Intolerance

Got an email from Josh McDowell Ministry this morning thought I would pass it along - it's a good one!

"To me tolerance is one of the most evil concepts in history. I think tolerance

is an insult to people. . . it degrades people. Never once in the Bible am I

called to be tolerant. I'm called to be loving." — Josh McDowell

Right now, America faces one of the greatest threats to the cause of Christ in 2,000 years — tolerance. Our children are being taught that truth is relative to the individual — and that all values, beliefs and lifestyles are equal. Knowing right from wrong doesn’t matter. To say something is right or wrong is not being tolerant.


But God does not call us to be tolerant. He calls us to act justly — and to do that we must discern right from wrong.

Tolerance teaches that everyone's beliefs are equally valid. Tolerance is a dangerous idea because it destroys our ability to stand up for biblical truth.

If you are interested in reading more about Intolerance, go to Josh McDowell's page of resources.  There are some references you can download for free.

The Best Christmas Gift

Christmas isn't far off and many of you will start your gift shopping soon.  I would like to offer an alternative to the usual gifts you purchase for your friends and family.  A real gift - a gift of hope - a gift of love - a gift that will glorify our Lord and spread the gospel.  Harvest of Hope, a division of Partners International, offers a catalog full of the needs of poor families and communities around the world and gives us a way to reach out and help them.  You can purchase gifts through their catalog or website and they will send you an honor card for each one.  For $7 you can purchase medicine for a family or a Bible for someone in India or China.  For $45 you can purchase a pig for a family - or you can contribute towards that pig with whatever amount you can afford.  These are just a couple of the many needs covered by Harvest of Hope.  It's a great way for children to learn about reaching out in the name of Jesus to those in need.

Harvest of Hope™ - Gifts That Change Lives from Partners International on Vimeo.

Please consider giving a true gift - a gift that is needed. It is the best way to celebrate and glorify our Savior's birthday.

http://www.harvestofhope.org/

God bless you,
Lisa

Christianity on the Decline

This is a comment left by a pastor on Joel Richardson's website.  They were discussing the drop in the number of Christians in this country and what the problem may be.  One comment dealt with how our schools are teaching students evolution as fact and now there are even pastors trying to meld creationism with evolution.  I found this reply to be honest and compelling - especially the closing remark about the Kingdom.


Friends, when we depart from the word of God and no longer place the mission and heart of Christ in the center of Church which is the fellowship of the saints worshipping and working together in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, we die. Nobody in their right mind digs up a corpse and has fellowship with it. This is why I believe so many are leaving because there is a disingenuine Godlessness that’s permiating throughout the mainline traditionalist denominations. As a pastor and elder in my denominational setting, I have witnessed the disconnection and abuse first hand and in the quiet corners where nobody is looking. Todays mainline protestant Church is not just dying because of ancient tradionalism placed above effective ministry, its also dying because men and women in these settings are lost and corrupt career political preachers who care nothing of the role and calling of the shepherd. Many of these persons are radcal Godless liberals, gnostics, homosexuals and self promoting idolators who sit in plush offices and who drive Bentley’s and Mercedes while the congregations suffer to pull from all corners to pay their dues and keep a pastor and his/her ministry afloat. What we are seeing is nothing less than a world figuring this out. The abuse I am personally aware of is so staggering and unthinkable to me that if I had no calling as a pastor with the heart of God I would likely have nothing to do with most church settings in this nation. I’ve lost count of the wounded people I’ve met and the personal and spiritual damage that’s being done all because men wish to advance themselves, their careers and their political power. My denominational conference in the Ohio valley lost 5500 members in 2008. We lost another 3500 in regular attendence on average. That’s 9000 people who as newly as 2008 are no longer there. On average, I have discovered that approx. 20 percent of our conference membership on the books is either dead or missing in action in some way. Self serving pastors will cook the books in order to make themselves look better. And we’ve lost an average of 7000 a year no longer contributing to the church. That means that in 15 years or less, my conference will cease to exist! Add this to the fact that the average age is 62 and then add that 15 years. We retire yearly 4 times more clergy than we take in. The writing is on the wall friends! We must work in the power of the Spirit and be empowered to do the works Jesus did with a selflessness that would rival Paul or we are headed for worse and worse numbers. The institutional Church has replaced Christ with its own idols and works. Have we not then invited the spirit of antichrist right into our midst while at the same time we have pushed the Holy Spirit out the door? I am leaving my tradition and taking credentials and membership in a holiness tradition as I write this because I can no longer have fellowship with the spirit I see here. If I don’t come out from among them I will become one of them. That’s simply something I cannot afford for my sake, my family’s sake and for the sake of Christ. I visited a pastor friend of mine who’s now retired to talk with him about these matters and found him not only sympathetic but also supportive and helpful to my defection. However, he gave an interesting warning when we spoke about the financial matters of clergy support when he said, “be careful, that denomination doesn’t always have the best pension plan like ours does.”. That’s when I asked him who he thought was going to pay for it any way. The point was well taken. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, then all these things will be added unto you.

Democracy and Christianitiy

As we study God's Kingdom in Tuesday night Bible class, I thought it would be interesting to do a little digging on our form of government called democracy.  While I realize we actually have a republic, for the intent and purpose of this blog, I will refer to it as democracy.  Today I was reading some excerpts from Tocqueville's Democracy in America.  For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Alexis Tocqueville lived from 1805 - 1859 and was a French aristocrat. His life was a full one and for our purposes I will simply state that he traveled to the States in the early 19th century to study American society and our form of government,then returned home to write about it.

