Note: The Bible teaches us to do all we can to “be at peace with all men” (Rom. 12:18). But before saying this, he adds, “if possible.” Reconciliation is a goal to achieve. Although forgiveness should be done is without question, reconciliation may not always be the fruit of forgiveness. This article will show how one can think through the process of reconciliation in order to make it a tangible reality.
Reconcile or Run?
Joe Beam
“She’s pregnant by her lover. But she says she has come to her senses, loves me, and wants to save our marriage. My family practically hates her and wants me to divorce her and have nothing else to do with her ever. I don’t know what to do.”
Call him Jim. Call her May. Every year situations such as theirs are repeated more times than one might imagine. One person does wrong, consequences arise, penitence hits, and the straying spouse begs for forgiveness and reconciliation.
Jim’s case illustrates a pinnacle of marriage problems; May is carrying her paramour’s baby. If Jim takes her back, what happens to the baby? Do they keep him? Do they put him up for adoption? In a stressful time like this they might even ask if May aborts? Do they give him to his biological father?
Tough questions, but essential if they consider reconciliation because May is pregnant. Weeping, worrying, or wanting things to be the way they used to be does not change that.
Most times the cases are not quite as severe in consequence as that of Jim and May, but they are almost universally bad. An affair but no disease, no babies, and no physical evidence remains. Or some kind of addiction rather than involvement with another person; gambling, porn, alcohol or drugs. It might be that one verbally, mentally, or emotionally abused the other. The similarity is that the actions of one cause the other to want out of the relationship.
Whether that person actually leaves depends on many factors including religious beliefs, cultural expectations, the depth of hurt, influence from family or friends, how close they were before the occurrence, alternatives for the future, repetitiveness of hurtful behavior and more. For example, a woman may stay with her physically abusive husband because her religious beliefs are that she can divorce him only if he commits adultery. On the other hand, a woman may discover her husband’s one-night-stand more than twenty years ago and decide the pain is so strong that she cannot live with him again.
Deciding whether to forgive and reconcile or to end a relationship and move on is not an easy decision to make. However, there are certain things to consider that may help in making the best decision.
Be Careful Who You Listen To
When one is hurt, taking advice from friends and family may not be wise. Typically, people who care deeply feel personal hurt by what someone has done to the person they love. They tend not to think in terms of forgiveness and reconciliation but in terms of punishment and alienation. In short, rather than being objective, they may be anything but. Wiser, godly counsel typically comes from those who are not directly involved. Even better, listen to third parties who are skilled and experienced in working with people and know something about relationships.
Decide Whether It's Safe
Reconciliation leads to more hurt if proper boundaries are not put into place. When deciding whether to take back a person asking for forgiveness and requesting a second chance, consider all factors of safety. Emotional. Physical. Mental. Spiritual. Think not only in terms of self but also in terms of others involved such as children. If safety is in doubt, do not reconcile until all doubts have been dealt with properly.
Count the Cost
In life, those who think about the future tend to do better than those who think only the in the present. (Yet those who think only in the present still do much better than those who think only in the past.)
Before reconciling, do a cost-benefit analysis.
On paper, write the costs of reconciliation and the benefits of reconciliation. Be honest with yourself. Consider financial aspects, potential lifestyle changes, likelihood of the future truly being better or worse based on whether you reconcile or not, possible aloneness, and more. Do not make this list while struggling with any confusing emotion, whether anger, love, or despair. If wise and unprejudiced counsel is available, have someone work through the list with you.
In the case of Jim and May, Jim determined that the costs of taking May back were not as high as the costs of losing her. While some in his life ridiculed his decision, he had taken time to deliberate and consider many aspects of their relationship and the future they could have. Years later, he is happy with his decision and feels that the benefits indeed were much better than the emotional costs.
Pray
Don't forget to submit all situations to God. In the midst of so many swirling factors, the Lord can be a source of peace and clarity.
Set Rules
If one is to forgive and reconcile, there must be solid understandings of behavior that is acceptable and behavior that is not. There should be consequences tied to negative behaviors. For example, if a man reconciles with his alcoholic wife, they would do better to have a written agreement as to consequences that would come into being if she were to get drunk. When those type of contracts are made and agreed to, there must be NO mercy or grace offered. Make the consequences more intense with succeeding infractions, culminating with a final doomsday scenario. That means an end to the relationship. Struggling or straying spouses need to know they cannot continue bad behavior indefinitely.
Develop the Relationship
Forgiving and reconciling are not enough. Even boundaries are not enough. To keep the relationship from falling into old routines, there must be a plan to make it grow and develop into a better one than it was. There are many ways to do that, including many marriage books, courses, workshops, and the like. Being involved with a good marriage group can help.
(By the way, Jim and May kept the baby. He is about ten now. He and his siblings and parents are doing great.)
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Rapture Rescue Services For Your Pets
If you are serious that Jesus is coming back tomorrow, Saturday, May 21, 2011, and you happen to have a pet that you are so in loved with, don't worry. Here is something for you to consider.
Just when you think things cannot get any weirder, think again!
Bart Centre does not believe in heaven, but he's pretty sure that if there is a heaven, your pet is not going there. Bart does not believe in the Bible or God. He is an atheist, and proudly so. But he knows that plenty of people do believe in God and do believe in heaven. And some of them believe in the Rapture, the day when true Christians will be called up to Jesus Christ. Some people - including a group that put ads on the backs of buses in our area - think the Rapture is coming May 21, 2011.
The Rapture could leave a lot of dogs and cats looking longingly at their food bowls after their owners have floated off to heaven. That's where Bart comes in.
In 2009, he launched Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA. Bart guarantees that if or when the Rapture comes he or one of his 44 contractors in 26 states will drive to your home within 24 hours, collect your dog, cat, bird, rabbit or small caged mammal, and adopt it. (Rapture rescue services for horses, camels, llamas and donkeys are limited to New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho and Montana.)
The cost is $135, plus $20 per additional animal. Payable upfront, of course, and good for 10 years.
"Right now, we have over 250 clients," said Bart, 62, who is retired from a major retailer and pens anti-religion books under the name Dromedary Hump. Most customers are in the Bible Belt.
Bart says he has carefully screened all the rescuers. They have to love animals, of course, but just as important is that they don't love Jesus. For obvious reasons, they're all atheists.
"These are people not likely to be Raptured under any circumstances," Bart said.
After a background check, each rescuer must satisfy Bart by blaspheming in accordance with Mark 3:29, the part of the New Testament that reads: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."
Said Bart: "We leave it up to the imagination of the rescuer to come up with a blasphemy that would be offensive to a Holy Spirit - if there were one."
He wouldn't say what sort of blasphemies his rescuers have committed. Saying, "I can tell you it involves language that most religious people would find hair-raisingly offensive.”
Bart said all sorts of people contact him, mostly atheists who want to offer their services. (About 8,000 at last count.) He also hears from folks angry that he's taking money from fundamentalist Christians under false pretences. We can commit to you that we have the resources and infrastructure to rescue your pet from certain slow starvation or thirst, at just over a dollar a month. I do not feel like I'm taking advantage. I am satisfying a demand."
Bart thinks it's a pretty good deal.
Allow me to ask this: How many animals were saved during the Flood? Only the ones whom were chosen by God to be rescued, right? What happened to the rest of the animals that had not been chosen? They all died.
