Sunday, March 26, 2006

Inasmuch as ye have done it...



How about this little cartoon as some food for thought. (FYI: The allusion here is from Matthew 25:34-45)

While it may offend some Christians, I think that is only because it is hitting an exposed nerve we may need to look more closely at. Here are my thoughts in a nutshell:

A great majority of the "Christian Right" needs to take a good look at themselves in the light of this scripture. God did not call us to sit back and merely elect a government that we believe promotes our idea of morality through "social conservatism." Viewing it from the other side, we are neither to merely elect a government that we believes promotes social justice through government programs. He called us to reach out our hands feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoner.

Thank God Jesus isn't a Republican or a Democrat!




Technorati Tags: ,

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Interesting Article

I'm in Seattle on business and found this article on the front page of The Seattle Times this morning. I thought it was rather interesting.

The article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal and appears below. I copied it from the website the article mentions: http://www.off-the-map.org/

On eBay, an Atheist
Puts His Own Soul
On the Auction Block

The Winning Bidder Offers An Unusual Deal: Visit Churches and Critique

By SUZANNE SATALINE March 9, 2006; Page A1

A few weeks ago, Hemant Mehta posted an unusual item for sale on eBay: a chance to save his soul.

The DePaul University graduate student promised the winner that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old Mr. Mehta is an atheist, but he says he suspected he had been missing out on something.

Hemant Mehta"Perhaps being around a group of people who will show me 'the way' could do what no one else has done before," Mr. Mehta wrote in his eBay sales pitch. "This is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me."

Evangelists bid, eager to save a sinner. Atheists bid, hoping to keep Mr. Mehta in their fold. When the auction stopped on Feb. 3 after 41 bids, the buyer was Jim Henderson, a former evangelical minister from Seattle, whose $504 bid prevailed.

Mr. Henderson wasn't looking for a convert. He wanted Mr. Mehta to embark with him on an eccentric experiment in spiritual bridge-building.

The 58-year-old Mr. Henderson has written a book for a Random House imprint and is currently a house painter. He runs off-the-map.org1, a Web site whose professed mission is "Helping Christians be normal." Mr. Henderson is part of a small but growing branch of the evangelical world that disagrees with the majority's conservative political agenda, and wants the religion to be more inclusive and help the disadvantaged.

Days after the auction, Mr. Henderson flew to Chicago to see Mr. Mehta, who is studying to be a math teacher. The two met in a bar, where they sealed a deal a little different from the one the student had proffered. Instead of the 50 hours of church attendance that he was entitled to for his $504, Mr. Henderson asked that Mr. Mehta attend 10 to 15 services of Mr. Henderson's choosing and then write about it.

Mr. Mehta also agreed to provide running commentary on the church services on the off-the-map site and take questions — bluntly sharing a nonbeliever's outlook on services that many consider sacred. The deal called for Mr. Henderson to donate the $504 to the Secular Student Alliance, a group headed by Mr. Mehta that has 55 chapters in the U.S. and abroad.

"I'm not trying to convert you," Mr. Henderson said at the bar. "You're going there almost like a critic....If you happen to get converted, that's off the clock."

Jim HendersonFor Mr. Mehta's first service, the two attended noon Mass at Old St. Patrick's, a Catholic church near Mr. Mehta's apartment. In the third pew from the rear, Mr. Mehta silently gazed at the statues and the worshipers' folded hands. He tried to follow along, but was a beat behind the congregation as it stood and knelt on cue.

Mr. Henderson asked Mr. Mehta to score the priest, on a scale of one for boring to 10 for "off the charts." Mr. Mehta gave him a three. "More stories" in the sermon, Mr. Mehta suggested — and less liturgy.

Asked about that advice, the Rev. John Cusick, who said the Mass that day, was unfazed: "There's nothing he could say that I haven't heard 100 times over."

Mr. Mehta's commentaries award sermons kudos for clarity, demerits for redundancy. After a service at Chicago's nondenominational Park Community Church, he criticized the preacher for repeatedly referring to a Bible verse in which the Galatians are called "fools" for doubting the divinity of Jesus — without explaining why the passage was relevant to his congregation. The room, Mr. Mehta noted, was already full of people who didn't share the Galatians' doubts.

Associate Pastor Ron May wrote in to thank Mr. Mehta: "As the guy who spoke yesterday, I really appreciate the honest eval. (Unfortunately, a lot of the time you only get polite smoke...good job...thanks for the message.)"

Mr. Mehta was born in Chicago and raised in Jainism, an ancient Indian faith whose followers vow to harm no living thing, not even microbes in the air.

