Wrestles with God

Wherever I go I hear of the coming this or the coming that. “Read this book and know about this.” “God is going to do this with this nation or that with that one.”

No consideration taken if I am Christian or not but I often get approached by End time “prophets of doom” as a former priest used to call them.
Not that I like using that term I don’t mean it in an offensive way, if they do believe that they are doing God’s work and are there on the front line then that counts as some kind of faithful work…
However this stuff actually gets to me. Whether it is a good thing or bad thing I am still at the stage whereby I can abandon one Christian view on doctrine I have had in favour for another if it moves me to action. And this is why so-called prophets of doom’s material can get to me in a somewhat shattering fashion.
So it hits me that God’s word has something to say about Mr. Hussein’s Middle East conquest… Or that the Chernobyl nuclear blast was actually a trumpet in the Revelation of John… Or that we are approaching the final trumpets of the tribulation? Whatever the trumpets or tribulations actually are.
I have become something like a spectator just watching views and interpretations being flung about the place, and trying not to get myself too moved into action on something I feel forced to believe. What I feel lacking most of all is accountability. If something does not take place as printed by the preachers claiming “God said” then they simply resolve to some other interpretations and leave the rest behind. Well, the amount of apologies and accountability have not to my knowledge equalled the claims made that God said something about a building’s destruction.
Well here are some two comments on End Time interpretations, which I believe, represent grounds for a reasonable debate towards narrowing down ideas about the end being flung about the place:
1) Last Days or Not?
Some responses to end time prophets of doom have been that: “these days we live in have never been better.” Many people refer to the Middle Ages as “dark times.” Convincing us with phrases like “a mediaeval burning” or “a medieval torture” as something of the past which we of today who are more sensible and humane have done away with.
It has been debated that contrary to the sayings in Paul’s famous Letter to Timothy that describes the attitudes to know the Last Days we of the present age of man have actually never been better.
This statement is based on evidence from looking at the treatment of women in western society or the treatment of people from other origins. How tolerant we have become and that we are actually getting better. Things like animal rights, democracy, abolishment of capital punishment, the vote for all genders, more moderate foreign relations, multiculturalism, toleration of religions which somehow Christianity in the past was meant to deny.
2) A typical villain of End Time evil empires, Russia.
But what is behind this fear and dislike of Russia? Is it more social than religious? If we look to 50’s films or news archive about “an incoming danger” what we will come to is the Russian threat. This hasn’t worn off. We always hear of the Russian threat. From sly news casting remarks like “The Reds Attack” to sporting fears such as “Russian tycoon” to films and games like Sega’s Soviet Strike. These feelings obviously stem from the cold war communism days, which seem to suggest that Russia is the embodiment of communism or forever communists.
Looking at Russia now its seems almost impossible that anything can take place with their economic status. Perhaps there still seems to be a tinge on Soviet xenophobia. But why is it mingled with Biblical text?

They are taking over the US, and they’re coming to the UK – fundamentalists are hijacking Christianity and squeezing out people with any sense at all.

It makes me sick to think that Bush was re-elected by people claiming to believe in the same God as me, and the reason given by these people was “moral issues”.

MORAL ISSUES?

Meanwhile, I’ve had my own taste of fundamentalism back home.

Moral Issues? Presumably by that you mean ignoring any concept of right and wrong and voting on a narrow point of theology?

You know, fundamentalism ought to mean going back to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and re-evaluating everything we do in those terms. Wouldn’t that mean providing for the poor instead of giving vast tax cuts to your super-rich friends? Wouldn’t that mean taking care of the people under your command instead of sending them on a war of personal revenge mixed with greed? Wouldn’t that mean showing an iota of concern for people? And as a president, wouldn’t it mean accepting your duty to lead wisely, allowing people to act freely instead of taking away their rights to privacy, freedom from intimidation and freedom of religion? Wouldn’t it mean showing mercy to and care for the “alien” (foreigners) in your land?