At the time of the Rapture, what occurs next? The Tribulation Period (Rev. 6-19) or extreme cosmic judgment. There will be no one taking care of other people’s animals because everyone left after the Rapture will be trying to take care of themselves and seeking to stay alive.
In fact, here is a sample of what’s to come: I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (vv. 12-17)
Nevertheless, here is a good example of why Christians should never ever set dates on the return of Jesus. To do so merely gives unbelievers the impetus to mock Jesus, Christians and the church. If unbelievers want to mock us for believing in the coming of the Lord, so be it. Go right ahead and mock. But let’s not feed their evil desires by playing on their unbelief. Let’s live our lives as though we are alert, ready and looking for the return of Christ.
And one more thing: Who are these Christians who have actually paid Bart to come and rescue their animal if and when the Rapture does occur? I thought it was both bizarre and funny that there are Barts out there in the world thinking about such things. But then I read where professing Christians are actually paying for his services because they care about their pet, Bertha the cat.
This is why I do not have pets nor do I wish to have one. If I had a pet, I would keep it outside and let it run wild so that when the Rapture occurs, it can at least survive on its own before the heavens start falling to the earth.
No don’t get me wrong. I love animals. I think they taste great!
Just when you think things cannot get any weirder, think again!
Bart Centre does not believe in heaven, but he's pretty sure that if there is a heaven, your pet is not going there. Bart does not believe in the Bible or God. He is an atheist, and proudly so. But he knows that plenty of people do believe in God and do believe in heaven. And some of them believe in the Rapture, the day when true Christians will be called up to Jesus Christ. Some people - including a group that put ads on the backs of buses in our area - think the Rapture is coming May 21, 2011.
The Rapture could leave a lot of dogs and cats looking longingly at their food bowls after their owners have floated off to heaven. That's where Bart comes in.
In 2009, he launched Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA. Bart guarantees that if or when the Rapture comes he or one of his 44 contractors in 26 states will drive to your home within 24 hours, collect your dog, cat, bird, rabbit or small caged mammal, and adopt it. (Rapture rescue services for horses, camels, llamas and donkeys are limited to New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho and Montana.)
The cost is $135, plus $20 per additional animal. Payable upfront, of course, and good for 10 years.
"Right now, we have over 250 clients," said Bart, 62, who is retired from a major retailer and pens anti-religion books under the name Dromedary Hump. Most customers are in the Bible Belt.
Bart says he has carefully screened all the rescuers. They have to love animals, of course, but just as important is that they don't love Jesus. For obvious reasons, they're all atheists.
"These are people not likely to be Raptured under any circumstances," Bart said.
After a background check, each rescuer must satisfy Bart by blaspheming in accordance with Mark 3:29, the part of the New Testament that reads: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."
Said Bart: "We leave it up to the imagination of the rescuer to come up with a blasphemy that would be offensive to a Holy Spirit - if there were one."
He wouldn't say what sort of blasphemies his rescuers have committed. Saying, "I can tell you it involves language that most religious people would find hair-raisingly offensive.”
Bart said all sorts of people contact him, mostly atheists who want to offer their services. (About 8,000 at last count.) He also hears from folks angry that he's taking money from fundamentalist Christians under false pretences. We can commit to you that we have the resources and infrastructure to rescue your pet from certain slow starvation or thirst, at just over a dollar a month. I do not feel like I'm taking advantage. I am satisfying a demand."
Bart thinks it's a pretty good deal.
Allow me to ask this: How many animals were saved during the Flood? Only the ones whom were chosen by God to be rescued, right? What happened to the rest of the animals that had not been chosen? They all died.
At the time of the Rapture, what occurs next? The Tribulation Period (Rev. 6-19) or extreme cosmic judgment. There will be no one taking care of other people’s animals because everyone left after the Rapture will be trying to take care of themselves and seeking to stay alive.
In fact, here is a sample of what’s to come: I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (vv. 12-17)
Nevertheless, here is a good example of why Christians should never ever set dates on the return of Jesus. To do so merely gives unbelievers the impetus to mock Jesus, Christians and the church. If unbelievers want to mock us for believing in the coming of the Lord, so be it. Go right ahead and mock. But let’s not feed their evil desires by playing on their unbelief. Let’s live our lives as though we are alert, ready and looking for the return of Christ.
And one more thing: Who are these Christians who have actually paid Bart to come and rescue their animal if and when the Rapture does occur? I thought it was both bizarre and funny that there are Barts out there in the world thinking about such things. But then I read where professing Christians are actually paying for his services because they care about their pet, Bertha the cat.
This is why I do not have pets nor do I wish to have one. If I had a pet, I would keep it outside and let it run wild so that when the Rapture occurs, it can at least survive on its own before the heavens start falling to the earth.
No don’t get me wrong. I love animals. I think they taste great!
News Flash: Jesus is Coming Saturday, May 21, 2011
“Quit your job! Sell your home! Repent from your sins! Jesus is coming on May 21, 2011.”
This is what radio preacher Harold Camping predicts, the nearly-90-year-old owner of a network of stations he calls "Family Radio." Camping once belonged to a traditional church. He then decided all churches are corrupt and people should leave whatever congregation they're in and listen only to him because only his interpretation of Scripture is true. Can someone say, “cult?”
It is not uncommon to hear certain people predict the end of the world. Politicians and political activists frequently declare the end of the world will occur if their candidate isn't elected, or if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Some conservative Christians think the end is on the way because of behavior and practices they judge immoral. But in some way, we continue on and when "doomsday" passes, the prognosticators live to predict Armageddon on another day.
Camping paid for a full-page color ad in USA Today, proclaiming May 21, 2011 as the day the world will end. Note: Wouldn’t you know that happens to be my late wife’s birthday! She would have been 56! I wonder if she swayed Jesus in heaven to come and rapture the church on her birthday? Just a thought!
Now according to the biblical standard, a prophet must always be right to be a spokesman for God (Deut. 18:20-22). Camping falls considerably short of that standard because he has previously declared the world would end on other days, though the last time he left the door open, saying, "I could be wrong." At least that "prophecy" came true.
Some may remember the late Jeane Dixon who fancied herself a psychic. She made many predictions that went unfulfilled. The one prediction that did come true was President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that lucky "prophecy" made her an international celebrity. I guess if one sticks with it long enough, something is bound to come true.
A prominent contemporary "prophet" is Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He claims he got word from Allah that he -- Ahmadinejad -- has been chosen to help end the world by making war on Israel at which time the 12th imam will reveal himself and create a worldwide caliphate. He also claims there are no homosexuals in Iran. How true is that?
Camping ignores what Jesus said about not setting dates (Matt. 24:36). When asked about the end of the age (see Matthew 24), Jesus said wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, nation rising against nation and a lot of other bad stuff would come first. All of these are part of the daily news. But then he said these things are just "the beginning."
Jesus then said His followers would be afflicted, even killed; they will betray and hate one another, many false prophets will arise and the "Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the end come." That last part hasn't yet occurred, though people who study such things say they see signs of it approaching.
I'm not expecting the end to come this Saturday, May 21, 2011. That's because of something else Jesus said. He said he would return when people "least expect it" (Luke 12:40). By that standard, Mr. Camping is wrong because he expects the end to come this Saturday. And so it won't.
I am still wondering though, should I still prepare my sermon for Sunday?
This is what radio preacher Harold Camping predicts, the nearly-90-year-old owner of a network of stations he calls "Family Radio." Camping once belonged to a traditional church. He then decided all churches are corrupt and people should leave whatever congregation they're in and listen only to him because only his interpretation of Scripture is true. Can someone say, “cult?”