He praises famous atheists, but has also read parts of the Bible, loves watching televangelists like Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen, and admires their appeal to congregations. "If I could be an atheist pastor?" he says, "Oh God, that would be great!"

Mr. Henderson, who was a member of the Association of Vineyard Churches, a nondenominational ministry, says he preached for 25 years, but says he grew disenchanted because many of his peers were obsessed with gathering more believers and increasing their budgets. Off-the-map started as a hobby, an outgrowth of a long talk with a friend and co-founder Dave Richards, who had been a member of one of Mr. Henderson's congregations, about why they disliked evangelizing.

Mr. Henderson began interviewing nonbelievers — in front of audiences and video cameras — about the ways Christians had offended them. That material became part of his book, "a.k.a. 'Lost,' '' espousing his softer approach, published last year by WaterBrook Press.

Hiring Mr. Mehta has been his wisest investment, Mr. Henderson says. The Web site received 5,000 hits in the first 10 days after the auction — typically the number of visits in an average month.

Some visitors to the site castigate Mr. Henderson for giving an atheist a forum. One said he was "rather misguidedly (throwing) money at someone to simply get him 'churched' for a time so he might possibly get 'saved?' "

Mr. Mehta has also been reading and critiquing church bulletins. In one, Park Community asked the congregation to pray, in advance of a coming meeting on the construction of a church building "that God would.. .open the doors to the right parking solution, allowing us to build a worship space for 1,200 people, rather than the 850 currently permitted."

"Really?" Mr. Mehta observed on the Web site. "That's what you're praying for? Do they think a god will change parking restrictions? Will a god change the price of nearby property? Will a god add another level to a parking structure?"

Mr. May, the pastor, admitted such talk sounds weird to an outsider. "It's good to be reminded it's unusual," he said

Mr. Henderson says he is thrilled that Mr. Mehta is prompting such reactions. "We're getting to a place where we're talking and not converting," he says.

With about half his obligation to Mr. Henderson fulfilled, Mr. Mehta says he's no closer to believing in God, although he does admire churches for the communities they create. Church, he has decided, is "not such a bad place to be."

OTM Atheist Blog

Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

A recent conversation on prayer

I had a conversation recently with a friend about prayer. The issue was when do we pray specific prayers and when do we pray for God's will to be done? He said that he often finds himself praying for God's will in his life when he is searching for an answer or is in need rather than praying specifically for what he desires. He has issue with those that say because God didn't answer according to our wish, we must not have had enough faith or made our petition correctly or some other excuse like that.

So, he finds himself praying in need, but ending with saying "your will be done." Looking at that, he sees where that is a rationalization on our part to give ourselves an out. We discussed this. If I pray, "Lord, I really want this, but your will be done", then when we don't get what we want we have that out. My father-in-law calls this a coward's prayer. He says Jesus only prayed "nevertheless your will be done" when he knew that God's will was something he didn't want. That is, when he was about to face the cross - his true purpose on earth - he as a man didn't want it to happen, but knew it was God's will to occur. So, when we pray for something we do want, but then say "but your will be done", we are wimping our with our petition.

Back to the conversation with my friend, who has seen "more fervent prayer" but has never prayed that way himself, I told him my take on things. Basically, I said that I pray according to "you have not because you ask not" (James 4:2), which I have rudimentarily translated to "the answer may be no, but it doesn't hurt to ask." Of course, James goes on to say "you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives." So, we must be sure our motives are pure. If they are, though, I believe we can ask what we will of our Father. Of course, he may say no, which may not seem fine at the time, but must be permissible.

My friend is about to spend at least the next 3 years in as a "tent maker" missionary in a middle eastern country. He has already visited for a few weeks, and said that the Christians he met there prayed more fervently that he is used to. With that in mind, I also said that I believe when we are walking with God and being led by the Holy Spirit, there will be times when we desire something that we know to be God's will, but that has not yet come to pass. In those cases, we most definitely must fervently for that specific answer. We are in spiritual war and there are supernatural powers that are working against us, which we may not understand. God wants to answer our prayer and so we must continue to seek that answer. I think of the example in the Bible where the apostles (I believe) were fervently praying for an answer for a long time. Finally, an angel arrives and tells them that God sent him with the answer the day they started praying, but he was delayed in the heavens by demons that he had to overcome. (I wish I knew where that scripture was. If anyone does, please let me know).

Anyway, prayer is always an interesting topic. I believe we are to pray the desires of our hearts, but only when our motives are right should we expect affirmative answers, and even then we may not get them. God does know best, after all. The key is our motives with our hearts' desires. This cancels out the "name it, claim it" or "prosperity" philosophies that say all Christians should be driving Benzes and wearing rolexes if only we have faith and ask.

Thoughts?

Technorati Tags :