Blogs about: Christianity

As with any world religion, it’s quite hard to succintly define Christianity, because there are so many denominations. In basic terms, it’s a shared set of beliefs, a way of life and a community of people. But what it means to be a good Christian or a bad Christian — even after 2,000 or so years after this concept came to exist — is still a topic of ongoing debate. That said, the religion’s core beliefs appeal to more people on the planet than any other religion, and that’s saying something about the man who started it all.

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Is it celebration time?
efcgraceblog

I’ve been struck by two different celebrations I’ve seen on the news this past week. The first was when Jody Arias was found guilty of killing her boyfriend after a long, lurid and highly publicized trial.  As the guilty verdict was announced the split screen the news network had up showed two images side-by-side.  On the left was a close-up of Ms. Arias sitting expressionless except for a lone tear running silently down her cheek.  On the right was an overview of the large crowd outside the courthouse erupting in loud cheers and celebration over the verdict.  I accept the verdict and was glad to see justice done but somehow the contrast between the two images was chilling. And then yesterday it was “déjà vu all over again” when abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of the murder of three live-born infants in his clinic, along with a host of other charges.  Again, within minutes the screen had pictures of joyous celebration in some pro-life gatherings.  Here too I think the v

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Miracles, Highlighters and Trash Cans
All My Roads

I stumbled upon the Bible of my high school days this afternoon and took a moment to examine it. The copy was ominously thick and self-indulgent, worn down from angst filled examination of my high school doubts. I dropped it upon my desk with a self-righteous thud. Opening its pages, I developed the sense that many a highlighter had met their fate on these words and I was intrigued to notice that even some obscure passages among the Minor Prophets were colored with great enthusiasm, leading me to question what I knew then that I don’t now. Moving further along, I noticed that the pages weren’t just elaborately highlighted. No, no, no apparently that wouldn’t have sufficed. Rather it appeared as though my twelve-year-old self also had the spiritual gift of making radically obvious comments in the margins. Next to the opening to one of Paul’s letters I’d eloquently penned “this is Paul’s introduction and greeting”. Ah, thank you for the insight Luther. After doing this, I pulled out my c

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The Bible’s Nameless Dames
A Humanist's perspective

Second rate citizens I suppose, These three nameless dames. As with other women in the Bible, Who were often not even named. These three in particular, Come to mind. Yeah, these three women, Are favorite Bible characters of mine. Two of these nameless women, Were married to men who in drunken stupors. Exposed their genitals to their own offspring, Yet the Bible regards each man as just super! Yet the wives of these irresponsible men, Will forever remain nameless. While their husbands Noah and Lot, Are seemingly regarded as blameless. It was righteous Lot in fact, Who once offered his daughters to be gang banged. Then after his nameless wife died, With each daughter in drunken sex he engaged. ‘REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE’, The Bible critically proclaims. Yet even though murdered by God, The Bible records not her name. And then there is poor Jephthah’s daughter, A victim of her father’s rash vow. Murdered as a sacrifice to Jehovah, A deed which God did allow. This poor victimized daughter, Whose

Stand up! Stand up 4 Jesus!
AccessN2Grace

During times of great tragedy we need to not act like those with no hope.  Some how somewhere over the years  Jesus and all he did was lost in the translation. Jesus and God are not the ones that the Bible says are here to kill, steal, and destroy.  It’s someone else.  In fact it’s a defeated someone else.  As Christians we ”need to use our heads for more than just hat rack.”   Let’s put on our thinking caps and set folks straight. God does not roam around like a lion seeking whom he can destroy.   God is love.  And God LOVES us that he sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and so much more.  Let’s Stand up for Jesus and Stand up for God! Let’s get the record straight for the lost and babes in Christ.  The last thing a babe in Christ needs to hear is some ignorant but meaning well Christian to pull the “God took him to be with him” card or the “This happened so God would get glory out of it somehow in the long run but we real

The “Do Not Touch The Lord’s Anointed” Lie
The Last Hiker

There are two verses that support this popular phrase that ministers like to use when they are being criticized. Saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.” Psalm 105:15 and  And he said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.” 1 Samuel 24:6 But this idea is used almost as a threat . . . “If you come against my ministry, the Lord will strike you!” Wow. Is that even what this is saying? The first verse is from Psalms 105 and it is talking about how God protected all the people of Israel as she wandered in the wilderness and did not allow any of the nations to destroy her. It says that God rebuked the kings for her sake. It wasn’t that God didn’t want the kings of the other nations to not disagree or gossip about the Israelites, they were not to physically hurt them–commit a crime against them. The second ver

The DMV and the Redeemed Multitude
The Glory of the Grind
Historic Abuse
MrCatOLick
I Don’t Need Help
coloursofcolor
June’s Italian Desktop Calendar!
Seeking Hearts of Italy
I Don’t Need Help
Merciful Days
Be Published Soon | To Jerusalem Part II:B
The Land Of Olive Tree
The Deceiver
The Teen Theme

TV set. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons, and the themes would be something like “Believe in yourself” and “Follow your heart”. Cute idea, but bad advice for a Christian. Still, it’s how the world thinks, and it’s how kids growing up are told to think. As I thought about this, the title of this post just popped into my head–the Deceiver. The devil’s the deceiver, right? We need to be aware that Satan uses tools to deceive us that are often a lot closer to home than we think. “Follow your heart”. The phrase immediately brings to mind a verse, Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Think of it this way: Our heart is our flesh. It has sinful desires. It is deceitful. You know when you’re about to make a bad decision, and there’s a little something inside you that says what you’re about to do is wrong? That’s the

Humanity, Desire, and the Church
Apologia and the Occident

          In a recent column that appeared in the Idaho State Journal (found here: “Hard Times for the Homophobic:”, 5-19-13), a caricature of the Christian worldview on human sexuality was created, in which modern popular opinion based on selective types of scientific research is supposed to be discrediting what has always been taught regarding the nature of humanity and human relationships.  Somehow, holding to a traditional view of human sexuality inherently equates to a psychological disorder, with those who disagree having an irrational fear/anxiety disorder (“phobia”).   This betrays a certain type of faith in naturalistic thought, in which those who hold to the traditional classic Judeo-Christian worldview have to be explained away in “scientific” language, and labeled as mentally sick.   In addition, the universal church and its teachings are supposed to have been “confounded” by these new developments, in which biology somehow proves that God is the author of desires that He c

What Is Man…
Psalm 19:14

English: Pleiades Star Cluster (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Have you ever had and experience like you know something, but then whatever it is hits you right between the eyes in a fresh, new, powerful way? Well, this very same thing happened to me recently. Two things happened. First, I was teaching my students about astronomy and we were discussing light years, stars, galaxies, etc. Secondly, my husband and I went on a walk on a crisp, clear night where we could see forever (or so it seemed!). All of a sudden, Psalm 8:3-4 became a reality to me. “When I observe Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is man that You remember him, the son of man that you look after him?” Here are some facts that when I stop to think about them and ponder them, my mind just can’t quite grasp them. A light year, which is the speed light travels in a year, is approximately 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). Stop and think about that number for a mom

A Humbling Homecoming
blogdispencer

I recently completed the first of four years at Baylor University. I am happy to say that I still have not declared a major! I am content with my first year at school as I succeeded academically, I found myself in several circles of friends that hold me accountable and I can grow with, and I grew to a whole new spiritual level in my relationship with God. And now I’m home. I feel as if I became addicted to Baylor. I grew accustomed to being able to walk out into the long, stinky halls of Penland to scream at the top of my lungs for absolutely no reason. I adjusted to sharing a room with two guys, which ended up being one of the biggest blessings of my first year. I learned what it was like to have girls as friends, as I spent most of my high school days with one girl. I joked with my friends at school almost on a daily basis asking, “What is a girl?” I especially enjoyed having friends around me all day every day. And now I’m home. Talk about culture shock. The phrase “cold turkey” mak

Are we the church?
Faith or Certainty

I have heard “We are the church” preached many times over many years. Is a more appropriate question “are we the church”? Like many Christians today, I question the validity of much of our accepted practices within the life of “Church”. We talk about our buildings, programmes and meetings as not being central to our faith and that, we, the people of God, are the church, we do not “go” to church. Going to church is an easy option, we may carry responsibility within that context and hence it may require our participation above attendance, singing and listening but being the church is a whole lot harder. My journey has taken me away from attendance and in fact 30 years of over participation in leadership at many levels. It is also easy to be apart from attending the church but being the church is inescapable as part of a faith. The challenge is expressing that and I guess what we know as the emerging church is an attempt at living faith in a

Honey? Still Are You Trying to Frame Somebody Elses?
The New World Ahead

“ gogle 1 westlife illuminati ” ????? who wrote these?           And Stop Talking About That Stupid “Illumati” Stuffs ! Too Much Illusion, Hallucination, Magalomatic.            Haven’t you Ever imagined that most people are “NOT” illusive, hallucinatic, magalomatic? Have you Ever Thought about things from Normal, Average People’s point of view? Not from your point of view? That’s why You have Pissed off so many people, Created Too Many Enemies ! How are you going to handle all those Enemies that You have created? When they come all together?                    Honey, Isn’t it Amazing, Paradoxically Ironic truth that “God continuously put Your Life on my hands.”           You have been living flamboyant, luxurious life of shallowness, nothingness but greed and immorality, on top of the world. and i have been living on the verge of blink of …… …However, Still God loves me more, puts me in charge of

Trinity: Really???
PrS (Pr. Susan M. Strouse): Proud Member of the Religious Left

Since tomorrow is Trinity Sunday, it might be wise to heed the advice of whoever created this Facebook post. But, in fact, there are several ways I could go:  - Fall back on the old water/ice/steam illustration – Throw up my hands and declare the Trinity a “mystery” – Ignore it altogether (go with the kittens) – Try to re-imagine this idea of God as Three-in-One A lot of people I talk to seem like the ‘ignore it altogether’ option. In fact, when we sold our church building six years ago and rented space at the Unitarian Church, people would ask, “Why don’t you just become Unitarian?” I would answer, “Because we’re not Unitarians,” not meaning any disrespect to our landlords. I knew the comments came from the fact that our two congregations shared many of the same beliefs and commitments to social justice issues. But the fact remained that every week we begin and end our liturgy in the name of God: Creator, Re

Review: The Truth of the Cross
My Tropical Home

The Truth of the Cross by R.C. Sproul My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Truth of the Cross   This review first appeared in Goodreads. As a “returning” believer, I wanted to refresh myself with the basics of the faith. I was thinking of revisiting the books on apologetics and basic Christianity that I had read in the past. But when my “big brother” in the faith shared the limited time offer to get the Kindle edition for free, I grabbed it. The Cross is central to Christianity. RC Sproul lays this down in a thorough manner in this book. For a layperson like myself who has no formal theological or biblical training, the book can get overwhelming with the doctrines and theological terms that Sproul used. However he manages to explain these clearly without losing the reader. So for a new believer seeking to understand the details of the “why” of the Cross, this book is an excellent introduction to the subject without having to enroll in Bible school. I liked the emphasis Sproul placed on rea

The Illuminating Presence of Christ
Love Always, Corinne

  Trying to describe why one remains a Christian is often very difficult.  It is a problem of linguistics really.  There are just no words to describe the presence of Christ in the soul.  I tried to describe it this morning to my sister and I failed miserably: I wish I had something other than words to express the tangible “peace” that Christ and the Church give. It is a palpable reality I have experienced. I think it takes having had that Presence, being away from it by ones own choosing, then finding that Presence again, in order to be able to recognize its value. Maybe that is why I had to go through a crisis in faith…to realize what it is I had and the gift of true peace. The “lightness of soul” and joy that comes from living Christ, not just talking about Him, is indescribable. I still have a ways to go yet. It is a continual journey, the process of conversion and transformation. It takes a lifetime to become a Saint and that is my true goal in life… lofty yes, but attainable