It is not uncommon to hear certain people predict the end of the world. Politicians and political activists frequently declare the end of the world will occur if their candidate isn't elected, or if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Some conservative Christians think the end is on the way because of behavior and practices they judge immoral. But in some way, we continue on and when "doomsday" passes, the prognosticators live to predict Armageddon on another day.
Camping paid for a full-page color ad in USA Today, proclaiming May 21, 2011 as the day the world will end. Note: Wouldn’t you know that happens to be my late wife’s birthday! She would have been 56! I wonder if she swayed Jesus in heaven to come and rapture the church on her birthday? Just a thought!
Now according to the biblical standard, a prophet must always be right to be a spokesman for God (Deut. 18:20-22). Camping falls considerably short of that standard because he has previously declared the world would end on other days, though the last time he left the door open, saying, "I could be wrong." At least that "prophecy" came true.
Some may remember the late Jeane Dixon who fancied herself a psychic. She made many predictions that went unfulfilled. The one prediction that did come true was President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that lucky "prophecy" made her an international celebrity. I guess if one sticks with it long enough, something is bound to come true.
A prominent contemporary "prophet" is Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He claims he got word from Allah that he -- Ahmadinejad -- has been chosen to help end the world by making war on Israel at which time the 12th imam will reveal himself and create a worldwide caliphate. He also claims there are no homosexuals in Iran. How true is that?
Camping ignores what Jesus said about not setting dates (Matt. 24:36). When asked about the end of the age (see Matthew 24), Jesus said wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, nation rising against nation and a lot of other bad stuff would come first. All of these are part of the daily news. But then he said these things are just "the beginning."
Jesus then said His followers would be afflicted, even killed; they will betray and hate one another, many false prophets will arise and the "Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the end come." That last part hasn't yet occurred, though people who study such things say they see signs of it approaching.
I'm not expecting the end to come this Saturday, May 21, 2011. That's because of something else Jesus said. He said he would return when people "least expect it" (Luke 12:40). By that standard, Mr. Camping is wrong because he expects the end to come this Saturday. And so it won't.
I am still wondering though, should I still prepare my sermon for Sunday?
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Why Pastors Struggle With Confronting Domestic Violence
Note: Domestic Violence is on the rise. Some churches and pastors are facing this issue on a regular basis, others have no clue. Out where I pastor, domestic violence is a reality – an often times hidden one. If there is on thing I have learned through the years about domestic violence it is this: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” The families that look well to do and appear to have it all together are the very ones who may be hiding. And those who show signs both physically and emotionally do not have the courage to admit what is going on. I found this article to be a good reminder that domestic violence is to be taken seriously.
Why Pastors Struggle With Confronting Domestic Violence
John Shore
In response to An Abused Wife Twice Betrayed, a truly disheartening number of women wrote in to relate their own stories of pastors who, in one way or another, advised them to stick with their abusive husbands: to be more submissive, a better sex partner, to pray more, etc.
So I started thinking about the weirdness of so many women having such similar stories, when I personally have never known a single pastor whose moral compass was so thoroughly tweaked that he actually thought it was in any way acceptable for a husband to abuse his wife.
I've known a lot of pastors. And I have real difficulty believing that any one of them, tacitly or otherwise, would ever condone domestic violence.
And yet here were all these women telling me that's pretty exactly what happened with their pastor. And I know those women were not lying, or somehow mistaken about what had happened to them. When a person is writing the real raw truth of their lives, their words take on a simple, clarion integrity that even the most accomplished fiction writers struggle to convincingly fake. There could be no doubting the veracity of these women's stories. Their pastors really had pooh-poohed their fears and concerns, and, Bible in hand, had essentially pushed them back into the swinging arms of their abusive husbands.
Which could only mean that the pastors whom I couldn't imagine doing such a terrible thing---or at least pastors very much like them---had, in fact, done that terrible thing.
But how? How could these good, loving, well-intentioned men give advice that's so manifestly, egregiously, cruelly wrong? And that's what led to my wife Catherine and I thinking of the following six reasons they might:
1. Domestic violence is fundamentally unbelievable. Like all true evil, domestic violence is basically incomprehensible. Most people find it simply inconceivable that any man would systematically victimize his own wife and children. The monstrousness of it renders it unimaginable. So I think it's easy for pastors to, in fact, fail to imagine it. When faced with a woman saying that her husband is abusing her, pastors must sometimes immediately and even instinctively assume that in some fundamental way the woman must be mistaken. He assumes that her perception is suspect; that she's exaggerating; misunderstanding; rushing to unsupportable conclusions; too upset; too emotional. He hears a woman complaining that her husband is abusing her as he would the same woman complaining that a Sasquatch keeps eating her roses. It's just sort of ... not possible. Must be an ape that escaped from the zoo. Must be a bipedal deer wearing a faux-fur coat. Must be a bear desperate for sweet-smelling breath. Must be anything but a Sasquatch. Nothing else makes sense.
2. Wife abusers are masterful manipulators. I've known guys whom I knew were beating their wives, and while I was talking with them I could not for the life of me see it in them. Guys who abuse their wives and children are typically the friendliest, most sincere, open, warm, kind, generous, good-natured people you'd ever want filling your hat with horse crap when you're not looking. Next to a wife abuser, the most successful car salesman in the world is a groveling blubberer in a confessional booth. Wife abusers are sociopaths. They could talk the stink off a skunk. And guess who's at the top of the list of people the abuser is determined to fool? Exactly: The family pastor. Who is very much inclined to love and trust people. Most pastors don't stand a chance against a perpetrator of domestic violence.
3. Pastors think spousal abuse only happens in certain kinds of families. Most people still have the idea that spousal abuse only or primarily happens in certain types of families--in poor families, mainly: in the kinds of families whose members have no particular reason to care one way or another what anyone thinks of them. This stigma has stuck. I used to know a handsome, extremely successful lawyer who regularly beat his beautiful, extremely successful lawyer wife. (He struck her on her back and stomach, where the bruises wouldn't show.) When she finally began telling others of her suffering, most responded like she was the Queen of England complaining about the blinds in one of the palace sun rooms: a concern, perhaps, but not exactly a crisis. It just didn't make sense to people that a couple so rich, good-looking, and successful could be involved in the sort of dreadful behavior that most of us have no trouble whatsoever associating with poor white trash. And pastors are just as susceptible as the rest of us are to the unfortunate assumptions of classicism.
4. Pastors haven't thought enough about the gray area between "submit" and abuse. A lot of pastors hold to the traditional Biblical definition of the proper relation between a husband and wife. (Which would be defined by Paul, at Ephesians 5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.") But I hardly think that from that pastors typically extrapolate that it's acceptable for husbands to abuse their wives. Most pastors know that the rest of that passage from Ephesians enjoins husbands to "love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ... ." I think it's safe to say that pastors get that it's wrong for a husband to beat or otherwise abuse his wife and kids. But I also think that not enough pastors have spent the time their positions dictate they should thinking about the broad, fuzzy line between biblical submission and repugnant victimization. You start throwing around words like "authority" and "submission," and you've put yourself on one slippery slope straight toward one demoralizing place. Pastors need to face and acknowledge that. They need to take case-by-case responsibility for drawing a clear demarcation line between the kind of "submission" they and the church has traditionally understood as healthy, and the kind of submission everyone knows is unhealthy. In Ephesians, Paul is delineating a principle. Principles divorced from thoughtful, practical application almost necessarily harden into tired, toxic dogma.