But it seems to these people that’s not what it means. What is means is not only that a previously unheard-of literalism is applied to the Bible (taking the kind of “worship the book” attitude that is taken in Islam, but which is forbidden in Christianity where we worship God and learn about him from the Bible) but also that the strange conclusions which are drawn from that literalism are taken to be more important than the basic moral laws which are infused through the whole of the Bible, not to mention explicitly stated on numerous occasions in both the old and new testaments.

Yes, strange conclusions. How many verses are used to back up the opinion that a person becomes a human on the point of conception? 2? So you vote for the hater, the greed-feeder, the alien-oppressor, because he is against abortion. How many verses do you need about taking care of the alien and the oppressed? I don’t know when a fetus becomes a person – but I do know that the leader of a country is supposed to care about the dignity of humans under his authority, instead of lying to them about how rich his tax cuts will make them (while wages in the US slip downwards) and lying to them about why they should fight and die in a weak and corrupt foreign country.

How many verses condemn homosexuality? 5? How complex is the context? Should we ban men having long hair? Should we stone people for having sex during a woman’s period? I don’t know what I think about homosexuality – I genuinely don’t know, but I do know the impression given in the Bible about how God feels about oppressing the weak and not defending the powerless.

Speaking of which, which part of “Blessed are the peacemakers,” do these people not understand? How is leaving the Israelis and Palestinians to fester a “moral issue”?

So we come to my local experience. I went to a meeting about Israel and Palestine this week, and I heard some of the violence that is being used to oppress and drive out the Palestinians from their homes. But no matter what your opinion is on this situation (and certainly the Israeli government has the right to try and protect their citizens), what really got me going was the utter idiocy of some of the people who came along.

A direct quote:

“We have to remember that God is on their [the Israelis’] side.”

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM?

Even if we presuppose for a minute that Jesus’ coming and saying everything was different (remember the phrase “new covenant”?) made absolutely no difference, where did you get the idea that God has always been on the Jews’ side?

Did you forget the exile? How about when Moses had to plead with God not to wipe them all out? What about the countless times they disobeyed God and he scattered them, made their enemies defeat them, or left them to fester in their sin?

ARE YOU AN IDIOT?

The ridiculous thing about this is that there really isn’t one verse in the Bible you could twist with your idiotic literalism and come to this conclusion in the first place. Where did you get it from?

So I came closer this week to throwing in the towel than I’d like to admit. How can I say it is reasonable to believe in God, when so many of the people who say they believe in the same God are so happy to believe such stupid, stupid things?

But I remembered that there have been other heresies, and there have been other mistakes in the church, and somehow we’re still here.

And somehow I still believe in God and I still think he wants people like me to argue and persuade these people that they’ve got their priorities muddled, and they should take another look at the “fundamentals”.

But I hope he and you will forgive me for letting off steam a bit before I try.

Sometimes when I’m making a web page I want to make a link to a page just saying what a Christian is, and how to become one. I think maybe I should do that on quite a few of my web pages, because it doesn’t inconvenience anyone who isn’t interested, but it might just be useful to someone who was interested.

The problem is that I don’t trust other people. You never know what mad stuff they’ll say, or what other mad stuff will be on the other pages of their site. So I don’t want to link to other people – I want to link to you people! I trust people on Guilty Expression, and I want to hear what you think it means to be a Christian.

So I’ve made a Wiki page here:

What Is a Christian?

The idea is that I (and other people) can make a link directly pointing at this page, and anyone who is interested can find out what a Christian is, how to become one, etc.

I’ve added a bit of blurb, and some possible questions people might have, but please feel free to change anything there, add questions, re-arrange, or anthing. Let’s make this page the best of its kind on the web, with the distinctive “edge” you get on GE because you can say whatever you like here…

I’d encourage you to link to this page (when it’s a bit more finished) from comments you make on sites, or on your own blogs or web sites, wherever you think it might be useful to someone to find out more about Christianity.

If Wiki scares you, and you don’t want to learn how to edit the page directly, just click “Post Comment” on this page, and write down what you’d like to add or change, and I’ll make the changes to the real Wiki page.

