Christopher Hitchens. Believer?

This just up over at The Corner on National Review. It appears that Mike Potemra has just witnessed a debate over the existence of God between Christopher Hitchens and Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. I've always loved reading Hitchen's articles. He is so clear, biting, passionate and logical, except not so clear and logical when he writes about God. From Mike's witness, Hitchen's problem is confusing professed God followers with God Himself. Never a good idea, though some of His followers get confused on that point sometimes also.

The Private Patient

Just got back from a three day camping trip with my family at Douthat State Park. While there I was able to read P.D. James', The Lighthouse . Now I see she will have another book available in November. I thought that perhaps The Lighthouse might be the last Adam Dalgliesh mystery, but I'm glad it's not.

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Happy reading.

Theology and Politics

I am probably one of the most non-political people you will ever meet. I have always been much more interested in morality and, since I became a Christian, in biblical morality. That is always how I have tended to vote--- according to the moral values expressed by the candidate.

I am much more passionately interested in theology and I do not believe that these 2 arenas can exist completely independent of one another.

As Christians we are encouraged by God, to conform to the mind of Jesus Christ. This is the essence of theology—to think God’s thoughts after Him. Jesus Christ is the Living Word and, through the bible, we can come to know His mind and heart. His Word promises that His children are being transformed more and more deeply into His image and that God will “complete the good work that He has begun in us”.

What does this mean when we, as Christians, consider for whom we are going to vote? As Christians, ideally, we are supposed to read the Word of God and, wherever our beliefs conflict with the Word, abandon our beliefs in an effort to conform to the highest truth that we are privy to as human beings.

For these reasons, I have never made it past the issue of abortion, as I have considered who would get my vote. God’s Word tells us firmly, and without uncertainty, that we are not to murder. Taking the life of another human being is the definition of murder…. Any politician or political party that bases part of its platform on the acceptance of murder will never get my vote. It is that simple and clear cut for me.

However, I have many good Christian friends who are democrats. In the weeks to come, I plan on asking them how they can adopt political positions that are in direct opposition to scripture. I am truly seeking to understand, what seems to me, to be such a strange phenomena.

In Christ,
Janine

Medieval Occupation?

Since we are studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in our home studies, this seemed appropriate - and fun. I'm not sure what it means that I scored higher for a monk and a knight than for a lady, other than it's probably a good thing I live in the 21st century. Anyway, give it a try. H/T Drew at RRLS.


Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test...

The Monk

You scored 5% Cardinal, 72% Monk, 44% Lady, and 49% Knight!

You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes your way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.

Take The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test at HelloQuizzy

Happy Camper

That's what I am. I didn't think I'd be excited about this election until this:




I have been telling my mom that I hoped Senator McCain would choose Governor Palin for his running mate. This morning, my husband and I were reading all the rumors swirling around the internet and I could hardly believe it. She is a member of Feminists for Life, a fiscal conservative and an all around crunchy mama. I may even have to get a bumper sticker. Maybe.

The Balance of the Man

Today, I read an article by James Bowman over at Armavirumque. The author compares Barak Obama to the Scarecrow and John McCain to the Lion, both characters in The Wizard of Oz. His thought goes something like this: Obama represents someone who will think his way to avoid danger, and McCain will deal with danger when confronted by it. (Bowman cites Sally Quinn's article yesterday where she comments on the Saddleback forumn.)

All this led me to think of Harry Potter, naturally. Then I began to think of Jesus. (Yes, that was the order of my thoughts. Sanctification is a process, you know.) First, my thoughts began comparing the houses of Hogwarts. There are: Ravenclaw, the house that chooses the intellectual and witty, then Gryffindor which chooses the brave and chivalrous, Hufflepuff, the loyal and hardworking. The fourth house, Slytherin, chooses the prideful and power hungry. Throughout the series, one sees Gryffindor always leading the way, but not able to accomplish what needs to be done to conquer evil without both Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. (There also is the need for self-sacrifice, but we'll leave that for another post.) What that means politically is an interesting thought. Are those who are courageous and firm in their beliefs better suited for the office of POTUS? What of those that have greater giftings of the intellect? Are they better suited as advisors or congressmen and women? And what of the loyal and hardworking? Was this part of our founders intuition when setting up our government of checks and balances? There may be a some merit to the thought of a Gryffindor or Lion type as president, but I can't help but think the better would be to have all those characteristics prominent in one person.