5. Pastors believe what they preach. Pastors believe in the power of Christ to heal, to bring new life, to reclaim, to save, to resurrect. They believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to correct and ennoble. They believe in the efficacy of prayer. They believe that through the community of church God radically and permanently transforms people's lives. They believe in the enduring, righteous strength of marriage and family. A pastor faced with a woman saying she's being abused at home is about as inclined to advise that woman to leave her husband as a brain surgeon is to advise someone diagnosed with a brain tumor to seek out the healing powers of a shaman. Pastors don't advise divorce; they don't recommend the shattering of a family unit.
They believe not in dissolution, but resolution. By virtue of their vocation, pastors believe that if a husband and wife will only remain in union, keep attending church, and continue to bring their strife to God, all will be well between them. A pastor advising an abused woman to just stick it out with her husband is actually being quite sweet. He's also being really stupid and harmful. But it's sweet, insofar as his advice reflects his love, hope, and belief in God.
6. Pastors simply aren't trained about domestic violence. A pastor faced with a domestic violence problem is like a football player faced with a curling stone: he kind of knows what to do with it, but not really. What do pastors know about domestic violence?
They're not taught about it in seminary; the subject never comes up at their conferences, retreats, or seminars. Domestic violence is simply not a subject present on the big pastoral radar. So just as a football player told to do something with a curling stone might try to punt, hike, or ... well, pass the stone, so a clergyman faced with a domestic violence problem is likely to counsel patience, forbearance, and the discernment of the will of God. Each man is just doing what he knows. And in so doing each, of course, creates pain.
It's not enough for us to simply desire that our pastors do a better job of handling issues of domestic violence. We must also help them to obtain the training necessary for doing so.
Why Pastors Struggle With Confronting Domestic Violence
John Shore
In response to An Abused Wife Twice Betrayed, a truly disheartening number of women wrote in to relate their own stories of pastors who, in one way or another, advised them to stick with their abusive husbands: to be more submissive, a better sex partner, to pray more, etc.
So I started thinking about the weirdness of so many women having such similar stories, when I personally have never known a single pastor whose moral compass was so thoroughly tweaked that he actually thought it was in any way acceptable for a husband to abuse his wife.
I've known a lot of pastors. And I have real difficulty believing that any one of them, tacitly or otherwise, would ever condone domestic violence.
And yet here were all these women telling me that's pretty exactly what happened with their pastor. And I know those women were not lying, or somehow mistaken about what had happened to them. When a person is writing the real raw truth of their lives, their words take on a simple, clarion integrity that even the most accomplished fiction writers struggle to convincingly fake. There could be no doubting the veracity of these women's stories. Their pastors really had pooh-poohed their fears and concerns, and, Bible in hand, had essentially pushed them back into the swinging arms of their abusive husbands.
Which could only mean that the pastors whom I couldn't imagine doing such a terrible thing---or at least pastors very much like them---had, in fact, done that terrible thing.
But how? How could these good, loving, well-intentioned men give advice that's so manifestly, egregiously, cruelly wrong? And that's what led to my wife Catherine and I thinking of the following six reasons they might:
1. Domestic violence is fundamentally unbelievable. Like all true evil, domestic violence is basically incomprehensible. Most people find it simply inconceivable that any man would systematically victimize his own wife and children. The monstrousness of it renders it unimaginable. So I think it's easy for pastors to, in fact, fail to imagine it. When faced with a woman saying that her husband is abusing her, pastors must sometimes immediately and even instinctively assume that in some fundamental way the woman must be mistaken. He assumes that her perception is suspect; that she's exaggerating; misunderstanding; rushing to unsupportable conclusions; too upset; too emotional. He hears a woman complaining that her husband is abusing her as he would the same woman complaining that a Sasquatch keeps eating her roses. It's just sort of ... not possible. Must be an ape that escaped from the zoo. Must be a bipedal deer wearing a faux-fur coat. Must be a bear desperate for sweet-smelling breath. Must be anything but a Sasquatch. Nothing else makes sense.
2. Wife abusers are masterful manipulators. I've known guys whom I knew were beating their wives, and while I was talking with them I could not for the life of me see it in them. Guys who abuse their wives and children are typically the friendliest, most sincere, open, warm, kind, generous, good-natured people you'd ever want filling your hat with horse crap when you're not looking. Next to a wife abuser, the most successful car salesman in the world is a groveling blubberer in a confessional booth. Wife abusers are sociopaths. They could talk the stink off a skunk. And guess who's at the top of the list of people the abuser is determined to fool? Exactly: The family pastor. Who is very much inclined to love and trust people. Most pastors don't stand a chance against a perpetrator of domestic violence.
3. Pastors think spousal abuse only happens in certain kinds of families. Most people still have the idea that spousal abuse only or primarily happens in certain types of families--in poor families, mainly: in the kinds of families whose members have no particular reason to care one way or another what anyone thinks of them. This stigma has stuck. I used to know a handsome, extremely successful lawyer who regularly beat his beautiful, extremely successful lawyer wife. (He struck her on her back and stomach, where the bruises wouldn't show.) When she finally began telling others of her suffering, most responded like she was the Queen of England complaining about the blinds in one of the palace sun rooms: a concern, perhaps, but not exactly a crisis. It just didn't make sense to people that a couple so rich, good-looking, and successful could be involved in the sort of dreadful behavior that most of us have no trouble whatsoever associating with poor white trash. And pastors are just as susceptible as the rest of us are to the unfortunate assumptions of classicism.
4. Pastors haven't thought enough about the gray area between "submit" and abuse. A lot of pastors hold to the traditional Biblical definition of the proper relation between a husband and wife. (Which would be defined by Paul, at Ephesians 5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.") But I hardly think that from that pastors typically extrapolate that it's acceptable for husbands to abuse their wives. Most pastors know that the rest of that passage from Ephesians enjoins husbands to "love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ... ." I think it's safe to say that pastors get that it's wrong for a husband to beat or otherwise abuse his wife and kids. But I also think that not enough pastors have spent the time their positions dictate they should thinking about the broad, fuzzy line between biblical submission and repugnant victimization. You start throwing around words like "authority" and "submission," and you've put yourself on one slippery slope straight toward one demoralizing place. Pastors need to face and acknowledge that. They need to take case-by-case responsibility for drawing a clear demarcation line between the kind of "submission" they and the church has traditionally understood as healthy, and the kind of submission everyone knows is unhealthy. In Ephesians, Paul is delineating a principle. Principles divorced from thoughtful, practical application almost necessarily harden into tired, toxic dogma.
5. Pastors believe what they preach. Pastors believe in the power of Christ to heal, to bring new life, to reclaim, to save, to resurrect. They believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to correct and ennoble. They believe in the efficacy of prayer. They believe that through the community of church God radically and permanently transforms people's lives. They believe in the enduring, righteous strength of marriage and family. A pastor faced with a woman saying she's being abused at home is about as inclined to advise that woman to leave her husband as a brain surgeon is to advise someone diagnosed with a brain tumor to seek out the healing powers of a shaman. Pastors don't advise divorce; they don't recommend the shattering of a family unit.
