It's about time

...for my annual blog post. There. I did it.

Let the witch hunts begin

I think it's funny how North American Christians think that we are persecuted. It goes without saying that we don't have a right to claim persecution in light of what the early church and the church in many other parts of the world actually experienced and still experiences. Those who would claim that the church is or is going to be persecuted will likely assume that it is in the area of limiting our practice of religious freedom. They (we) will say that the government will force us to acquiesce to the "pro-choice agenda" or the "homosexual agenda" or the "liberal agenda" and rescind grant money/ charge us with hate crimes if we take "Christian stands". Well who woulda thunk our first chance to to actually get persecuted with a stiffer punishment than fines or the rescinding of funds (that we shouldn't have accepted in the first place, but that's another story) would actually come from the issue of immigration. Immigration, the Christian non-issue that only got visibility as a morality issue in the last presidential election, by one candidate, Sam Brownback, and he was quickly shut down by the Republican majority. But now, with the signing into law of Arizona's immigration enforcement bill into law, it is foreseeable that Christians who actually want to do justice and love their neighbor could get thrown into prison for aiding illegal immigrants. And by "aid", I mean, "taking illegal immigrants to church". Yes, driving a car with an illegal immigrant in it in Arizona will be forbidden in 90 days. Pardon the reductio ad Hitlerum, but this whole situation sounds like the people who put their livelihood at stake for harboring those that were being trampled underfoot in the Holocaust. And yeah, this is a reactionary post done without much prior thought or research, so I apologize for any possible hyperbole.

So this is the second video post. Hopefully as I get more comfortable with this format, these will get better and have less "ums" in them.

New video format

To anyone who cares, I have decided to try to convert this into a video blog format. I figure it can't be too hard to record for a minute a day than trying to figure out something insightful and witty to write. Here's the first try.

Uhhh...Where is your God?

Does anyone ever get the vibe that in some Christian traditions, they've got their theology so worked out, so rationalized, so explained, that any seeming tangible word or action of God today is seen by them as a heresy? Not to knock some of my friends, but I see this in a lot of Presbyterian circles. Sure, it's great to believe in Christ's atonement, and the working of the Holy Spirit, but what exactly do you believe He does for, with, and in you? Not what he did. Not the miracles performed thousands of years ago.

I remember being raised to avoid Gnostic heresies, who taught that the material world was nothing but an evil prison for the spiritual world. It now seems that now, people are leaning to an extreme anti-gnosticism, where they seem to place absolutely no value in a living, active spirit world, even if they claim to believe current work of the Holy Spirit.

Is it just that our definitions of God seem to be different, or are some of my friends atheists, without knowing it? Also, what about St. John of the Cross?

Honesty

is one thing that is really hard for me right now. 

Getting Better

When I went to my blog's page for the first time in a while to update it (gasp), I had to note with humor that my internet filter (K9) blocked my profile picture from showing up, for whatever reason. When I added the "Followers" gadget to my page, it was also blocked with this message:

 

http://ps.friendconnect.gmodules.com/ps/ifr?container=friendconnect... is blocked because it is currently categorized as: Social Networking

 

I guess this has something to do with cutting off things that lead us to sin, but sometimes, it gets damn annoying. 

Alex, I may be talking to you about this sometime soon.