do we think…

do we really think that the God of the scriptures is happy with us incessantly quoting verbatim passages from the biblical texts like robotic machines set aside for exclusive parrot-fashion like recitational function?

would this not expose God as a dictatorial despot not at all interested in humanity expressing themselves creatively and honestly or with any of the faculties he himself created in us?

what kind of leader would want such response?  surely the pattern in the gospel texts of the life of Jesus the Christ reveals the opposite?

and did not Jesus himself say that the legalistic nature of the preceding Mosaic law was surpassed by the freedom and creativity of  the vibrant indwelling spirit of the living God?

surely the fact that there is no record of Jesus ever sitting the apostles down to take down textual dictations of memes, quotations, systematic methodologies, legislation and liturgical processes is testament to something quite opposite to what we have evolved into in the ‘church’ of today?

should we not be fearing that we have become even more legalistic than the religious leaders of Christ’s day?… having twisted the message of grace and freedom into a deeper bondage to human power and coercion?

a friend wrote this plea…

A friend wrote this plea under the heading: “New Covenant Grace”

Generation after generation of Christians who have grown up in “churches” have been given no other option as to throw their money into the offering plates that are passed around every Sunday morning. They have not been allowed to mature in the area of giving because they are never given the freedom of deciding WHERE they want to give. They can be led by the Spirit in almost every other area of their Christian walk, but not when it comes to WHERE to give. Only ordained people who are employed by the church system is allowed to decide where the funds are to be appropriated.

Seems like control, manipulation and abuse is still rife, even in places where they claim to preach grace…

To which I replied:

… on your posting on “New Covenant Grace” … perhaps church leadership is promoting a system of elite political leverage in the guise of extending the Kingdom of God?  I am not saying that all church leaders today are consciously and intentionally guilty of this but I am suggesting that it is rife and mainly because it is too costly for them to even think about challenging it.  Another reason is that in our present education system we don’t teach people how to think, we teach them what to think, and we in church ministry come through that very same system.  As a consequence we too discourage individual thought and most forms of dialogue.  Questioning is seen as dissension, even rebellion.  We do this under the banner of unity and not wanting disharmony to develop and cause the ‘weaker’ brethren to stumble.  We end up (perhaps unwittingly mostly) instructing the people to listen to us and to follow our teaching rather than to rely on the inner voice of the Holy Spirit (over 40,000 independent denominational groups globally all under the banner of one Lord and biblical text is glaring testimony to this).

Those who are in church leadership cannot afford to have them respond with questions or think critically for themselves in any significant way possibly because they surely would soon begin to see that the kings robes are invisible – even non existent and the position of power and privilege will soon cease.
In the scriptures we are challenged to not conform to the patterns of this world yet the church system as we know it now is essentially a political, power-based, money driven, consumer focused business model that serves the executive shareholders and not the stakeholders.

Interestingly there is nothing of this type of model even suggested in the NT texts. if anything the exact opposite is demonstrated.  The example Jesus himself left is diametrically opposite to the present corporate business model used in the church.

It serves the leadership to persuade the masses that their primary act of spiritual worship is to attend meetings passively but regularly and to faithfully financially support the exploits and lifestyles of the executive members who are after all, the anointed of God above them.  They are led to believe that this is their highest form of service to the Kingdom.  Those who do rise up through the ranks are usually hand picked according to the criterion of obedience and submission to the present leadership and the doctrine they preach.

I have experienced for myself the tremendously alluring privilege and power that ‘full time’ executive ministry extends to the privileged in the system… I have also seen how easy it is to justify this status quo… and like the rich man who came to Jesus with all his spiritual credentials on display, but left sad and humbled, we would rather slip away silently and follow him no more in the ways he himself walked because we have great worldly wealth and what he seems to actually require of us would threaten our stature with regard to this.  Sadly the people have learned well and seem to willingly accept this situation and like in the days of Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai they call out for a king,  a ‘Vicar’ to stand before them, to hear from God for them and to mediate between them and God.  This is in direct contradiction of what Christ and the apostles taught.
However, on a more specific point, the collection in the early church was for the poor and disenfranchised, the widows and orphans … for those who in some way were disinherited and persecuted because of their new found faith as it was seen to cut against their traditional cultures so severely. The collection of provision specifically to this end was placed at the feet of the apostles so that they could oversee the righteous distribution thereof.  It was never intended to support and sustain the privileged life of the clergy.  This  essentially kicked in as an established tradition when Christianity became the State religion during the Roman era under the rule of the Emperor Constantine.