They believe not in dissolution, but resolution. By virtue of their vocation, pastors believe that if a husband and wife will only remain in union, keep attending church, and continue to bring their strife to God, all will be well between them. A pastor advising an abused woman to just stick it out with her husband is actually being quite sweet. He's also being really stupid and harmful. But it's sweet, insofar as his advice reflects his love, hope, and belief in God.
6. Pastors simply aren't trained about domestic violence. A pastor faced with a domestic violence problem is like a football player faced with a curling stone: he kind of knows what to do with it, but not really. What do pastors know about domestic violence?
They're not taught about it in seminary; the subject never comes up at their conferences, retreats, or seminars. Domestic violence is simply not a subject present on the big pastoral radar. So just as a football player told to do something with a curling stone might try to punt, hike, or ... well, pass the stone, so a clergyman faced with a domestic violence problem is likely to counsel patience, forbearance, and the discernment of the will of God. Each man is just doing what he knows. And in so doing each, of course, creates pain.
It's not enough for us to simply desire that our pastors do a better job of handling issues of domestic violence. We must also help them to obtain the training necessary for doing so.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
"Marriage is a Dying Institution"
“Marriage sucks!” “
Kill the institution of marriage!”
“It is good for nothing!”
“Marriage is a failure!”
Sounds extreme? Not to Dr. Keith Ablow. He thinks that marriage is “a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.” As a matter of fact, that is only one of the accusations Ablow hurls against marriage before eventually calling for its demise. Marriage, he insists, is a dying institution — and he celebrates its death.
You might not know or care of Ablow’s thoughts on the matter but for the fact that he is a psychiatrist and a member of the “Fox News Medical A-Team.” FoxNews.com recently published his assault on marriage, and the essay is sure to gain attention.
Ablow begins by quoting actress Cameron Diaz, who recently asserted that marriage is a “dying institution.” She added this comment: “I don’t think we should live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.”
She reflects a view held by many among the intellectual and cultural elites, among whom marriage has been seen as a retrograde institution for some time.
Keith Ablow adds his hearty approval to Cameron Diaz’s indictment of marriage, adding that he is “not certain marriage ever did suit most people who tried it. From what I hear in my psychiatry office, and from what I hear from other psychiatrists and psychologists, and from what my friends and relatives tell me and show me through their behavior, and from the fact that most marriages end either in divorce or acrimony, marriage is (as it has been for decades now) a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.”
He goes on blow after blow: “As a healer, I can’t help looking askance at anything that depletes energy, optimism, mood and passion to the extent that marriage does. It is, without a doubt, one of the leading causes of major depression in the nation.”
Imagine saying that marriages are a leading cause of major depression in the nation! He does not like the idea that government gets involved in marriages. He states, “the involvement of the state in marriage has been a colossal mistake.” Governmental involvement “debases” marriage, which is properly a religious institution. Government involvement renders marriage “sterile, linked to legislation and weighted down with legal implications that are psychologically suffocating.”
He adds this: “Smart, aware people feel consciously or unconsciously disempowered from the moment they say, ‘I do.’”
What Dr. Ablow has forgotten is that the reason why government is involved in marriage is because marriage is granted legal recognition precisely because it is a public declaration with public meaning. But according to Dr. Ablow, the law should not distinguish between single and married persons (or, he offers as well, three cohabitating people), and individuals or couples could merely go to lawyers for contracts as needed.
Well wouldn’t this lead to chaos, both morally and legally? But if the state were to “have no role in marriage, whatsoever,” it would simply mean that the government has decided to call marriage by some other name. Given the realities of human life, some standardized means of recognizing privileged relationships is a necessity. No civilization exists without it. This is true even in societies that separate the religious and legal definitions and authorizations of marriage. There is no major society that exists without marriage, and those rare movements in history that sought to eliminate marriage led to disaster.
But if you think you read enough, check this out: Ablow argues that marriage is dying because of the invention of oral contraceptives. “Once human beings understood that they could express themselves emotionally, romantically and sexually without necessarily creating multiple families and perilously dividing their assets, the psychological pain of living without sexual passion (even by choice) was significantly intensified.”
Keith Ablow is arguing that The Pill offers a chemical means of allowing adultery, and that this is liberation for humanity. Marriage, in his view, kills sexual passion. “The vast, vast majority of men and women, in fact, are no longer physically attracted to their spouses after five or ten years (that’s being kind),” he says. “If they have seen one another most of that time.” Now if this does not discourage you from getting married, nothing will. According to the good doctor, you will lose a physical attraction to your spouse within the first five years of your marriage and wish you were free to fool around.
He doesn’t stop there. Few “normal people” maintain sexual interest in a marriage, he insists. “Human beings just are not built to desire one another once we have flossed in the same room a hundred times and shared a laundry basket for thousands of days.”
Ablow then argues that marriage “inherently deprives men and women of the joy of being ‘chosen’ on a daily basis.” He says that the vows of marriage deprive us of the experience of being chosen by our spouse every single day. Most married people “have to wonder whether their spouses really want to stay, or simply don’t want to go through the hassle of leaving.”
Finally, Dr. Ablow argues that marriage is being undermined by hypocrisy. In his words: “The fact that millions of Americans take vows to stay in marriages for life, then leave those marriages — once, twice, maybe three times — has so trivialized and mocked those vows that many silently chuckle to themselves while listening to them.”
Well, now he is on to something real and important. No one can seriously doubt that this kind of hypocrisy is indeed weakening marriage both as an institution and as a personal commitment.
But here is a point to consider. While it is true that the breaking of the marriage vows weakens marriages both as an institution and families in particular, in a strange way, the hypocrisy actually affirms the importance of marriage and the marital vows. Even those who break their marital vows do so after affirming in public what marriage ought to be and was always meant to be.
The answer to the hypocrisy that Dr. Ablow is speaking of is not to denounce marriage as an institution, but to transform the sinners who are getting married by a personal encounter with Jesus Christ! In other words, it’s those sinners who are giving marriage a bad rap, not marriage itself. And the bible says we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23).
My computer comes with a manual on how to work it. If I don’t follow the instructions written in the manual, it will not operate properly. So when it does not function properly do to my lack of understanding and knowledge of it, should I blame the computer or it is my own inability to read the manual and follow its directions? The answer to hypocrisy is moral correction and a return to integrity in making and keeping the sacred vows of marriage. We do not solve the hypocrisy of the liar by rejecting the very idea of truth.
Coming to the end of his argument, Dr. Ablow insists that the end of marriage is “only a matter of time now.” Marriage is passing away, and we should plan for “what might replace it.” His great goal: “We should come up with something that improves the quality of our lives and those of our children.”
Well, here is what I think about all this. Am I going to take the advice of a sinner, an unredeemed pagan to tell me about happiness, or am I going to listen to the God who wrote the book on happiness known as the Bible? This is a no brainer.
Let sinners wax eloquent on their assessment of marriage. All they are trying to do is to come out from living under the authority of God and to live under their own. We know what the motives are. This is precisely what Lucifer attempted to do and where did that get him? Is he any better off because of his rebellion?
Listen saints, let the world attack marriages all they want. God has ordained it and sanctioned it with His blessing and has also given to us His Word as our guide. If only we obey Him and listen to His carefully written instructions – both husbands and wives, marriages will thrive in a world that’s crumbling all to the glory of God.
Kill the institution of marriage!”
“It is good for nothing!”
“Marriage is a failure!”
