ONE THIRD, ONE THIRD, ONE THIRD

Well, It's time for me to write about this topic specifically- The American Revolution and how the decission to fight it fits with the Christian worldview as put forth in the New Testament.
Just an update for now.
When I first started researching this when my children were in elementary, I could not find more than a tiny bit of info on the 1/3 of the colonists who were against the Amer. Rev. based on their Christian convictions. I found in EERDMAN'S RELIGION IN AMERICA that it was about one third of the total population who were pacifists or consciencious neutralists; and one third were loyalists to the British Government; and one third ( the 1/3 that won the war) believed that the colonists were justified in fighting a war against the government over them- a war in which people died, people had to leave all that they had to escape the anger of their neighbors who believed different than them, etc.
Way back there when I was starting the research (circa 1993), my husband's comment when I told him I couldn't find info, was "The winners get to write the history books."
Well, I was over at the U of Houston recently and decided to see what they had. I looked up "loyalist literature" as I had tried to do 17 years earlier. I was delighted to find that they have in the library quite a few books on that subject. However, when I looked at the books I realized that maybe none had to do with Biblical objections to the war. Back to search again. I will google "Anabaptist" and "Quaker".

NOT EQUIVALENT

A Bible teacher here in Houston that I appreciate when I have been able to hear her- Mary Jean Pigeon- was once talking in passing about a woman who seemed superficially to be doing all the right Christian things, but had gotten into a very rough place in her life that seemed to come out of the blue.
Sister Pigeon said in the course of her teaching ( tho' she did not say this to the people involved in the discussion of this woman's troubles) that she COULD see where this woman had fallen down on the job in some way that led in part to these troubles (Sis' Pigeon did not elaborate.)
I could understand that.
What I mean by the title of this blog is that two different women going to church, with approximately the same observeable level of involvement, and approximately the same type of cordial interaction with fellow churchgoers could have radically different whole-life styles which could bring forth very different futures, including their children's attitudes toward the established christian church and the standards that christians agree are important.
My reasons for putting this post out are not theoretical.
That's all I have to say for now.

FUTURE POSTS

The focus of this blog space is more about the specific effect that the "1776 decision" has had on american culture, american christian culture and of course, by extension, world cultures, christian, secular or otherwise.

(I am, of course splitting up my efforts onto this blog, and theologica.ning, and APOLOGIA, which is at rethinking1776.blogspot.com. Also, I need to do actual physical things in my part of this universe.)

future posts, I hope, will be:
-NOT EQUIVALENT
-LOVE IS . . .
-

RAHAB OF JERICHO

Here's a poem about Rahab:

Rahab was a prostitute, but she had a heart of gold
She could see beyond the walls of her city - Jericho, Jericho

She heard of that mighty nation, made mighty by their God
She heard it thru the grapevine; She knew He weren't no fraud

She rescued the spies from the king's fearful search
Her peoples' hearts were all melting for fear,
After hearing that the jew-God
parted the Red sea,
and destroyed Pharoah's army
and killed kings Og and Sihon

Jericho folk were gasping for air
gripping their chest
darting about, pulling out hair

Perhaps in their heart of hearts
They all knew Jericho was going down, down

But Rahab was the one
She had the opportunity
She could have gone either way
She could have remained blind
and stopped those jew guys
stopped those jew spies
She could have turned them in

But she knew,
She could see
And she declared!
"For Yahweh your God is God in heaven above
and on the earth below."
She became a jew right then and there!
Hallelu !

LET'S GIVE THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES SOME CREDIT

I haven't written here in so long that I know I must write something, in case someone's passing by.

First, it was by the means of some old J.W. literature that the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin; and I came to have a saving relationship with Jesus- or at least I came to understand my need for a "savior" and to accept Jesus' and God's gift of Jesus' sacrifice be the punishment for my sins. (I talked to God from time before that. I really do think I had some kind of relationship with Him based on that.)

It happened thus: I was raised in a Christian home; but if my parents or my church ever spoke of an need for a savior, it did not sink in for me. I had an estimation of myself as "ok" and even a goodie-two-shoes. And since I thought I was "ok", there was no need for a savior.

When I say "ok" , I was pretty uncritical of myself, really. There were lots of ways in which I went against God's way.

Well, this J.W. literature was about the LORD'S PRAYER. IN explaining and teaching on "Thy kingdom come" the anonymous writer(s) made note of the fact that the governments of the world-yes, even the old U, S of A- were not the same thing as the kingdom of God. The laws of the land are not the same as God's laws. One can obey every law of the land and still sin against God. Wow!