Of course this is when I thought of Jesus, our Christ. One only has to take a brief look at His life to see all of these in perfect balance and in their fullness. His courage was displayed by confronting the leaders of Israel on their hypocrisy, forgiving sinners, facing the cross and taking on our sins; His wit and intellect in answering questions, many which were asked to trap Him, His teaching and teaching style, and understanding our human nature; His loyalty and hard work in healing the sick, associating and identifying with sinners, and praying to our Father for great stretches of time. These are just a few examples.

While we may not get the president we want or need, we do have a King and High Priest who knows, cares, and reigns in perfection now and forever.

'Tis the Season

A little fun between spectating.

You Are Fencing

You're competitive but not brutally so. You compete to make yourself better. You find having an opponent to be challenging and rewarding. You are fierce when you're in a competition, but you don't wish your rivals any real harm.

What Olympic Sport Are You?

The Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is so simple and yet so complex....

The meaning of life is union with God, the constant emptying of ourselves and the constant need to be filled with God. He requires our desire, our cooperation and our surrender. He does all the rest. By His hand, He will craft a willing and striving human soul, painfully and joyfully, into the perfect image of His Son, Jesus Christ. The dance between our free will and God's grace is called synergy. Synergy is the sum of our union with God, on this side of reality. When we are face to face with Him, on the other side of reality, we will be united with Him for all eternity.

God's grace is invisible but His grace is more powerful, and more tangibly real, than any calm sea or raging hurricane. Because we cannot see His grace with our human eyes, He has given us Holy Sacraments. These sacraments are deeply mysterious because God is, in His essence, deeply mysterious. He has given us tangible and material signs of His grace. As we partake of His body and blood in communion and are baptized by water and His Spirit as we enter His Kingdom, we realize, with even more certainty than we can know that we are knit into our own bodies, that He is with us.

We enter union with Him thru water and Spirit and, when we are His children, His blood flows thru our veins and his flesh feeds us. There is no union conceivable to the human mind that is closer than the union that God provides thru the blood and flesh of his Son. However, when we are face to face with Him, our union will be even closer than that. "For nearer is He than breathing and closer than hands and feet".

Faith is belief in what we cannot see with our human eyes. Once He touches your eyes with His light, you can truly see that all things exist in Him. In Him, we live and move and have our being. We are animated and sustained by our all powerful and sovereign creator. His grace is truly all that we need for our survival.

We were made for God and our hearts cannot rest until they rest in Him. This is the meaning of life and He has not left us alone.

Janine

Feeding Mind and Body

I stumbled across this Free Rice site last year. It's a lot of fun, educational and truly does someone a good turn. Give it a try.

American Heresy

is the title of Ross Douthat's post over on TheAtlantic.com. It relates to my post below regarding how culture shapes the church, rather than the church shaping culture, but looks specifically at at the American Church. Here's an excerpt:

The people who read Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and The Prayer of Jabez may be more politically conservative then the people who read A Wing and a Prayer, and read certain passages of Genesis and Leviticus more literally, but the theology they're imbibing is roughly the same sort of therapeutic mush. Indeed, the big difference between the prosperity gospel that Osteen and his ilk are peddling and Schori's liberal Episcopalianism has less to do with any theological principle and more to do with what aspect of American life they want God to validate.

Take a look.

Church of England R.I.P.?

Here is a fascinating article from the Spectator, by Theo Hobson. His take on the current state of the Church of England is that the church was supposed to be diffused "liberally"through society under the state's laws and culture, but since Rowan Williams, (who previously was not a part of the state church, being from Wales), became Archbishop of Canterbury, his focus on the Anglican communion rather than solely on the Church of England, allowed the evangelicals to gain too much power and left liberated England out to dry, and now it will die.

What's fascinating to me about the article is how Machiavellian it is. There is nothing about what is true or scriptural. His explanation for the problems in the church is that the "bigots" have gotten too much control and the Archbishop inartfully let them have it by not sitting on the fence regarding homosexuality which would then have allowed the culture to transform the church in this matter.