Sounds extreme? Not to Dr. Keith Ablow. He thinks that marriage is “a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.” As a matter of fact, that is only one of the accusations Ablow hurls against marriage before eventually calling for its demise. Marriage, he insists, is a dying institution — and he celebrates its death.
You might not know or care of Ablow’s thoughts on the matter but for the fact that he is a psychiatrist and a member of the “Fox News Medical A-Team.” FoxNews.com recently published his assault on marriage, and the essay is sure to gain attention.
Ablow begins by quoting actress Cameron Diaz, who recently asserted that marriage is a “dying institution.” She added this comment: “I don’t think we should live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.”
She reflects a view held by many among the intellectual and cultural elites, among whom marriage has been seen as a retrograde institution for some time.
Keith Ablow adds his hearty approval to Cameron Diaz’s indictment of marriage, adding that he is “not certain marriage ever did suit most people who tried it. From what I hear in my psychiatry office, and from what I hear from other psychiatrists and psychologists, and from what my friends and relatives tell me and show me through their behavior, and from the fact that most marriages end either in divorce or acrimony, marriage is (as it has been for decades now) a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.”
He goes on blow after blow: “As a healer, I can’t help looking askance at anything that depletes energy, optimism, mood and passion to the extent that marriage does. It is, without a doubt, one of the leading causes of major depression in the nation.”
Imagine saying that marriages are a leading cause of major depression in the nation! He does not like the idea that government gets involved in marriages. He states, “the involvement of the state in marriage has been a colossal mistake.” Governmental involvement “debases” marriage, which is properly a religious institution. Government involvement renders marriage “sterile, linked to legislation and weighted down with legal implications that are psychologically suffocating.”
He adds this: “Smart, aware people feel consciously or unconsciously disempowered from the moment they say, ‘I do.’”
What Dr. Ablow has forgotten is that the reason why government is involved in marriage is because marriage is granted legal recognition precisely because it is a public declaration with public meaning. But according to Dr. Ablow, the law should not distinguish between single and married persons (or, he offers as well, three cohabitating people), and individuals or couples could merely go to lawyers for contracts as needed.
Well wouldn’t this lead to chaos, both morally and legally? But if the state were to “have no role in marriage, whatsoever,” it would simply mean that the government has decided to call marriage by some other name. Given the realities of human life, some standardized means of recognizing privileged relationships is a necessity. No civilization exists without it. This is true even in societies that separate the religious and legal definitions and authorizations of marriage. There is no major society that exists without marriage, and those rare movements in history that sought to eliminate marriage led to disaster.
But if you think you read enough, check this out: Ablow argues that marriage is dying because of the invention of oral contraceptives. “Once human beings understood that they could express themselves emotionally, romantically and sexually without necessarily creating multiple families and perilously dividing their assets, the psychological pain of living without sexual passion (even by choice) was significantly intensified.”
Keith Ablow is arguing that The Pill offers a chemical means of allowing adultery, and that this is liberation for humanity. Marriage, in his view, kills sexual passion. “The vast, vast majority of men and women, in fact, are no longer physically attracted to their spouses after five or ten years (that’s being kind),” he says. “If they have seen one another most of that time.” Now if this does not discourage you from getting married, nothing will. According to the good doctor, you will lose a physical attraction to your spouse within the first five years of your marriage and wish you were free to fool around.
He doesn’t stop there. Few “normal people” maintain sexual interest in a marriage, he insists. “Human beings just are not built to desire one another once we have flossed in the same room a hundred times and shared a laundry basket for thousands of days.”
Ablow then argues that marriage “inherently deprives men and women of the joy of being ‘chosen’ on a daily basis.” He says that the vows of marriage deprive us of the experience of being chosen by our spouse every single day. Most married people “have to wonder whether their spouses really want to stay, or simply don’t want to go through the hassle of leaving.”
Finally, Dr. Ablow argues that marriage is being undermined by hypocrisy. In his words: “The fact that millions of Americans take vows to stay in marriages for life, then leave those marriages — once, twice, maybe three times — has so trivialized and mocked those vows that many silently chuckle to themselves while listening to them.”
Well, now he is on to something real and important. No one can seriously doubt that this kind of hypocrisy is indeed weakening marriage both as an institution and as a personal commitment.
But here is a point to consider. While it is true that the breaking of the marriage vows weakens marriages both as an institution and families in particular, in a strange way, the hypocrisy actually affirms the importance of marriage and the marital vows. Even those who break their marital vows do so after affirming in public what marriage ought to be and was always meant to be.
The answer to the hypocrisy that Dr. Ablow is speaking of is not to denounce marriage as an institution, but to transform the sinners who are getting married by a personal encounter with Jesus Christ! In other words, it’s those sinners who are giving marriage a bad rap, not marriage itself. And the bible says we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23).
My computer comes with a manual on how to work it. If I don’t follow the instructions written in the manual, it will not operate properly. So when it does not function properly do to my lack of understanding and knowledge of it, should I blame the computer or it is my own inability to read the manual and follow its directions? The answer to hypocrisy is moral correction and a return to integrity in making and keeping the sacred vows of marriage. We do not solve the hypocrisy of the liar by rejecting the very idea of truth.
Coming to the end of his argument, Dr. Ablow insists that the end of marriage is “only a matter of time now.” Marriage is passing away, and we should plan for “what might replace it.” His great goal: “We should come up with something that improves the quality of our lives and those of our children.”
Well, here is what I think about all this. Am I going to take the advice of a sinner, an unredeemed pagan to tell me about happiness, or am I going to listen to the God who wrote the book on happiness known as the Bible? This is a no brainer.
Let sinners wax eloquent on their assessment of marriage. All they are trying to do is to come out from living under the authority of God and to live under their own. We know what the motives are. This is precisely what Lucifer attempted to do and where did that get him? Is he any better off because of his rebellion?
Listen saints, let the world attack marriages all they want. God has ordained it and sanctioned it with His blessing and has also given to us His Word as our guide. If only we obey Him and listen to His carefully written instructions – both husbands and wives, marriages will thrive in a world that’s crumbling all to the glory of God.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Faith That Digresses
Adrian Hamilton is concerned that the Church of England “will not survive my children’s lifetime and quite possibly not even my own.” Writing in The Independent [London], Hamilton writes of a Church of England that remains established as the national church, but is no longer established in the hearts of the nation. Here is what he says:
For most Britons, he argues, the role of the nation’s state church means very little — “some exotic clothes and ritual prayers on state occasions. What is really worrying for the future of the Church, however, is that its leaders themselves seem to have ceased to believe in it.
“The majority of people are quite happy to profess themselves Christian and Anglican. It’s easier to accept than asserting a different faith. But they are not so happy to go to church services or take an active part in its activities.”
Despite a series of initiatives such as Back to Church Sunday and some improvement in the numbers of young people participating in church activities, attendance figures amongst Anglicans have dropped by some 10 per cent over the last decade. Only 1.1m people, some 2 per cent of the population, attend church on a weekly basis, and only 1.7m, or 3 per cent, once a month. This in spite of the fact that around half the population still profess themselves Anglicans.
So what is really killing the Church of England? Here it is: As valid as the institutional question of establishment may be, the more important factor in this pattern of decline is theological. Churches and denominations decline when they lose or forfeit their passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the Bible as the enduring, authoritative, and totally truthful Word of God. If life and death are no longer understood to hang in the balance, there is little reason for the British people to worry about anything related to Christianity. If a church is not passionate about seeing sinners come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if there is no powerful biblical message from its pulpits, then it is destined for decline and eventual disappearance.
