Monthly Archives: October 2009

Important New Study on Islam

This report relates findings from an in-depth study done on Islam around the world. Statistics show that almost 1 in 4 on the planet are Muslim. It also shows what has been true for decades: Islam is not predominantly Arabic. The largest Muslim nations are not in the Middle East.

I write on this because I have a heart for Muslims. Unlike some other evangelicals/Pentecostals, I do not want to see Muslims as a threat. Since 9/11 the deep-seeded fears have caused us to step back a little from engaging Muslims. The city where I pastor has a significant Muslim population and I count many Muslims in my community friends. I have helped them in many areas of business and government. They have come to my aid at times in significant ways.

The field is ripe for harvest. We have an opportunity at our door. It is never time for fear. Not for the saints of the Most High. It is always time for faith. It is time to see the beauty of Jesus in our lives, come to a place of total surrender to our Lord, and get busy in the harvest.

Belief as Dementia, Evangelicals as Wimps, and HOW ABOUT THOSE TWINS

Leave it to The New York Times to equate religious belief with mild dementia. Check that. What they are really offended at is the thought of an intellectual having a Christian worldview. This must drive them nuts.

We live in a day when David Letterman can confess on air to having multiple affairs with staff women and there isn’t one peep from women’s rights groups. In fact, his first show after that confession was a ratings gold mine! But actually hold a Christian worldview as an intellectual, and you’re branded as loony. Go figure.

What else doesn’t figure is the lack of moral fortitude on the part of evangelicals concerning the healthcare reform debate. They have plenty of moral fortitude when it comes to funding abortions. Yet, there is no moral outcry over the current Bacchus bill and how it will bankrupt the middle class.

To be fair, we as evangelicals also aren’t very vocal when it comes to the healthcare debate outside very narrow parameters. If it doesn’t have to do with abortion or legalizing homosexual marriages, we just don’t seem to have an opinion.

We have officially passed the one trillion dollar point on war funding. Eight years. One trillion dollars. I support our troops. I’d love to win this thing. But I can’t help but noticing a couple of things:

1. Oil company profits and private contracting firm profits that do business over there are through the roof. We’ve done some favors in some areas we just didn’t need to help out in.

2. One trillion dollars is about what we’re going to fork over for healthcare.

Does anyone notice this huge hole in the ground? Anyone?

But that’s just too much to think about. What I REALLY want to talk about is the best baseball game that will be played this year. Game 163 of the regular season: Detroit and Minnesota. Twins win in 12. The Dome lives on for at least another game or two!

The Terrorism Without… and Within

It is rare that I interact politically on this blog. I’ve done it, I’m sure, but most of the time when I make a political comment, it’s on my Facebook page or somewhere else.

However, I cannot leave a couple of news items alone. The first is the terrorism without. Thomas Friedman wrote a column that is scary. Friedman is a level headed liberal, and I mean that in the kindest way. When it comes to terrorism, he is one of the best sources I can read. His latest column needs to be read by every American. Agree or disagree with Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. (and he has his opinions as well), what we are forgetting is there is truly an enemy and that enemy is not forgetting us. We may not like the fact we have an enemy, but that doesn’t make them go away.

It’s like the devil. Some believe in a literal devil. Some don’t. Either way, he doesn’t care. He’ll use either belief system and keep on battling humanity.

Friedman recounts several recent events where authorities have stopped potential terrorist attacks on our soil. Then, he says this:

These incidents are worth reflecting on. They tell us some important things. First, we may be tired of this “war on terrorism,” but the bad guys are not. They are getting even more “creative.”

It’s a sobering column worth your full attention. We are so temporal in our thinking. We have such a “been there, done that” mentality, we are not realizing the need for vigilance in our national security. HOW that is done is still a matter of debate, but I am more and more convinced that it MUST be done. It’s not a matter of NOT staying vigilant.

Then, I refer to a terror within. National healthcare reform.

I am not saying healthcare reform is terrorism. I am saying the current Bacchus bill up for consideration and a possible vote IS terrorism in a new way. This article runs the numbers on the current bill and it’s just plain scary.

Here are my options as someone who cannot currently afford healthcare:

1. Pay incredibly high premiums for little coverage because it will be required.

2. Don’t pay for health insurance and pay a fine each and every year I can’t afford health insurance.

3. Go to jail for not paying the fine.

This bill has a “tax credit” to “help pay” for those premiums. Here is the false premise on that: you still have to pay the premiums. You get the tax credit at the END of the year, so I’ll still have to pay nearly $1000 a month for insurance for a family of four!

This is war on the middle class. The poor have coverage. The rich have coverage. They’ll get taxed to pay for the poor to have coverage. The middle class will end up in jail. But at least in jail we’ll have medical care!

This line out of the article is what sends me over the top:

Most of the uninsured are in households headed by someone who’s self-employed or works at a business that doesn’t provide coverage. It’s this group that Democrats are trying to help.

THIS is the help we are getting? Mandatory insurance, through companies that still won’t give us affordable plans, OR JAIL?

WHO STOLE MY COUNTRY?

I’ll get back to my regularly schedule blog tomorrow.

Apprehended by God

My teaching has focused on the Book of Acts and Philippians due to my teaching schedule at college and my ministry at the church. This week I brought together Saul’s conversion and the beautiful passage out of Philippians 3 where Paul cries out: “I want to know Christ!”

I will not do justice to the Philippians 3 passage in my Sunday message because the focus is on the conversion. Saul, an enemy of the Church, is totally apprehended by Christ. He is not seeking Christ! He does not care for Christ! Yet, Jesus stops him cold and yanks him out of the enemy camp. What grace!

Jesus doesn’t judge him. He CALLS him! He appoints this enemy to the greatest task facing the Church at the time: reaching the Gentiles.

Blogging does not allow for the length of thought I have been developing on this subject over the past few weeks. But I wanted to write SOMETHING down! I need to know this sense of being truly apprehended by Christ. I also long for the passion Paul pours out in Philippians 3. His longing to know Christ and apprehend him is deep. What a lifelong joy! My prayer is the Lord would carry ME into that joy and I would undertake that passionate pursuit of Christ as well.

American Christianity, Patriotism, and Misused Bible Verses

I struggle with stories like this one where it seems so silly to ban Bible verses. Yet, when I read how they used a verse, I get frustrated as well:

One of the signs that was banned from the football field was a “run-through” banner displayed before a game on Sept. 18. It read: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called in me Christ Jesus.”

That’s not even what that verse is about! That verse is WONDERFULLY PRICELESS in its context. It’s magnificent. And it has NOTHING to do with winning a football game. If we’re going to get ridiculed for using the Bible in public places, could we please get in trouble for doing it properly?

Dan Brown and His Love for Spiritualism

I have yet to read Dan Brown’s latest. It’s not that I won’t. When The Davinci Code became so hot, I read it. I loved the pace, keeping in mind it was fiction. However, people were drawn into the conversation about Church History and the discussions went beyond the style of the book. Dan Brown also opened himself up to critiques because he carried himself as more than a fiction writer. That allowed for the historical and theological issues to be addressed.

Ben Witherington takes on the critique of Brown’s latest. I will get this book as soon as possible. (Like I said, I’m a fan of good suspense.) Witherington’s critique isn’t just at Brown. He says this about our culture:

We live in a Jesus haunted culture that is both Biblically illiterate and at the same time is an entertainment culture. In this sort of environment which is increasingly less Christian,  anything can pass for truth or knowledge about Jesus or the Bible.

Our culture being illiterate is no excuse for the Church to be this way!