Yes, a labourer is worthy of his wage but there was never any obligation to pay those who preached the gospel.  Paul’s personal dilemma’s is clear testimony to this.  The support and sustenance of those who embarked on an exclusive quest to proclaim the gospel   has always been according to an act of free-willed, self-determined generosity appraised and expressed individually by the giver and offered to those who served the extension of the Kingdom in this way.

A wage is an obligation.

Grace has no place for obligation.

We all embrace the concept of grace.  As church leaders and preachers we proclaim it passionately …

… but we all proclaim grace according to how we interpret it

…and we interpret it according to how it serves us best.

But we don’t have to do it this way… we can do it otherwise…

But if we do we will need to have great courage.

just thinking …

Lazarus – a metaphor?

 

thinking:  Ishmael

the brother of the promise …

 

Hagar wept

 

I simply can’t get it out of my mind …

 

“I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.

They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd”

 

he was the background brother of those two women whom Jesus loved

 

who loved him

from different sides

in different ways

 

who both ‘waited’ on him

 

one in love and grace, the other in law and servitude

 

two distinct covenants represented?

 

or three?

 

and then there were the masses

and the professional mourners

and the devastated believers

 

Jesus wept

 

and what if Ishmael were to be raised?

 

the outcast

cast in …. again

 

the masses mocked and scorned

as did the religious rulers

… they even tried to kill Lazarus

… because he drew too much attention to the Christ

to the unmerited grace of the Christ

the overwhelming kindness of God

would we rejoice?

 

or would we mock?

maybe

 

 

maybe  the  law  was  given  in  such  exacting  detail  that  we  would  have  some  idea  as  to  how  to  deconstruct  the  structural  clutter  in  and  of  our  fallen  existence

 

 

that is ….  if  and  when  we  are  awakened  to  the  wind  of  light  that  breaks  through  the  hardened  crust  of  our  fallow,  barren existence

 

 

the  kingdom  of  God  is  within … it  cannot  be  constructed  from  without

 

 

works of faith and other oxymorons

Of late a friend and I have been having a very stimulating discussion on the issue of faith and empiricism.  Now I know this is a very hot topic for many but nevertheless, I thought that I’d give it a little bit of air anyway in the hope of perhaps generating a little bit of discussion.

To start with maybe the fact that I said faith and empiricism and not faith vs empiricism might prove itself to be an interesting point (which might or might not unfold later?).  I am very aware that many seem to see this as an either/or debate but I propose that it is not necessarily a mutually exclusive issue.  In fact it might well be the case that both views end up as co-detainees on the disqualified list or in the ‘cooler’ or ‘sin-bin’ much like our somewhat overzealous Super 15 rugby Rambo’s who tend to overextend their interpretations of the letter of the law to introduce and include the spirit of the war?  It may well be that perhaps one could also say that faith itself is practiced mostly on an empirical basis and that empiricism is run in equal measure on faith?  (although both camps would rather chew broken glass washed down with shark-infested custard than acknowledge as much).

There, I have said it …. and having said it I feel much better already.

In the new testament text there is a delightful little turn of events which to me places both faith and empiricism in the same fishing boat.  Jesus had an intriguing response to this interesting little event that I think warrants a deeper look.

An apostle named Thomas who personally walked with Jesus for virtually the entire duration of his public life and ministry was expressively doubtful of the claims of the others to the resurrection of Jesus after he was crucified and buried.  His exclamation was indeed empirical.  He is recorded as saying, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  A more empirical statement would be difficult to come by.
Interestingly, he is not struck dead on the spot nor de-apostled.  He isn’t even insulted, marginalised nor attacked by the other believers (and please remember how the apostles would commonly fight amongst each other as to who the greatest amongst them was.  This would indeed have been real low-hanging, ripe pickings for just such an exchange of testosterone).  The even crazier thing is that the narrative goes on to tell that a whole week later Jesus personally takes the time to approach Thomas and bring the issue up again.  Not only that, but Jesus, instead of taking the opportunity to launch into a probably well deserved teaching of faith and doubt actually offers his wounded hands and side as physical proof.  The only thing Jesus says by way of challenge to Thomas is, “stop doubting and believe.”
Now, believe this whichever way you choose, but the beauty of this exchange for me is that Jesus never denied him the empirical test and never ‘cursed’ or even accused Thomas of any inferiority.  Nor did he attach any superiority to the others who ‘believed’ for that matter either.  Clearly from the text the only difference between Thomas and the others was that he was not there with the others when they all had their ‘empirical’ encounter with the risen Christ.  The only thing Jesus did more than this was to proclaimed that the really ‘blessed’ would be those who in the future would be enabled to believe as a result of the apostles’ testimony in having physically seen him in his risen state.
Personally I draw great peace and courage from this, that whichever way we approach it, truth will meet us more than half-way.

For me the deciding factor either way is not based on culture, intellect, intelligence, breeding, or any other measure other than honesty and sincerity and an active pursuit of the truth as we see it to the best of our ability.
I personally have absolutely no problem with empiricism nor faith as separate methodologies (hence my resigned status as that of a faithful skeptic).  I do however, have an issue with presumptuous arrogance and myopia and the tendency we all have to mud-sling when confronted with our own doubt and insecurities.  I also have come to believe that I stand on ground that trembles with a personal revelation that even the most ‘pure’ amongst us (and I place myself 1st in line in this regard) are profoundly arrogant and myopic and that neither method is any superior.  Perhaps herein lies the ‘both/and’ proposal I made earlier?

But more than that, perhaps the respect and honour with which we approach life in all it’s facets might be the only ‘key’ that either locks or unlocks ‘revelation’.

… here beginneth the dialogue

the closest are still far away

There was this man named John who walked with Jesus for a few years.  He was one of the inner circle in the life of the Christ and seemed to somehow successfully develop a very close relationship with him, apparently significantly more intimate than the other eleven had managed to do.  There are no great details as to what this relationship really was like other than the few suggestions centred around the fact that he and Jesus are recorded to have shared some peculiar intimacies.

On one occasion as they were all reclining during a meal (as was the custom of the day) he was recorded as lying back on the breast of Jesus.  To me this is clearly indicative of a level of personal shared space that is not common amongst most men (at least not in our modern, western culture).  On another occasion he was requested by the others to approach Jesus about an issue that was obviously very sensitive amongst the disciples in that theyapparently felt they were  unable to ask Jesus directly for themselves.  To me this is sort of like the other brothers and sisters asking the favourite sibling to speak to their father as to whether they could all have ice cream as the favourite, being the favourite, had far better chance of success.  John was also the only recorded apostle at the scene of the death of Jesus.  Whilst breathing his last Jesus entrusted the care of his own mother to him, indeed a privilege and a deeply intimate request of anyone.  There are other occasions but  think these suffice for now in painting an interesting picture for us.

According to tradition John had a fairly long life in comparison to his fellow disciples and near the end of his days he penned a letter to the churches that we have come to know as “Revelation.”  This letter was written as a result of a vision, or a series of visions John received whilst exiled on an island called Patmos.  Interestingly, in this letter he writes how he saw Jesus and heard him speak of things that were, and also of things that were still to come.

The thing that really grabs me is that John, the closest one to Jesus, the “Beloved”, who walked alongside him for years and was openly known as the “one whom Jesus loved” at first never recognized Jesus at all in the visions.  The appearance of Jesus took him by surprise and if not by surprise it was like nothing he had seen or imagined before.  It was either revealed to him that it was Jesus in his vision or he understood it slowly, bit by bit, as the visions progressed.  In these visions Jesus was somehow represented by something very un-worldly and even at times frightening, definitely amazing, often confusing.  … and this to the man who knew him arguably better than any disciple at the time.

This is amazing to me.  John penned this letter possibly only a few short decades after the actual events and did not even recognize Jesus.  He was caught off guard and never recognized his great and dear friend and long time companion.  … and this after only a relatively short period of absence.

… and here we are, over 2000 years later, with a whole cluster of wonderful letters and stories and even the transliterated copies of the original legal contracts the Jewish leaders had at the time of Christ (even rendered in our day into English, even into multiple different English versions of the same texts).  And somehow, as I think of these things I cannot help but wonder just how much we might be exactly like those poor, devoted, yet blind men whose hands, hearts and minds successfully plotted the murder of Jesus?  … what with all our very systematic, ordered, detailed doctrines of Christ and things heaven and God related… .  .   .

It also makes me wonder about the legal qualifications we pursue and obtain to legitimize our ministry of the grace of Christ.  Alongside this I cannot help but think of how fully qualified or socially endorsed church leaders build perfectly trimmed and water-tight theologies and doctrines, even attacking those of very similar faith who may differ, if only ever so slightly on certain specific aspects of the nature of grace and godly servitude  ( … and just how one can legislate grace is logically beyond me – but that’s perhaps for another time).

What really alarms me though is that the Jewish religious leaders and teachers of the law themselves never recognized Jesus even though he was clearly spoken of in their sacred texts in the law of Moses as well as in the prophets and even though they were diligently searching and eagerly waiting for the revelation of their beloved prophet, the promised Messiah.  In fact, they were so unable to recognize him that when he appeared they, as has been said, actually plotted his death as an act of worship and honour to the God they loved to the fullest of their natural ability.

We love to speak, even to preach about the folly of the Scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Priests and the legalists.  But just how similar are we to these infamous rejecters of our Lord and Saviour?  I make no personal judgments, …. I merely ask the question, of myself, …. of you…  and quite frankly,  speaking of myself,  I am truly found wanting.

Maybe, just maybe, it might be an idea for us to re-visit our emphatic theology and the air-tight doctrines we hold?

Now I have no clear idea of what we might find, but maybe it might be that God really is far bigger and so vastly beyond our human ability to comprehend with these natural sensory limitations we all so frailly share?

And maybe, just maybe, God is far more gracious, powerful, wise, and faithful than we could ever imagine – even to the extent of not being at all concerned with the almost exclusively cognitive, intellectual manner in which we have allowed our minds to develop into, and with which we have so robustly legislated and documented our theology and doctrine? … .  .   .  or maybe not?

Perhaps the creator of all things is sitting down somewhere, relaxed and happily content to trust the power of the invincible seed he has sown into the human pods who walk about like ants under the blazing sun to germinate and proliferate according to his divine instruction and ability?  (regardless of our efforts to help or not).

If John was surprised, confused, even terrified after a short gap of only one or two decades what do we think we might be when it comes to a good old face-to-face in possibly the not too distant future?

Can you imagine if we were wrong?  WOW!!   … on the one hand it could be devastating … but on the other, it could be literally out of this world!!

….. and underneath are the everlasting arms

Many times I have sat with people who are bruised with themselves and others. They have anguished over life and all its frailty, their sufferings, the sufferings of others as well as their part in all of this.

Sometimes I have been asked, “What do you think? … You can’t fall out of grace can you? Isn’t grace what catches you when you fall?”

“…. and what about a believer who’s heart is hardened by sins deceitfulness and is maybe filled with anger and walks away from God?”. “Can it be that somewhere, somehow, grace dissipates ?”

This is mostly a very controversial issue and it is sure to raise a storm but I am going to post an answer I gave to these kinds of questions which may or may not help some. You see, I too have wrestled with these self same issues more often than I can recall to count. I am an expert, not in my theology or my success in the matter, I am merely an “existential expert” – one who has walked this road many times – alone, and with others over the decades. … and if you disagree… that too is ok… as long as we all keep learning.

 

….there is strong implication in the biblical text that the ‘faith’ we live by is not really ours but God’s.

Galatians says, “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. …..”
A learned and great theologian as well as a scholar of classical Hebrew and Greek told me once that the original text here is not very accurately interpreted in the bible. It should read, “The life I now live in the body, I live by the faith OF the Son of God.”
It’s God’s faith that sustains us not ours. We just use the little faith we have to respond to his call to ‘come’ towards him – he does the rest and then he sustains the contract by his integrity … the contract is in no way sustained by our ability to understand the smallprint. That would reduce the act of grace immediately to a lower order legislated process of works.