When a church forfeits its doctrinal convictions and then embraces ambiguity and tolerates heresy, it undermines its own credibility and embraces its own destruction.
The Church of England refuses to take a stand over controversies such as gender and sexuality. But such things are not the cause of the church’s decline, only the symptoms of a far deeper theological disease.
Hamilton’s closing words ought to ring loud and clear: “The Church of England was founded as a political act against the wishes of much of the population and is now dying out of political irrelevance and popular unconcern. History, as we know, moves on, taking no prisoners.”
As I read Hamilton’s testimony about the decline of the Church of England, I could not help but to think of the man who had been healed by Jesus in John 9. Jesus had healed a blind man and when the authorities had heard about it, they questioned him extensively. As he shared with the authorities his testimony on what Jesus had just done for him, his faith progressed and his knowledge and understanding of Jesus became clearer to him. Here is how his faith grew:
1. “The Man” – v. 11. Having just been healed by Jesus, all that the blind man new of Jesus was that He was “the man.” It was “the man” who is called Jesus, who made clay and anointed my eyes.
2. “A Prophet” – v. 17. Now as the questioning intensifies, so does this man’s faith. In verse 11, Jesus was “the man,” now in this verse, Jesus is “a prophet.” You see the progression? You see the growth in wisdom? It is gradual, slow, but steady. This is what Jesus meant when He said to His disciples, “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and authorities, do not become anxious about how or what you shall speak in your defense, or what you shall say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11-12). The healing of the blind man in John 9 is a perfect example of what Jesus promised.
3. “Lord” – v. 38. After being thrown out of the synagogue (v. 34), Jesus meets up with him and reveals who He is. The healed blind man then calls Jesus, “Lord.”
Again, notice this man’s progression of faith – “the man,” to “a prophet,” to “Lord.” This is what makes a Christian strong and churches as well. It is when their faith progresses to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord!
What will kill a church? Simply put: It is when the faith of its leaders and members instead of progressing forward, it digresses. One’s faith may have started out recognizing Jesus as “Lord,” but due to a lack of obedience, a lack of maintaining a close relationship God, a lack of personal and biblical conviction in the authority of the Scriptures, a person who once believed Jesus to be “Lord,” now sees him as “a prophet.” Then the decline continues until now Jesus is nothing more than “the man.”
This is why the Church of England is where it is spiritually. It has lost its way. It may have begun believing Jesus as Lord, but now in the hearts of its leaders, Jesus is only “the man.” And if I see Jesus as merely “the man,” what kind of association am I obligated to give to him? Very little! After all, he is only “the man,” like any other man.
The duty and obligation of every believer is to make certain that Jesus is “Lord” in their hearts. We do not make Jesus Lord, HE IS LORD, but we recognize who He is and we don’t ever forget it. And then we adjust our lives to His authority and see ourselves as slaves serving and living under Him.
What His heart beats for so must ours; what His eyes see, so must ours; what His passion is, so must ours; what His mission is, so must ours be as well.
The Man
A Prophet
Lord
Who is Jesus at this point of time to you? Let the Holy Spirit move you to seeing Him as Lord. Once there, keep that focus by having your devotions daily, pray often and above all, obey Him in everything.
The Church of England is a prime example of what happens to all churches and Christians alike who allow their faith in God to digress.
For most Britons, he argues, the role of the nation’s state church means very little — “some exotic clothes and ritual prayers on state occasions. What is really worrying for the future of the Church, however, is that its leaders themselves seem to have ceased to believe in it.
“The majority of people are quite happy to profess themselves Christian and Anglican. It’s easier to accept than asserting a different faith. But they are not so happy to go to church services or take an active part in its activities.”
Despite a series of initiatives such as Back to Church Sunday and some improvement in the numbers of young people participating in church activities, attendance figures amongst Anglicans have dropped by some 10 per cent over the last decade. Only 1.1m people, some 2 per cent of the population, attend church on a weekly basis, and only 1.7m, or 3 per cent, once a month. This in spite of the fact that around half the population still profess themselves Anglicans.
So what is really killing the Church of England? Here it is: As valid as the institutional question of establishment may be, the more important factor in this pattern of decline is theological. Churches and denominations decline when they lose or forfeit their passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the Bible as the enduring, authoritative, and totally truthful Word of God. If life and death are no longer understood to hang in the balance, there is little reason for the British people to worry about anything related to Christianity. If a church is not passionate about seeing sinners come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if there is no powerful biblical message from its pulpits, then it is destined for decline and eventual disappearance.
When a church forfeits its doctrinal convictions and then embraces ambiguity and tolerates heresy, it undermines its own credibility and embraces its own destruction.
The Church of England refuses to take a stand over controversies such as gender and sexuality. But such things are not the cause of the church’s decline, only the symptoms of a far deeper theological disease.
Hamilton’s closing words ought to ring loud and clear: “The Church of England was founded as a political act against the wishes of much of the population and is now dying out of political irrelevance and popular unconcern. History, as we know, moves on, taking no prisoners.”
As I read Hamilton’s testimony about the decline of the Church of England, I could not help but to think of the man who had been healed by Jesus in John 9. Jesus had healed a blind man and when the authorities had heard about it, they questioned him extensively. As he shared with the authorities his testimony on what Jesus had just done for him, his faith progressed and his knowledge and understanding of Jesus became clearer to him. Here is how his faith grew:
1. “The Man” – v. 11. Having just been healed by Jesus, all that the blind man new of Jesus was that He was “the man.” It was “the man” who is called Jesus, who made clay and anointed my eyes.
2. “A Prophet” – v. 17. Now as the questioning intensifies, so does this man’s faith. In verse 11, Jesus was “the man,” now in this verse, Jesus is “a prophet.” You see the progression? You see the growth in wisdom? It is gradual, slow, but steady. This is what Jesus meant when He said to His disciples, “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and authorities, do not become anxious about how or what you shall speak in your defense, or what you shall say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11-12). The healing of the blind man in John 9 is a perfect example of what Jesus promised.
3. “Lord” – v. 38. After being thrown out of the synagogue (v. 34), Jesus meets up with him and reveals who He is. The healed blind man then calls Jesus, “Lord.”
Again, notice this man’s progression of faith – “the man,” to “a prophet,” to “Lord.” This is what makes a Christian strong and churches as well. It is when their faith progresses to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord!
What will kill a church? Simply put: It is when the faith of its leaders and members instead of progressing forward, it digresses. One’s faith may have started out recognizing Jesus as “Lord,” but due to a lack of obedience, a lack of maintaining a close relationship God, a lack of personal and biblical conviction in the authority of the Scriptures, a person who once believed Jesus to be “Lord,” now sees him as “a prophet.” Then the decline continues until now Jesus is nothing more than “the man.”
This is why the Church of England is where it is spiritually. It has lost its way. It may have begun believing Jesus as Lord, but now in the hearts of its leaders, Jesus is only “the man.” And if I see Jesus as merely “the man,” what kind of association am I obligated to give to him? Very little! After all, he is only “the man,” like any other man.
The duty and obligation of every believer is to make certain that Jesus is “Lord” in their hearts. We do not make Jesus Lord, HE IS LORD, but we recognize who He is and we don’t ever forget it. And then we adjust our lives to His authority and see ourselves as slaves serving and living under Him.
What His heart beats for so must ours; what His eyes see, so must ours; what His passion is, so must ours; what His mission is, so must ours be as well.