Why do Christians with the knowledge of Christ still have mortal diseases?

Why don’t they naturally seek healing from those with the gifts of healing?

There seem to be Christian Saints of the past, especially Catholics, who are prayed to for healing and are looked on as “Saints”. Actually they were just as human as we are. So where are these “Saints” today?

And how can we know them?

We hear of cures and healings by the Holy Spirit in the scriptures but they all sound like they’re in the past.

Yet sometimes we hear of similar things today, in some places, done by the Saints.

So wait a second! Are these Saints the saints we pray to, the same ones we hear about today?

Where are they today?

Why don’t we meet them? Today’s saints? They sound nice don’t they?

Are we dying, crying? So why don’t we seek them for comfort and solace?

Who are they today?

Aren’t these saints actually the true ministries, churches and the like?

We like to say we love them, to say we listen to them and that they have wisdom and love, but in truth they could look at us, and our situations of today, in our little safety-zones, and say the elect, wherever they may be, haven’t reached me.

The old Saints may be just us, and we haven’t reached ourselves.

I believe St. Therese of Lisieux once wrote: “Suffering is the very best gift He (God) has to give us. He gives it only to his closest friends.” And all I get from this is that I wish I could witness alive who lives, sees and communicates these virtues in the truth of suffering.

This was going to be a well thought out article about how to “do” church better, but instead it’s a stupid article about how pointless anything like that is.

Our church is planting a congregation (note: not a church, a congregation i.e. a morning service in a different place – don’t ask…) and I’m involved in it. During a meeting we were having recently we got on to how and whether we should change our style to reflect the fact that we are hoping to attract new people, some of whom will have been put off church, and some of whom won’t have any experience of church at all.

I felt it was pretty obvious we should make some adjustments, but some others weren’t even convinced of that, thinking that we should trust the power of God’s word (and presumably his Spirit?). I think the flaw in that argument is the idea that somehow we’re speaking God’s word in the perfect way at the moment. Anyway, that’s a side rant.

So we talked about a few things e.g. changing the sermon topics from reasonably obscure bits of Moses’ life to something more directly applicable to the central Christian message (is this link a good one? Has anyone got a better one?). This is complicated because we want the two congregations to remain one church, and so the argument is that we are more unified if we both share the same sermons. Anyway, I digress again. The outcome was that we would send off a little group of people from this big meeting to discuss ways we might change our services – to be more newbie-friendly, or just to make them better. I volunteered to be in that group.

I thought I was such a dynamic independent-thinking radical figure that we couldn’t fail to have superb ideas with me there.

I forgot that the whole exercise is utterly futile.

Let’s look at some possible ideas in turn:

1. Dump church and become some kind of “cell church” or other newfangled thing.

Futile because: no-one in the church would agree to it, it’s pretty unbiblical to only meet in small groups – the church in Acts met together often and it was very important to their communication with God, small groups can go off on mad ideas very easily, some mad people would get control of groups and become megalomaniacs, throwing out established stuff and starting again is fundamentally bad because it leads to, and displays, unfounded arrogance.

2. Don’t sing in church because it’s weird for newcomers.

Futile because: no-one in the church would agree to it, it’s hard enough to worship anyway without taking away a way some people manage it, everything else we do in church is weird too – are we going to get rid of everything?

3. Replace services with “coffee mornings” every few weeks, with talks followed by discussion groups over coffee.

Futile because: some people in the church will think it’s heretical to have something not immediately recognisable as church on a Sunday morning, we’ll get out of step with the other service’s sermons, how would we persuade anyone to come, it wouldn’t offer anything to the people who are already Christians.

4. Get people up the front more often to do testimonies, songs, drama, notices about good causes etc.

Futile because: the usual suspects would still be the only people who went up the front, this wouldn’t feel any more inclusive anyway because of the jargon we all share, drama is always just plain rubbish, someone might want to do a dance.