The Gospel of John says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, AND THEY SHALL NEVER PERISH; NO ONE WILL SNATCH THEM OUT OF MY HAND. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” (CAPS mine)
For me that sort of sums it up more succinctly – it’s God’s strength and not ours that is the operative dynamic in this.
This is grace as I believe the bible tries to portray it. Mostly the church has not seen this clearly at all and instead has had to develop a legislated code of conduct in order to prop up their sense of religious pride and sustainable collateral power to ratify their existence. A tragic state of affairs if you ask me.
My view is that we can fall out of our perceived notion of grace which is usually linked to socio-religious doctrinal formatting endorsed by cultural and social pressure…. even the concept of ‘sin’ is socially negotiated to a large extent.

However, the radical argument could be that those who have been ‘impregnated’ by God’s ‘seed’ cannot produce thorns or briers. Genesis, Jesus & then Paul all go on about the concept of a seed producing after its own kind… etc. Paul even charges us to “examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith” – note: we are to examine “ourselves” – others, leaders, the church, whoever, are not the jury, WE are, for ourselves, ….  as the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are sons of God. All the institutionalized control does is to reduce the righteous holiness of the Living God to a commodity, a measurable, negotiable, trade-able, malleable currency much like a bathplug or a toothbrush.
Our passion can grow cold
Our love can grow cold
Our focus can wane
Our attention can be diverted
… but even these are mostly socially determined values.
Look at most if not all of the greats in the bible… most were psycho-social basket cases. Defective in and at various aspects (sometimes key aspects) of their character… Moses was a murderer, Abraham and Jacob misrepresented the truth. David was an adulterer as well as a murderer, Samson, Gideon, Paul, Thomas, etc. etc. yet God had other ideas and used these frail, often faithless, cowardly, even sinful individuals significantly. It is clear to me that God’s view or ethics, morality, sin, righteousness, virtue, social appropriateness, etc is far removed from ours…. Read Ezekiel 43: 6-12 for a snapshot from God’s perspective on our values vs His. (but wear a crash helmet when you do – it can get quite bumpy)

Look at the life of John the Baptist (read Matt 11 where John is disillusioned, doubting, confused, humbled, devastated, crushed, imprisoned and in this extremely low point of despair he sends his followers to ask Jesus if he is the one or if they must look elsewhere (the very Messiah he personally heralded as the ONE, the anointed Christ of God) – a very clear picture of failure, unbelief, loss of faith, disillusionment, etc, etc. – a very, very broken man!
Jesus responds to them and in an indirect, careful way rebukes John by reminding him of his destiny and then turns to the masses who most probably heard this potentially damning exchange….. and said to them,
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: “‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

John was a great man. He was an offender of the religious elite. He tended to offend almost everyone he spoke to. Yet he eventually became one who himself became offended by the circumstances that overtook him. In simple terms the circumstances never turned out the way he had thought they would. He was beaten and possibly even hopeless. Perhaps he had doubted profoundly whilst chained to the cold walls in the cell that was eventually to be his execution chamber. Perhaps he had said things to God, about God, about himself, his calling, about everything, that he had now deeply regretted, but could not recall?

… but just read again the accolade that Jesus gave him. Soak up the honour if only just for a moment. Absorb the aroma of pride in the mouth of the one whose words really count. Try to get into the mind of Jesus as he dealt with this wonderful forerunner of his. What might have been Jesus’ feelings? Were his words perhaps clumsily spoken as he choked back the tears? Did his heart swell with admiration at the picture of a broken, defeated, beaten man, now desperate and lost, who had nevertheless done a worthy task well? Perhaps to the watching eyes of the multitude John was a failure who started strong but did not end the same. A loud mouth which was now shut up and stilled? But was this what Jesus thought?

So go in peace.
Don’t let their poison drip into your ears.
Ask the Lord himself to speak to you – he will, trust me on this. Don’t go ‘via’ – go direct. I have cried out many a time in deep, anguished despair and doubt and I have yet to be disappointed. It might not necessarily at first be the words you would want to hear, but afterwards they will be the words you are glad you did.

The answer may not come in articulate words (it very seldom does so for me – I have yet to recall hearing an audible voice of God), but it will come. Prepare yourself to be free to hear in strange ways, think of the process of osmosis, plants do great with this and we are a planting of the Lord, are we not?

Listen to the words of friends, perhaps more so those of enemies, for they often speak more truthfully to us than our friends. But whatever you do, don’t stop listening nor asking questions.

Go in peace.

not a happy song, but a song

(a response to an old friend who asked me about the way I think and speak. Her question was, “Just wondering if consumerism, capitalism and democracy and the banking system are new with the changes in the S.A. government or are you just reflecting on these things?” Here is my response.)

Lloyd Martin 13 November at 08:31

just reflecting… the one direct impact this does have on SA to my mind is that Africa (and everything outside of the ‘new world’) had their own civilizations – some like the orient were the global “super powers” for thousands of years prior in global history and the rapidity of the impact of the advancing industrial revolution and the age of ‘enlightenment’ effectively raped and crushed these systems subjugating them and forcing them to adapt to and try compete in a market system which they were all along ill-equipped for. . so consequently now the west arrogantly regards them as “3rd world” and “undeveloped” (which is accurate only against the reality of the advanced mechanized technologies and weaponry development) but it’s much like basing global status on a competition that has had no history and time to test itself – brand new nevertheless and totally unknown to all but a small group and declaring this as the standard competency test for global status, intelligence, sophistication, morality, ethics, productivity, etc.

Can you imagine if suddenly someone declared some obscure game played by an indigenous group from the depths of some exotic jungle location as the standard. USA and Europe would have the same challenge as the rest….. etc.
what I’m trying to say is that the pressure to adopt democracy and the new world banking/economic systems is effectively hamstringing everyone outside of the ‘new world’ and the bombardment of western culture with all its good & bad & the excesses attached is forcing a war on the values and established civilizations that have been intact in some cases for 1000′s of years. it’s colonialism and conquest on a whole new and unmapped arena and scale. In my Africa we are being deceived into a mindset that USA/Europe is right and we are wrong. thereby precipitating a collapse of a whole set of valid cultures for an immediate replacement with an (at least to my mind) extremely base and ethically, morally devoid and corrupt system based primarily on greed and avarice.
I am seeing my nation and the African, Oriental, Middle Eastern nations and others suffering huge trauma like a cultural viral pandemic.
This might shock you somewhat, but I have watched Zimbabwe all my life and you yourself might have been with us when we went in with YFC in the early 80’s… now I do think that Robert Mugabe is insane and his crimes against humanity are unjustifiable under any circumstances, but as I have looked and tried to observe,… not only the events going down in real time, but the possible historical context, I can well understand the way he thinks. The outrage and indignity that Britain started by colonising the sub-Saharan (and other) worlds is a deep, national and even deeper cultural trauma. The same is happening in the Arab world with USA “foreign policy” taking its effect. I repeat, I don’t find it possible to personally justify the violent backlash and the genocide and mayhem but I can see their hearts and with humans being the way we are I might have done the same (God forgive me).
So, yes Africa is profoundly on my mind, as is the orient, Middle East and all the rest…. but global humanity equally. .. one of the most common things in the existence of life on the earth over billions of years is the evidence of mass extinctions. This can almost be seen as normal (as offensive as this could be to us in our present global mind state), but the rapidity and the devastating effect of the last, very short few hundred years in earth history injects so much more than natural processes. If I never believed in the prophetic utterances pertaining to the end times I would be logically and rationally compelled to do so right now. To my mind what is happening is no less than diabolical. … and my greatest concern is that I think the church is not only doing nothing about it, but actively adjusting theology to accommodate this for our own advantage irrespective of the consequence to life on earth, human and other.

One positive to the USA presence is the amount of missionaries it sends out to the world. This is indeed commendable, but, ….. and sadly, there is a huge BUT, I fear that the ‘gospel’ they preach (sincerely I must add) is to my mind so watered down and laced with the same culture that is so rampantly destructive that I am of a leaning to see its negative impact equally if not more prevalent as it impacts the globe. And I have been part of this myself and I am personally deeply repentant.
Sorry for this epic deluge … feel free to reject or disregard at your discretion. As my blog title says I am exhausted from trying to be ‘right’ – I ‘evangelise’ by being honest and speaking out with as much clarity and integrity that I can muster. As an act of worship to the Most High God all I can surrender is what He has given me already, a unique perspective based on His sovereign call and placement. Like a little common bird, I sing, not because I know all the answers, but because I have a song. I will continue to sing till the air does not come into my lungs. I can do no other. And hopefully, God might touch a hearer somewhere with His grace and cause a miracle to take place in their (and my) life.

So, I sing.