Feekless Promises!

“Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst;

he promises honor and pays with disgrace;

he promises pleasure and pays with pain;

he promises profit and pays with loss;

he promises life and pays with death.”

–Thomas Brooks

Christianist!

“Christianist” is a dubious new word recently submitted by the public to Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary. I wonder who uses such a word? Read on for its definition…

christianist (noun): one who advocates the reordering of society and government in accordance with fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible.

Example of use: The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist.

Quote from site…

When you notice a new word - on the radio, in a book or magazine, or online - and discover that it’s not in the dictionary, then it’s a good candidate for Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary. Some words catch on, some don’t. It usually takes a few years for a word to enter the language and be used by many people in many different places. Lexicographers collect the evidence of new words used in print to determine when they are to be entered in the dictionary.

The Open Dictionary is a place to record new or specialized words or old words with new meanings, and some of the more intriguing new words and expressions submitted to the Open Dictionary at http://www.merriam-webster.com/ make it into this semimonthly roundup at the Britannica Blog. Some of these words are being used in active English but have not yet found their way into the pages of print dictionaries. Others are clever or useful coinages.

We welcome your contributions to the Open Dictionary - simply click here to join the fun.

enjoy, ron

Jerry Lee Lewis!

I just had to post this 1971 performance of Jerry Lee performing the hymn Where He Leads Me. God rasied up Jerry Lee Lewis and if you don't believe me, believe him (click on the audio clip link below)!

For some great insight into this man and his music listen to this clip (turn up your volume control) of an interview with Jerry Lee from the 1970s. Lewis is being asked about where his religiousity and love of gospel music comes from. He responds by saying that niether denominations nor religion itself has any direct bearing on salvation. Here’s some quotes:

People of every church are going to be in heaven, brother. Upbringing’s got
nothing to do with it, or what church you believe in. I knew that’s what you
were referring to — I thought I’d just go ahead and get into it.

Are you a Christian or a Christian-minded person? [...]

… As a matter of fact, there’s no such a word as religion in the Bible. You’ll not even find that word in the Bible. Salvation, you’ll find.

enjoy, ron

Lawsuit Against God?

“Nebraska Democratic State Senator Ernie Chambers has decided to go straight to the top in an effort to stop natural disasters from befalling the world.

Chambers filed a lawsuit against God in Douglas County Court Friday afternoon, KPTM Fox 42 reported.” Here’s the story. Perhaps the good legislator needs to read God’s response to Job beginning in chapter 38.

Here come the Judge!

enjoy, ron

theist vs. atheist

Faith smackdown!

Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project (and onetime atheist), rejects the notion that science is sufficient to disprove the existence of God. Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins, aka Darwin's Rottweiler, insists that anyone who believes in an omnipotent creator is suffering a "delusion." Can the gloves of God defeat the punch of proof?

Collins once considered himself an atheist. However, dealing with dying patients led him to question his religious views, and after investigating various faiths., he became a believer in Jesus Christ after observing the faith of his critically ill patients and reading Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.

During a debate with Richard Dawkins, Collins stated that God is the object of the unanswered questions about the universe that science does not ask, and that God himself does not need an explanation since he is beyond the universe. Dawkins accused this as "the mother and father of all cop-outs" and "an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain."

Would you like to vote? Go here for more, and click on the heads to score each round to vote.

enjoy, ron

Masks & Madness!

Poem for 9/11 on 9/12

She leaned on her brother's lego towers,
Being at that age when everything becomes
An aid to the miracle of mobility. Hers was
To sow disassembly on the industrious fields
Of a sibling's imagination. Innocently.

Far out in the world, men learn
The miracle of walking planes on leashes,
Testicles burning with artificial fire,
Striding into gangling towers
Innocent as placard-carrying activists.

Far out in another world, Hitler and Mao
Compare notes, ruing the slow evolution
Of human imagination. "I'd have built airports,
Not Auschwitz; sent Israel to Canaan
On Economy," Hitler says, in a rare interview.

Mao nods absentmindedly, he spends his days
Building Boeings from the pages of the red
Book. In New York, men settled for suicide,
Hurtled down burning towers, voices willed
To answering machines that reproduce

Every nuance of terror, and leak the smells
Of burning words, burning goodbyes, burning
Skins, burning everything. The journey
Of a thousand stories ends with one step
Into dust, into ash, into the salt from many eyes,

Civilisation toppling at the sound of God's name.
And as for you who wear masks and madness, and chant
God's name in vain: Pack all the fear you can, into
The aisles of a million jets, and watch them explode
Prematurely with a heroism that is not yours — and never will be.

(Originally appeared in The Vocabula Review )

911 Musing!

Currently I'm preaching through The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. I'm in chapter 9. In this Chapter Paul uses himself as a example for true freedom. According to 9.11 Paul has every right to reap material things from the Corinthian church. After all, they are his work and Paul has sowed spiritual things in them.

Of course, verse 11 falls firmly into the main teaching of 9. Namely, by means of personal example, Paul reinforces the appeal of chap 8, that the stronger believer is to forego his/her rights for the sake of the weaker, even to adopt the stance of the weak if necessary, by drawing attention to his own surrendering of his apostolic rights for the sake of a greater good! In this case, for the sake of the Gospel’s advance!

The major significance is the gospel-first posture of Paul that so ordered and influenced his life - his passion to keep the Gospel free and clear from any hindrances - whatever that might mean for him personally (1 Cor. 2.2). As a result of this gospel-first posture, Paul was more than willing to forego his personal rights, to abandon his apostolic privileges and “become all things to all men” for the sake of the Gospel’s advance.

To put it another way, what is on display in 1 Corinthians 9 is the gospel-driven, sacrificial mindset and lifestyle! This is the lifestyle that was demonstrated by Jesus, modeled by Paul, and whose echo ought to reverberate through the lives of God’s people, wherever they may be found.

enjoy, ron