5. Try and make sermons more accessible by explaining things and giving the central Christian message every week

Futile because: sermons are weird and intimidating no matter how understandable they are, people won’t be able to do it, twisting the sermon to mention how you become a Christian every week will be unnatural and make you sound either confused or like a salesman.

6. Explain songs before singing them

Futile because: the explanation will contain more jargon than the song, people will forget, we’ll get out of the habit in no time, people can’t explain things properly.

We ended up deciding to suggest 3, 4, 5 and 6 to the next main meeting, and I tried my best to contribute to ideas, but that’s all we could come up with between us, and as you can see by my helpful annotations I think they’re all completely futile. No-one wants anything to change, and no-one is capable of changing even if they wanted to.

So we’re going to carry on having a little version of the services we had in the other congregation, and we’re going to expect people to arrive and love it by magic. And I guess God can do that magic if he wants. We’re certainly not going to do any ourselves.

Haven’t got the imagination.

I recently heard a sermon by a man called David Pawson who defied anyone to show him where it says “God’s love is unconditional” in the bible.

Initially it was like being hit on the head when you least expect it. However after the initial shock I listened to what his points were and as far as I can see.
He said the gospel has two parts

The first is justification through Jesus’ sacrifice which allows us to approach God. (by using Jesus’ righteousness – because God can not look on sin).

Now the second part of the gospel is that you are now in a position to made righteous like him. This is the Freedom God gives.

The Freedom God talks about is not the freedom we (society) talk about. The Freedom that God talks about is where we are Free to be Holy. Notice We don’t have to be and not that you should be, but you can be Holy with God’s help.

This is the Freedom that God talks about. The Freedom from sin or the Freedom to be Holy

NOW

Ok this may not be radically new to what you have heard before but notice there is not the word love in this gospel.

The point being made is that God is Righteous and so he does what is right. Jesus did what is Right or Righteous, to save us.

Until you are covered by the righteousness of Jesus you are essentially covered in sin. Now God is righteous and he will judge rightly and bring everything to light.

So Where is the ‘love’ that so many people preach

Well God’s love is for the redeemed. He can not ‘love’ you until you are righteous. So once you have repented and follow the ways of Jesus, then you experience God’s love, but not before.

So my title of this piece is God’s love is conditional, and I think it is conditional on you being righteous.

So you can not come “just as you are” to worship God. First of all you must be righteous and then you may boldly approach His throne.

But if you are not righteous, well God has been described as many things including an all consuming fire.

So this is why in the bible you only hear people say “repent and be baptised” and not “follow God because he loves you”.

Any thoughts?

Every one of my weekends is ruined by church. From Saturday lunchtime I’m ratty, and by Saturday evening I’m very nervous, and often don’t want to go to bed because of what’s coming the next morning. On Sunday lunchtime I’m filled with a deep sense of relief, and I can get on with my life.

Why?

I honestly don’t know. I’ve always been like this. I remember having tantrums about having to go every Sunday when I was quite young. I’ve never enjoyed church, or felt neutral towards it (except for a few weeks when I was at uni when I used to meet a certain young lady on the way).

In the style of “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” here is a list of some things I don’t like about church:

Talking to people

Singing

The first is probably a major part of it, and the second is completely minor. But really this doesn’t explain it.

It’s always been a totally irrational thing for me. I don’t feel like I’ve got any great hurt from previous churches, and I certainly don’t have any problem with my current church. In fact we’ve started going to a new service we’ve set up recently, and almost everyone who goes I either consider a friend, or would genuinely like to know better. I really like the people, and would like to have them round for dinner (after church, of course, so I’m in a good mood).

I wonder whether it’s a “spiritual” thing, or a “psychological” thing in some way. I think my parents’ attitude to church was always quite ambivalent.

Does anyone feel like me?

What can I do about it?

This morning I told someone I’d never had sex before I got married. He was shocked, obviously.

Then I told him that I thought it was wrong to have sex outside marriage. Of course, he was offended.

Who wouldn’t be? Why should someone take kindly to being told that their lifestyle is “wrong”? What right do I have to say that?

I asked him to be “tolerant” of my beliefs – including tolerating the fact that I believe that morality is more than the “don’t hurt others” style he has. But why should he tolerate that? Do I really expect him to think it’s ok that his friend is “judging” him?

I tried to appeal to his experience of knowing me – was I “judging” him? I am his friend and don’t ram this down his throat, so maybe he is wrong to say I am judging him just because I hold a view about his behaviour.

We argued quite a lot about whether only having one sexual partner was the best way to be happy. This was because I’d said that I believed God made us to be that way and he’d told us to do it because it would make us happy. Apart from offending him a bit more, this didn’t make much difference, since he disagrees with me – he thinks his various experiences make him a better judge of who he wants to end up with.

Of course the whole thing hinges on this one point: do you believe that God made us to be with one person? Since he doesn’t believe in God (the Christian one at least), the idea of this sounds ridiculous to him.

I did talk a bit about evidence in terms of divorce rates, but that’s very weak, and I tried to reason with him about how he’d feel if his girlfriend had had lots of sexual partners, but he wasn’t convinced by that – his girlfriend has had several partners and he’s not bothered by it.

I am convinced that my choice (plus lots of fortunate circumstances meaning God helped me stick to it even in moments of extreme weakness) has made me happier in my life, and allowed me to enjoy my marriage unrestricted by some hurtful experiences and unhindered by spiritual, emotional and physical ties to someone else. Meanwhile, he is completely unconvinced, thinks I’m pretty mad, and is more than a little offended by what I think of him.

We spent the rest of the day making sure we were alright with each other, trying to be friendly and show the other one we were still friends. He seems to have forgiven me or whatever.

It’s pretty rough being a moral absolutist in a culture where moral relativism is the only really accepted morality. No wonder Christians have a reputation for being judgemental.

By the way, yes, I did tell God that I was giving him the day this morning.

And yes, I do regret it.

Actually, no I don’t – I’m glad it’s out in the open. He should know that his friend is “judging” him if that’s how he thinks of it.

I told him I didn’t think my moral standards applied to him unless he was a Christian (i.e. I still think they’re true, but I agree he has no reason to follow them, and I don’t accuse/condemn him for not following them) and we got onto whether I wanted him to become a Christian.

He was offended that I wanted to convert him. And again, of course he was – who wouldn’t be? I tried to use an analogy about pulling your friend out of a well or whatever, but that is so offensive to someone who stepped into the “well” themselves, and likes it there, and thinks it’s morally right to be there.

So I think myself lucky he’s still talking to me and I guess I’ll have to pray that God will use my sorry words for his purposes. Thank goodness it’s God who converts people, not us.

Just thought I’d tell you about my day.

I want to start out by thanking you for providing an avenue to share openly about anything in our hearts. I am a 24-year-old female, married with no children (yet). I am writing on an issue that I feel is not getting the correct attention it needs and the problem is continuing to grow widely. This problem is eating disorders. I struggled with both Anorexia and Bulimia.

I am happy to say I am now a healthy recovering bulimic. I would like to give you a little of my background. I was treated for Anorexia when I was a young teen. I went through an extensive treatment center, which I feel did not address the real issues. My mother pulled me out eventually and brought me home. With the help of my pastors and mother I really feel that God healed me from anorexia. That was wonderful and I can always be thankful for that. The problem began after the healing. When the healing occurred everyone dropped the issue and it was NEVER addressed again. There is this thought that if you are healed you shouldn’t ever have to deal with it again. Or maybe, the issue is that if you are healed you shouldn’t have to think about that problem again. Well, I didn’t and a year or so down the road through emotional open doors, I began struggling with bulimia. I fell very fast into this disease. Not only did I then have to deal with the shame of being bulimic behind closed doors, but I also felt that maybe I was never really truly healed. I got to a point in my life where I just started praying that God would give me the desire to stop being bulimic. I can honestly say I was very scared not be bulimic and really didn’t desire it. God started to give me that desire through simple prayers. There is a lot that went on within a 6-month period within myself and with the help of the church. With a lot of humbleness and people who showed me love with no strings attached I am now enjoying a life without bulimia. It is so much better than I ever imagined!! It is so wonderful to just live life honestly and openly with no secrets.