This brings to mind that to those without faith, the matters of the Kingdom of God are incomprehensible, and for those of us with faith, often difficult. Hobson obviously cannot acknowledge that the purpose of the church is to transform culture nor that this is because Christ is the true King, Lord of Heaven and Earth - even of the Church of England.

Happy Birthday, Emma

Today, my eldest daughter, Emma, turns twelve years old. This is a photo of her from her May performance in Anastasia. She is growing into a fine young lady who is caring, thoughtful, always ready to have fun, (she asked for a zip-line this year), the only extrovert in our family, and a natural leader. Her ambition is to be an artist and a dress designer. Happy birthday, dear.

Segmented

One of the things that really bothers me about society is its segmentation of ages or life stages. Rod over at Crunchy Con has posted a letter from a single woman who can't find her way into the society of fellow crunchy cons because she is single. This is such a shame, particularly when most crunchy con's are people of faith. While society continues to fragment itself, the church should be moving in the opposite direction; building unity by having the old teach the young, letting the young aid the old, and everyone sharing their gifts with one another because we are all members of the body of Christ.

There is so much that needs to be done to rectify this, but one thing that could help would be to offer hospitality. Inviting someone to one's home who does not share the same station is a good start; whether they be older, younger, married, single, richer, poorer, working class, white collar, professional, etc... Hospitality is a command given to all Christians, and is even listed as a qualification to be an elder in the church, yet it seems to be one of those "old-fashioned" commands that is easy to ignore.

While not a cure-all, it could be a start. If you have any other suggestions, please add them in the comments.

Jesse Helms R.I.P.

God works in amazing and ironic ways. Who'd have thought that He would use a rock star quoting scripture to soften an old politician's heart? That's exactly what happened when Bono spoke to Senator Helms about the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Here is an ad. for an organization set up as a result of that change of heart. May I let God's Word soften my heart as well.

Happy Independence Day

Blink

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has been getting pummelled in the Canadian press with their investigation into Mark Steyn and Maclean's. They've decided to cut their losses. Read about it here from Ezra Levant.

More Fun

80 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Hat tip, Drew Campbell at Running River Latin School

What Does it Mean to be the "Bride of Christ"?

I have been thinking alot lately about what it means to be the Bride of Christ, both as an individual and as part of the Body of Christ. We are the Bride for our Eternal Bride Groom, our precious Lord Jesus Christ. It is only thru His sacrifice that we are made spotless and beautiful in His sight.

We are His in His eternal Kingdom, both here and now and in eternity. In the present, Communion is an act in which we literally take the Lord into our bodies. In doing so, we become one flesh with Him. This is the beginning of our eternal union with Him.

Union with God, or eternal separation from Him, is the ultimate end of all reality. Union with God, or eternal separation from Him, is the final destiny of every human being.

As the Bride of Christ, it is our role to receive His love, freely given, and give Him all of our love in return. This reciprocal love is the essence of our eternal union with Him. This reciprocal love is what existed between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit before time began and the foundations of the Earth were laid. This is love beyond human comprehension and we are being invited to participate. This is love and union so all encompassing that human sexuality within the bonds of marriage is only the palest foreshadowing of what He has prepared for us, His Bride.

One of my favorite poems, by John Donne, speaks of this union in far better words than I could muster.

BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,

But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

There is no greater love than the love of God, no greater passion within the grasp of a human being than the passion that only He can stir in us. We are helpless to initiate this love. We can only, thru our free will, choose to receive Him or to reject Him. He offers union beyond our wildest ability to imagine.

Our God is a God of mystery and paradox. Truly, we shall never be free unless we allow ourselves to become enthralled and imprisioned by the embrace of the Lord. We shall never be pure and chaste until we stand face to face with Him, ravished by His love for all eternity. He created us so that we would never be satisfied with anything but union with Him.

The courtship, leading to eternal marriage, can begin now, if you allow it to. Your relationship with Him can be growing closer every day until it is finally consummated in the eternal union that He has promised. He is coming back for His Bride one day. Are you willing to receive Him?

Ideas and Consequences

Here is a great example of how what we believe affects how we live. Check it out.

What kind of mother hen are you?

What type of Mother Hen Are You?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource