves his base to patrol the streets of an Iraqi town, there is a sense of heightened awareness. When I give my thoughts on the War on Terror, I had better remember, as the soldier in Iraq does, that the enemy employs effective weapons, he is trained and I am on his territory.

I wrote this on Friday but could not post it or work on Saturday's and Sundays' so this is for all three days.

Compromise?

         My wife and I have gone on a Sunday walk for many years. We just started to incorporate a stop at Starbucks. Today, we were sitting next to a young women and I noticed that she was reading C. S. Lewis. I started up a conversation and she is a teacher at one of the local colleges. She brought another book out of her bag by Lewis and I eventually asked what else she had in the bag. Another book was on the Emergent Church which gave me an opportunity to bring up the magazine Modern Reformation which she has at her college library. I know because we put it there for a number of years. Modern Reformation is published by the men at The White Horse which is sort of a Christian "think tank." http://www.whitehorseinn.org/ I'm happy. She is new to the area. The flagship radio program The White Horse Inn comes on in two hours and this young women might tune in. This is just the way that I do things. I only want to be a messenger. I love conversations and can hardly think of anything more enjoyable.
         Concerning the gospel, my "method" of trying to convey it has changed over the years. I believe that it comes from a strong belief that we cannot argue people into the kingdom. The advice that I have given my son is that one does not have to "win" a debate. Winning it will not win anyone. People tend to do their real thinking on a conversation long after the fact, when personalities are not in the equation. I want to put a concept in people's minds for their later perusal. That's what I want to do with these posts. I don't see it as a forum for debate. If a person truly wants to find answers, first, the desire will come from God and second, they will put in the time.
         I'd like to bring up here a "mystery," to me anyway. I'll lay my thoughts before you and it might resonate, and it may not. It is in the formation of the "invisible church," that is all those who have been reconciled and adopted into God's family, as opposed to the "visible church" which holds all people who claim to be Christian. We agree on essentials of the Faith, on who Christ is, what He has done and how we are shown forgiveness through grace. We also disagree on many non-essential doctrines such as baptism, the Lord's Supper and worship. Now here is the "mystery" to me. Did we go off on our separate ways, or did God envision it? I have to believe that it is according to God's plan, but that does not make one's belief less wrong than another, thus the mystery. Even if one sound denomination was dominant. we would destroy the harmony in no time.
         It also has to be considered that there are degrees of error within the community. I was Pentecostal in my early years of the Faith. I believed in a Baptism of the Holy Spirit subsequent to salvation, and with speaking in tongues. Now, I believe this to be incorrect. This doctrinal mistake has various repercussions. I'll talk at length on it if necessary, but I will not elevate myself over these folks because of it. The disagreements will, remain, one side will be right. The issue has to be contested and compromising truth for harmony is not the answer.
         After all is said and done, we (both sides) go on with our own Pilgrim's Progress fully aware that the dangers that attend to us in this life demands that we see ourselves as brothers and sisters on the same path. I would not recommend that they lay down their particular beliefs (incorrect though they be) for the much worse doctrine of believing that truth is relative. The Emergent Church Movement has gone down this slippery slope of relative truth. Now let's take the Word Faith Movement, again a Christian theology but with much more compromising doctrine that can and does enter into the essentials of the faith. The debate is far more intense than paedobaptism vs adult baptism upon profession of faith.
          It is not easy to address these issues that I have brought up. The tendency, particularly in the new Christian, is to become so depressed with apparent disagreeableness that the search for truth is given up. We have to take this problem into account without, once again, compromise. So. the mystery is there for me but one thing is very clear, dedication to find God's way is a must, with humility. It's hard at times but we go on. There is no legitimate alternative, there is no other way. I am sure that there are non-essential issues that I hold now that are incorrect. If I see such, I'll (Lord willing) do what I have done in the past and that is change and go on.