WOW!

I had something on my conscience at that timethat was not against the law. That teaching nailed me. I was convicted. Then, I understood why we all need Jesus to take the punishment for all our sins. And I was filled with love for Jesus for doing that.

YE

In sunday school last sunday, we studied JOHN 4:19 and 20 as well as most of JOHN 4.
In this exchange between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, she speaks to him personally
("you") and speaks about the jews as a national group ("you"). In all moderns translations that I know of , the distinction between you singular and you plural is not made, although I believe that the bible greek as well as the old testament hebrew do have those distinctions.
This may be a little thing; but it seems when new english translations are made with frantic frequency, trying to squeeze every drop of meaning out of these texts, it is a little blind to ignore a meaning clue which is so easy to include, the you vs. "you-all" differentiation.
We, at least english speakers, have become so used to using "you" for all of those meanings. We think of "thou", and related words quaint relics of the past, not additional meaning.
I sure would like to change that mind-set. What can I do about this narrowness?

The reason that I am sensitive to this loss of meaning in translation, is that I, because of my own shortcomings and experiences, have come to wonder if "being christians together" is an essential part of God's plan for individual believers, His Church and the world. For example, one passage says , "Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." (That is either Paul or James talking.) That could mean simply that he was giving that admonition to a group of people. I posit that the passage could also mean :
Together, become whole, complete and perfect as you-all's father is whole and complete (and perfect.) Could it also mean : "By being an organism together-the Body of Christ, the Church-you-all CAN become perfect. " ? Maybe that's too much interpolation.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION?

As I listened to a panel of Christian experts on the radio today talking about "Is Christ the only way to God?", my mind went back to Sunday afternoon when some friends and I were visiting with some muslims who were open and interested in talking about spiritual things and some of whom had visited Christian churches. The radio people quoted the words of Jesus (from John 13 or 14?), "Whoever comes to the Father must come through me." The radio experts pulled up the reasoning that whoever does not believe in Jesus as the way to God, must think of Jesus as either liar, lunatic.

As these radio people were talking, I could not reconcile the strong words of distinguishing believer from unbeliever with the open-ness of the muslims I had met. I believe Christ is the way. I know that I will eventually have to tell these muslims that that is what I believe. But, I did not think that was the way to draw them to Christ initially.

My reaction to the radio experts' discussion became : That is the wrong question when believers and unbelievers meet. The question is : Is the Church and are individual Christians representing Christ and the Gospel adequately to where these unbelievers can be said to have HEARD the Gospel? I believe that the answer is often no. Let me tell you why. If a person or organization explains the Gospel and the evidence for Jesus' claims out of the Bible and does a perfect job of it, but does not show forth love to the hearer, the hearer may not be able to receive the message because of the lack of the love of the speaker. The message may not seem authentic because the speaker doesn't show love.( I do believe Jesus and others spoke about this.) For example, the Spanish conquerors who tried to convert the natives of South America did not show forth love- they gave the conquered ones the choice of death or "conversion". Some of the conquered ones were able, I think, to receive the message, though it was harshly given, but I believe God, in His mercy, judges those who reject the message under such circumstances accordingly. (Also, I believe that God doth judge those who offend the "little ones" -that is, anyone who does not yet know God, and has the possibility of receiving Him.)

The answer to above question is further complicated in that the hearers have made an evaluation of Christianity and therefore on the Gospel based on the expresssion of love or otherwise of perhaps many individuals or organizations whom these unbelievers have encountered before you came along.

So, a FIRST TASK in talking to unbelievers is, I believe to help the hearer to separate the message of God, the Gospel, from the messangers that have spoken the Gospel down through time in imperfect manner.

This reminds me of Phillip Yancey's book, SOUL SURVIVORS, about individuals who could be said to be "open" and "seekers" and some of whom had troubled relationships with organized Christianity due the less-than-stellar lives and attitudes of the nominal christians that they had encountered.

(Gandhi's observations of Christians is one example.)

A second topic for discussion that might be helpful with seekers is: Did Jesus indicate that He knew that the Church and the telling of Gospel were going to imperfect things or did all this (mess) take Him by surprise?

I know that for myself, when I learned that Jesus did prophesy that the Church was going to be an imperfect thing, filled with people with clay feet as well as people who have no interest in God and Jesus at all and as well as some people led astray by unscriptural doctrine some more some less, I felt much more sure of Jesus being all-knowing. The place that I first learned about Jesus' prophecy was MATTHEW 13, which I wrote about earlier.