I now live knowing that I will always be a recovering bulimic, and that IS OK. I will not hide from that ever again. By hiding from it I allowed a weakness to be attacked. There is nothing wrong with having weaknesses. God doesn’t want us to hide from our weakness. He wants them to be exposed to the light. When they are exposed to the light He is able to protect us from them and help us. I want others to know that it is not weak to admit you have a problem with an eating disorder. You are the strongest person if you are willing to admit it and let God in to help. Healing can be an immediate thing, but it doesn’t have to be immediate. God is in the process of using others to continually heal all of us everyday. He can only use us if we are willing to be used.

I feel in this society it is an issue that is pushed under the “shame” rug. It is an issue that is hidden to the world and people are taught to be shameful about it. There is not enough attention being brought to this issue, especially in the church. Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is the fastest growing mental illness in the United States.

People are afraid to talk about the disease and all the feelings and problems that go along with it. By being afraid of this disease we are only being defeated by it. The Lord has an answer just as he does for anyone dealing with any addiction. Eating disorders are a form of an addiction. If you avoid the addiction, you become the addiction. We can’t be afraid to talk about it in the church. The church has the opportunity to be the strongest support for this addiction, as it does for any other addiction in today’s society. The church can to be the place that people can come to open up and talk about their struggle with eating disorders. They need to know it is OK to struggle with an eating disorder.

They need to know they are no less of a person for having struggled with their addiction.

They need to know God loves them as much while they are struggling with the eating disorder as to when they are not.

There needs to be an understanding that they are loved unconditionally all the time no matter what.

The church is the perfect avenue to offer this kind of emotional support. The first step before even addressing the issue of the food or lack of food addiction is learning to believe in your heart that God loves you unconditionally. If it takes a year for someone to realize that, or if it takes only 6 weeks, it doesn’t matter. A person struggling with an addiction needs to know they are loved with or without the addiction. If you can help a person to see they are loved for who they are, then you have done what Jesus has asked all of us to help one another with.

I believe that I went through what I went through for a purpose. I am such a unique individual with unique experiences. Everyone has experiences in life; everyone has an opportunity to help others with the love of Jesus. If I choose to live ashamed of those experiences and not help or share them with someone who might need to hear it, I am only hurting others. I really believe God uses his children to help his children. He doesn’t want us to go through the hurt we go through. However, there is sin in our world and we will all go through our own hurt. He is such a wonderful Father that He puts us in the paths of others in order to share His love with one another. Sometimes just showing someone the pure love of Jesus can make the world of a difference. I pray that my willingness to be openly honest about my struggles will help others in love. If it helps one person to realize that they are loved individually and uniquely by God, then I have just begun to do my ministry here on this earth.

With love and honesty
Kari Jo

I’ve decided it’s time to get the word out. Other people need a place where they can say what they really think, and we shouldn’t keep it to ourselves.

I’ve designed some fliers that would be suitable for cutting up and giving out or leaving around at a freshers’ fair at uni or somewhere else like that. They’re here:

http://www.guiltyexpression.org/fliers/gefliers.pdf

Why not print some off and give them out, or make your own? If you have any good ideas I’ll put them up on thesite for others to use.

If you’d like the original document I can send it to you so you can adapt it too.

What to do:

Why not spend one afternoon hanging around at freshers’ fair near the CU stall giving out fliers to people walking by? Someone might come past who’s going to have a terrible time at uni and would really benefit from the sympathetic ear they can get at GE.

If you’re not a student think of somewhere else you can give them out. Why not print off a few and have them hanging around until you think of a person or situation where people might be interested?

Let me know on andy@guiltyexpression.org about anywhere you do anything to spread the word.

Let’s get the message out that there are people who understand. It’s needed.