Thursday, June 27, 2013
The same ones concerned that gay marriage will be the law of the land in five years because Christians are hiding in the closet often rank among the same voices that deny the validity of the profession of Christian faith made by certain public figures either holding or aspiring to elected office for holding to anything other than an pacificistically isolationist foreign policy, a differing understanding on the propriety of female magistrates, or even matters of soteriology and eschatology. Perhaps they ought to in part blame themselves since no one is deemed sufficiently Christian enough for such critics to support or even vote for.
The only ones that need to repent for the ascendancy of gay marriage are those gays agitating for it and the heteros that went along. I fail to see how it is the fault of the average pew filling Christian that can't do anything about it and, even if they tried, church leaders would chew them out for whatever it was those moved to action would decide to do.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Why Must Traditionalist Christians Remain Silent?
It seems her remarks went considerably afield.
In her comments, she quipped that those opposing an expansive understanding of human rights as characterized by the issues of the ordination of women and even the acceptance of gay marriage within the Church of England represent the viewpoint of a disgruntled minority that ought not to be allowed to drive the agenda of the Church.
But who is to say that those positions now that seem to be on the avant-garde of enlightenment and progressivism are not the perspectives that are really in the minority?
Such a categorization could have especially been made when these positions first began to be agitated for.
So why aren’t those holding to these perspectives that have been at variance with the Christian teaching that prevailed for centuries and even millennia the ones obligated to hold their peace if they otherwise want to remain members in good standing?
by Frederick Meekins
A Calvinist remarked, “ When you take your last breath, it ultimately comes down to whether God chose you; not that you chose Him.” That is certainly a comforting soteriology. In essence, you have no assurance of going to Heaven until you get to Heaven. The same ones arguing for such an existentialist eschatological fatalism would then turn around and heap the condemnation they are addicted to like a narcotic upon the medically terminal gripped by stark raving terror of the pending hellfire damnation.
Ocean City is considering an ordinance that would criminalize saggy pants. But unless there is a provision specifically stipulating "say no to crack", how is seeing a portion of underwear worse than some of these swimsuits both men and women gallivant around in? Most comfortable underpants are less revealing and cover over more.
A little bit of insight into just how things would operate under a Calvinistic, Christian Reconstructionist regime. Initially, those running the show might assure that there will be a degree of religious liberty. However, as things unfolded and the government solidified its power, those speaking out against what they perceived as the inconsistencies of Calvinism and the shortcomings of Christian Reconstructionism would be accused of lying. Since that transgression would violate the Biblical Commandments against bearing false witness or even those regarding what is to be done with false prophets elevated to the status of statutory law, the penalties regarding such would be invoked to silence critics.
Insisting that one cannot say that Christian Reconstructionism won’t result in a dictatorship because one has not produced a quote advocating such from the writings of its first generation theoreticians is akin to saying Marx can’t be held responsible for the bloodshed on the part of Communist regimes and assorted revolutionary movements. Some things are just a violation of human nature and historical laws that don’t end well when implemented. One of them is an atheistic government run by a singular godless dictatorship. Another is a society run essentially at the other extreme along the lines of a religious dictatorship.
Pentagon Defunds Young Marines Chapter Swearing Loyalty To God Rather Than Obama
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
That's quite a racket some of them have got going. Certain ultraconservative Evangelical ministers can condemn any emotion experienced other than docile compliance on the part of their congregation while sanctifying their own spirited agitation as righteous indignation against the sin of those not quite as advanced along the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Will Pediatricians Gather Intelligence On Your Sexual Ethics On Behalf Of Obama?
Monday, June 24, 2013
So if Nick Walenda plummetted to his death in the Grand Canyon, would that have been because Joel Osteen lacked enough faith in his prayers? It's a wonder Jesus didn't go ahead and knock the idiot daredevil off the highwire just to stop hearing so many pointless innvocations of His Holy Name. If Walenda truly loved his family, wouldn't he find a job where he put his life on the line for a less utterly pointless reason?
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Setting Boundaries That Can’t Be Crossed
Surprisingly, some of the pundits apparently have little problem with federal agencies collecting vast quantities of data on American citizens.
It is argued that, if the case can be made that these measures are necessary for the nation's survival, we as a people should endure these chains enthusiastically.
But where does this expectation end?
If it means significant percentages of the population should be forcibly relocated to camps in concentrations without proof or allegations of any criminal activity, does that mean anyone warning of the plot should be denounced as a traitor?
What if, for the good and survival of the nation, it was suggested programs such as their own that stir dissension and cast in a negative light those struggling on behalf of the COMMUNITY needed to be removed from the airwaves?
Things have not yet deteriorated to those levels described.
But with revelations confirming what the discerning have suspected all along, citizens of conscience had better decide now where these kinds of boundaries lie as freedom continues to slowly disappear before our very eyes.
by Frederick Meekins
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Christian Reconstructionism Not All That Libertarian
Instead, there would be decentralized COMMUNITIES and these COMMUNITIES that did not want to live by Christian Reconstructionist principles would have the option of opting out.
As in the case of despots seeking to rule from a centralized headquarters, those advocating on behalf of this ideology are saying as much by what they do not say explicitly as they do in formalized enunciated statements.
For example, what is to be done with and too individuals residing in a jurisdiction that do not want to live by the particulars of the Christian Reconstructionist worldview?
Will such individuals be allowed to sleep in Sunday mornings or attend a church that does not embrace the establishmentarian Calvinist orthodoxy and still retain basic civil rights such as property ownership, electoral suffrage, and legitimized offspring? Some Christian Reconstructionists hold that only marriages between those categorized as "Christian" in the eyes of the institutionalized church are considered legitimate.
Would the father of a noncompliant family be hauled off in the middle of the night with the mother given to whoever wants her in order of descent in terms of rank in the hierarchy correlated with her desirability? In turn, would the children of such noncompliant parents be conscripted into compulsory reeducation?
And what will happen to those communities refusing to go along with this hyperlegalistic religiosity surrounded on all sides by communities whipped up into a state of fanaticism?
Would such towns construed to be pursuing some form of aberrant theology be starved out and denied supplies until they repent of these alleged sins and see the error of their ways?
Though the program was not explicitly religious, the drama "Jericho" explored just how bitter animosities between neighboring towns can grow exacerbated to the point of violent conflict in times of societal collapse.
The skeptical might respond that there is little danger of such a scenario given secularism's increasingly oppressive nature.
Maybe not, but one of the underlying lessons taught by apocalyptic speculative narrative is that, given a cataclysm of significant magnitude, one could suddenly find oneself trapped in a milieu where the previously unlikely could just as easily become the new normal.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, June 21, 2013
Maybe if diehard Evangelicals and Fundamentalists hadn't been so rabidly opposed to movies in the past, the efforts now to directly correlate films with direct gospel parallels would not be so intense. A Christian would be simply able to enjoy a good story without a major guilt trip while feeling a sense of amusement as to the religious motif employed by the screenwriter or how the scene depicted might be a way of comprehending an otherwise obtuse eschatological reference.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
An Internet posting suggests that learning to live without recognition is a skill. Such a sentiment was likely promulgated by someone making considerably more than those below him that he is attempting to persuade and they are probably far more talented at the actual task needing to be accomplished but not so much at the rump smooching necessary to rise above the status of mere peon.
On no grounds can it be insinuated that I advocate a gospel of works or a "do it yourself" plan of salvation. I have always advocated that the only way of salvation is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. That requires a deliberative conscientious ascent of belief on the part of the mentally sufficient. If you wait around with your thumb up your backside in a state of existential propositional indecision you are going to end up in Hellfire all of the same. I am not the one insisting that one must declare official membership in a formalized organization and I strive not elevate to the status of divine revelation that must be adhered under threat of damnation particular interpretative opinions derived from passages that do not necessarily apply to the circumstances under consideration.
In the 2013 #2 issue of PETA's Animal Times, there is an illustration depicting a mermaid. The caption reads, "Try To Relate To What's On Your Plate." However, a fundamental axiom of nature is that the big fish eats the little fish. So if human beings are nothing more than animals in the minds of those advocating this radical perspective on animal rights, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with humans eating other animals. However, it is only human beings as an order of existence going beyond the level of an animal that are even capable of empathizing with another creature that the brain would otherwise register as "prey".
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Reformed Sourpusses Stink At Humor
In it, Jesus says, "Follow me and I will make you fishers off men."
One of the prospective Apostles replies, "Bro, hasn't Jesus ever heard of prevenient grace?"
Arminian/Wesleyan theology understands preveniet grace to mean that, despite being called, the individual is ultimately able to refuse the gift of salvation to their own eternal consequences.
The other compatriot replies to Jesus, "I don't know. I will consider the offer and get back to you."
A number of things could be pointed out about this comic.
Most obviously, if we are to adhere this rigidly to the speculations of Reformed theology, isn't the artist guilty of creating a graven image?
After all, didn't thinkers in this school of thought at one time toss fits over Catholic artistic depictions of the Savior?
There hangs in one of my rooms a painting of Jesus that I have been told that my grandparents initially obtained from no less a thoroughly Fundamentalist ministry as Oliver Greene's The Gospel Hour which my grandparents donated to the Independent Baptist Church that they were members of.
In order to resolve the harangue that resulted not so much on the part of the pastor but rather on the part of rabblerousers in the congregation over this act of generosity, my grandparents GRACIOUSLY agreed to retake possession of the painting.
Secondly, how do we not know that at particular chronometric instance along the unfolding of the temporal continuum depicted in the cartoon that those to whom Christ extended this particular offer could not have turned Him down?
If they were like robots or zombies without wills of their own, wouldn't it have been sufficient for Christ to have said "Follow me" or even more efficient to simply snap His fingers like Q from Star Trek for His will to be imposed and carried out?
If it had been impossible for those hearing not to obey the sound of His voice, there would have been no reason to verbally offer the incentive or promise of a considerably more satisfying vocational challenge.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
U.S. Abuses Of Privacy Pale In Comparison To Third World Dictatorships
This magazine is published in Great Britain.
It is often claimed, per capita, that the island nation has one of the highest concentrations of security cameras on earth.
It is also interesting that Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor bringing the issue of government Internet surveillance into a broader public awareness, sought refuge in a jurisdiction ruled by Red China.
Aren’t these Communist and former Communist regimes the last ones that should feign shock and outrage at American abuses of privacy?
In the United States, the government might track where you go online and with whom you are communicating. However, unlike in Communist China, the government for the most part does not determine what public information resources you will be allowed to consult.
And, unlike in Putin’s Russia, in America there are very few instances of critics mysteriously disappearing, never to be seen again or their bodies uncovered having expired under questionable circumstances.
by Frederick Meekins
I Timothy 3:7 warns of those, “Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” If Calvinism is correct, instead of interpreting the verse as a warning of a behavior to avoid or as a condemnation of those pursuing that spiritual path, shouldn’t we instead applaud such souls for fulfilling the will of God selected for them by the deity Himself? After all, Calvinism holds that such individuals are unable to amend their ways unless God does so for them,
Why Shouldn't Christian Students Study Drone Warfare
Interesting how liberals right out of the box find this to be an outrage.
Yet they are often among the first to point out any other time that all other forms of knowledge and technology are morally neutral with good or evil instead determined how it is applied.
Sojourners would be foremost among the chorus wagging its finger at Liberty University if the school sheltered its students from developments in the theory of evolution that the conservative Baptist university did not believe in.
It may seem strange that an explicitly Christian institution would allow its student body to become proficient with the implements of destruction and mayhem.
However, it is probably not as shocking as the rogues gallery of assorted tyrants and revolutionary thugs supported over the years such as the Sandinistas, Fidel Castro, and Desmond Tutu by this magazine masquerading under a veneer of alleged Christianity.
by Frederick Meekins
At the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters counsels in regards to contemporary conservatism, "...we should be wary of becoming close with people whose worldview is so mean and vicious, where concern for the poor is lacking." Perhaps individualist conservatives should cast similar eyes of suspicion not so much upon grassroots American Catholics but rather upon those advocating the centralized planning of the Vatican internationalist agenda not so much concerned with elevating the status of the downtrodden but rather more bent upon inflicting a similar degree of economic misery upon all mankind.
Episcopal Archbishop Categorizes The Property Imperative As Original Sin
Yet isn’t she head of one of the denominations particularly noted for its ornate property holdings and highly decorated vestments?
You don’t usually pick those garments off the rack at the thrift store.
In her speech, the Archbishop condemned particularly the tendency to protect our stuff.
So if a few greedy Baptists or jealous Catholics decide they just want to up and swipe things out of an Episcopal church, will the Archbishop simply turn the other cheek?
It can be argued that “Thou shalt not steal” codifies as fundamental divine law the right to protect mere “stuff” from those to whom it does not belong.
by Frederick Meekins