Socialist Sushi

Heard about this on Air1 news this morning:

A church group is raising money to set up a Ten Commandments monument on the front lawn of the city building, with the blessing of the City Council.

The council voted unanimously to let Lone Oak Wesleyan Church begin raising $12,000 for the granite marker.

Now, this has nothing to do with religion. Why do I say this? Because they did:

Church member Ken de la Bastide, Lapel, insisted the Ten Commandments marker “has nothing to do with religion” and said the Ten Commandments were the basis of modern law.

So I’m not sure what the point is. Why in the world is a church worried about something that has nothing to do with religion? Is this non-religious display going to point people to Christ? No, but it will likely point nonChristians to the ACLU, who called the display “problematic.”

So, I looked up Anderson, Indiana at the U.S. Census Bureau. Here’s the interesting part, to me (from 1999 stats):

So, you’re in an area where the average household makes less than 80% of the state average and the poverty rate is almost 50% higher than the state average, but you’re gonna spend $12K (62% of the per capita income) on… a slab of rock?

I’ve grown very tired of this type of useless, Christ-dishonoring grandstanding.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it vi lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

My buddy Wade forwarded two links to me, which he thinks are connected.

First, Benny Hinn thinks he’s gonna be raising the dead. Really.

Of course, according to the controversial faith healer, the television sets will need be tuned to TBN. “You’re going to have people raised from the dead watching this network. … People around the world who will lose loved ones will say to undertakers, ‘Not yet, I want to take my dead loved one and place him in front of that TV set for 24 hours,’” Hinn announced to the network’s followers.

Next, a dead woman was kept in her house for 2 1/2 years. The connection?

Dr. Owens says the deceased believed when she died she would come back to life and her caregiver wanted to honor that wish…

Dr. Owen’s says each day the caregiver would check in on the deceased, spraying away flies and maggots, and sometimes turning on the TV.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Amber read 3 John last night, so I figured I’d go over it a bit at lunch so we could talk about it. Verse 4 really struck me:

have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth

I sincerely pray my ministry reflects this: Not only having spiritual children, and not only having them walk in the truth, but having that as my greatest joy.

Against that is the bad example of Diotrephes, found in verses 9 and 10. He loves to be the one in charge and in view, speaks nonsense against church leaders, and will not support missionaries. I pray I will never be guilty of such things, lest someone like John come along and point out my misdeeds before all.