From Democracy in America:

Next to each religion is a political opinion that is joined to it by affinity.  Allow the human mind to follow its tendency and it will regulate political society and the divine city in a uniform manner; it will seek, if I dare say it, to harmonize the earth with Heaven.

The greatest part of English America has been peopled by men who, after having escaped the authority of the pope, did not submit to any religious supremacy; they therefore brought to the New World a Christianity that I cannot depict better than to call it democratic and republican:  this singularly favors the establishment of a republic and of democracy in affairs.  From the beginning, politics and religion were in accord, and they have not ceased to be so since.

A few paragraphs later Tocqueville describes how he visited the largest city in the Union where there was a political gathering whose purpose was to come to the assistance of the Poles and to get arms and money to them.  There were approximately two to three thousand people at the assembly and as it got under way, a priest clothed in his ecclesiastical habit came out and offered a long prayer for the Poles, the French, and the United States.  He ended his prayer in the name of Jesus at which the entire assembly replied AMEN with reverence.

I have just shown what the direct action of religion on politics is in the United States.  Its indirect action seems to me more powerful still, and it is when it does not speak of freedom that it best teaches Americans the art of being free. 

There is an innumberable multitude of sects in the United States.  All differ in the worship one must render to the Creator, but all agree on the duties of men toward one another.  Each sect therefore adores God in its manner, but all sects preach the same morality in the name of God. If it serves man very much as an individual that his religion be true, this is not so for society.  Society has nothing to fear nor to hope from the other life; and what is most important to it is not so much that all citizens profess the true religion but that they profess a religion.  Besides, all the sects in the United States are within the great Christian unity, and the morality of Christianity is everywhere the same.

It is permissible to think that a certain number of Americans follow their habits more than their convictions in the worship they render to God.  In the United States, moreover, the sovereign is religious, and consequently hypocrisy ought to be common; America is, however, still the place in the world where the Christian religion has most preserved genuine power over souls; and nothing shows better how useful and natural to man it is in our day, since the country in which it exercises the greatest empire is at the same time the most enlightened and most free.

More to come...................
Blessings,
Lisa

What About Jesus?

Do any Christians reading this blog find something wrong in the following article from the UMC?  Let me give you a hint:  Something (or SOMEONE) has been ommitted.  Something (or SOMEONE) is not mentioned once in the whole article.  Something (or SOMEONE) who is responsible for our eternal life in God's Kingdom is void of being mentioned.....................  could it be, why yes, it's JESUS!  Where, in all of this self-promoting diatribe  is our Savior?  When did Jesus ever tell us to work side by side with pagans, learn all about their "religion" and to top it off never mention His name to them?  When did Jesus give us the command to go and spread peace throughout the world, even if it meant zipping our mouths about Him so as not to offend?  So now we are to throw Jesus under the bus in order to achieve peace?  I guess I missed this particular scripture in my Bible, so please, if you subscribe to this belief, let me know the foundation for it because as of right now, I don't believe listening to false teachings is the Christians' call.  And as far as "things getting worse" - yes, we know they are going to get worse.......... and worse.......... and worse until the return of our Lord and Savior.  So until then, pray for peace, pray for your enemies and spread the word about Jesus Christ everywhere you go.


400 attend peace conference
Goal at Lake Junaluska to build interfaith peace initiatives.

More than 400 Hebrews, Muslims and Christians from 16 states and four countries gathered at the 2nd annual Lake Junaluska Peace Conference recently. Theme of the event was “People of Faith Building Partnerships for Peace.” Participants discussed how to implement interfaith peace-building techniques once they returned to their own communities.

Keynote speakers from each of the Abrahamic faith traditions agreed that action must be taken in order to make peace a reality.

“It is not enough to be peace contemplaters, we need to be proactive peace actors,” said Elias Chacour, Archbishop of the Galilee. “There’s no other way but to get our hands dirty.”

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling agreed. “Peace is not theoretical,” he said. “Peace is not abstract. Peace is something we have to do every day.”

On the second day of the conference, attendees took part in dialogue groups to discuss what they could do in their own communities to foster interfaith understanding and collaborative efforts for peace.

Atif Mahmood, a Muslim Duke University student, expressed hope that participants take what they’ve learned to heart. “This conference has reinvigorated me to go out in my community and encourage interfaith communication,” he said.

Atif was asked during the dialogue how he thought U.S. citizens could improve relations between their own faiths and Muslims in particular. Originally from Pakistan, Atif replied that education is necessary to become leaders for peace. “If we just leave [Pakistan] alone, things will get worse,” he said. “We need infrastructure, development and education to make things better.

“Opening the doors of America would better the world. We need to start training and exposing Muslims to this culture and let them go back and educate others.”

A member of the same dialogue group as Atif identified himself as a retired United Methodist minister. The clergyman said he came to listen and open his heart to what was being said about the three faiths. “Begin with making peace within your own heart,” he said. “If you don’t do that, anything else you do is useless.”

At the conclusion of the conference, ideas from all the dialogue groups were shared. Many participants said they hoped to apply practical applications for peace that they had learned from others at the conference.

Among the most mentioned ideas was starting an interfaith club to share the spiritual reasoning of sacred texts. Some hoped to organize interfaith peace camps for children, while others planned to begin interfaith Habitat for Humanity projects to foster interfaith cooperation.

Marian Wright Edelman will be a featured presenter at the 2010 Lake Junaluska Peace Conference, whose theme is “Children at the Table of Peace.” Edelman is founder and director of the Children’s Defense Fund.

More information about the event, including suggested reading lists, contacts and resources are available at Peace Conference. These include President Obama's speech on Ramadan and messages from Dr. Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Muslim Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, and Rabbi Liebling.

Yours in Christ's peace,

Mark Harrison
Director of Peace with Justice Program