The Man
A Prophet
Lord
Who is Jesus at this point of time to you? Let the Holy Spirit move you to seeing Him as Lord. Once there, keep that focus by having your devotions daily, pray often and above all, obey Him in everything.
The Church of England is a prime example of what happens to all churches and Christians alike who allow their faith in God to digress.
Friday, May 13, 2011
What Happens to a Christian Who Commits Suicide?
Dear Rich,
If a born again Christian commits suicide because they have major depression and have struggled to sleep every night for 20 years and are on antidepressants and in terrible pain, they will still go to Heaven won’t they? My Mom committed suicide on New Years Day 2011. I believe she’s with the Lord Jesus who she loved and served all her life until she was in too much agony to go on. I wondered what your thoughts are on this subject.
Sincerely
Dear _________,
You raise a legitimate concern, one that I have heard before. Let me get right to it. No. The suicide of Christian does not send him or her to hell. I am going to give to you some passages from God’s Word which will hopefully relieve your thoughts about this.
Matt. 10:28 – “Do not fear those who are able to kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. . .” Your mom killed her body – yes, but she did not have the power to touch her soul. Only God has that ability.
1 John 1:7 – “. . .the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” We never know when our time on earth will be up, right? Death can happen at anytime and in many different ways. So many Christians therefore die with unconfessed sins. You may have a heated argument with a loved one and then on your way home get into a car accident and die before you were able to confess it to God. Does unconfessed sin at the time of death, send Christians to hell? Not even in the slightest. Why? Because the blood of Jesus keeps cleansing us from all our sin – past, present and future. This is a wonderful promise of God.
Now, there are scores of other passages that I can give, but I think you are getting the picture. However, let me save the canon ball for last. Are you ready for this? Get your bible out and mark this in your bible and never forget this one.
2 Timothy 2:11-13: Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
Notice what is being stated here. If we died with him, and we died with Jesus at the time we received Him into our lives (Rom. 6), what is the next promise? We shall also live with Him.
Next, if we endure, and every believer is an overcomer who endures by the grace of God through faith (see 1 John 5:4-5), what is the promise? We will reign with Him.
Next, if we disown Him. That is, if we refuse to believe in Jesus and confess Him as our Lord (Matt. 10:32-33), God will also deny knowing us (cf. Matt. 7:21-23). This is obvious. God only know those who believe in Him.
Now watch this: “If we are faithless.” Are there times in our lives when we become “faithless?” So many times, right? Every time we commit a sin that is a sign of faithlessness. Okay now watch this: When your mom committed suicide she had a moment of “faithlessness.” Suicide is sin. It is self-inflicted murder. Much of it probably was caused by the drugs she had been taken for so long. But nevertheless -- What then is the result? “HE (God) remains FAITHFUL.” How come? Because, “He CANNOT DENY HIMSELF.”
What does this mean? Even in moments of faithlessness on our part, God remains toward His own “faithful.” Because for God to be anything less than faithful of His promises to us – promises such as the ones we read above. Promises such as, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). When God makes these promises who is He swearing by? He swears by Himself, for there is no one greater than He. It is therefore impossible for God to break a promise that He makes to us because to do so would mean that He would deny Himself in the process. God cannot do this. He cannot deny Himself by breaking a promise. So, even when we are faithless and do something wrong, God still remains faithful to us and thus will never ever break a promise to us and be anything less than faithful, even at the time of a Christian’s death.
Paul wanted to drive this point home, so he wrote in verse 11, “Here is a trustworthy saying.” You can trust these words. You can count on God to keep His promises. What a wonderful promise to hold onto.
One final note: Who saved your mom? God did, right? How much of your mom, did God save? All of her, right? How much of God did He play in saving your mom – some or all? God played a one hundred percent role in saving your mom. He even gave her the faith to believe in Jesus – for even the saving faith to believe in Jesus is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9). Therefore, since God’s role in saving your mom was one hundred percent on His part and nothing on her part, how could she do anything on her part to unravel it? See my point?
I hope you find comfort and encouragement in the power and promise of God’s Word.
Much Blessings,
Rich
If a born again Christian commits suicide because they have major depression and have struggled to sleep every night for 20 years and are on antidepressants and in terrible pain, they will still go to Heaven won’t they? My Mom committed suicide on New Years Day 2011. I believe she’s with the Lord Jesus who she loved and served all her life until she was in too much agony to go on. I wondered what your thoughts are on this subject.
Sincerely
Dear _________,
You raise a legitimate concern, one that I have heard before. Let me get right to it. No. The suicide of Christian does not send him or her to hell. I am going to give to you some passages from God’s Word which will hopefully relieve your thoughts about this.
Matt. 10:28 – “Do not fear those who are able to kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. . .” Your mom killed her body – yes, but she did not have the power to touch her soul. Only God has that ability.
1 John 1:7 – “. . .the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” We never know when our time on earth will be up, right? Death can happen at anytime and in many different ways. So many Christians therefore die with unconfessed sins. You may have a heated argument with a loved one and then on your way home get into a car accident and die before you were able to confess it to God. Does unconfessed sin at the time of death, send Christians to hell? Not even in the slightest. Why? Because the blood of Jesus keeps cleansing us from all our sin – past, present and future. This is a wonderful promise of God.
Now, there are scores of other passages that I can give, but I think you are getting the picture. However, let me save the canon ball for last. Are you ready for this? Get your bible out and mark this in your bible and never forget this one.
2 Timothy 2:11-13: Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
Notice what is being stated here. If we died with him, and we died with Jesus at the time we received Him into our lives (Rom. 6), what is the next promise? We shall also live with Him.
Next, if we endure, and every believer is an overcomer who endures by the grace of God through faith (see 1 John 5:4-5), what is the promise? We will reign with Him.
Next, if we disown Him. That is, if we refuse to believe in Jesus and confess Him as our Lord (Matt. 10:32-33), God will also deny knowing us (cf. Matt. 7:21-23). This is obvious. God only know those who believe in Him.
Now watch this: “If we are faithless.” Are there times in our lives when we become “faithless?” So many times, right? Every time we commit a sin that is a sign of faithlessness. Okay now watch this: When your mom committed suicide she had a moment of “faithlessness.” Suicide is sin. It is self-inflicted murder. Much of it probably was caused by the drugs she had been taken for so long. But nevertheless -- What then is the result? “HE (God) remains FAITHFUL.” How come? Because, “He CANNOT DENY HIMSELF.”
What does this mean? Even in moments of faithlessness on our part, God remains toward His own “faithful.” Because for God to be anything less than faithful of His promises to us – promises such as the ones we read above. Promises such as, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). When God makes these promises who is He swearing by? He swears by Himself, for there is no one greater than He. It is therefore impossible for God to break a promise that He makes to us because to do so would mean that He would deny Himself in the process. God cannot do this. He cannot deny Himself by breaking a promise. So, even when we are faithless and do something wrong, God still remains faithful to us and thus will never ever break a promise to us and be anything less than faithful, even at the time of a Christian’s death.
Paul wanted to drive this point home, so he wrote in verse 11, “Here is a trustworthy saying.” You can trust these words. You can count on God to keep His promises. What a wonderful promise to hold onto.
One final note: Who saved your mom? God did, right? How much of your mom, did God save? All of her, right? How much of God did He play in saving your mom – some or all? God played a one hundred percent role in saving your mom. He even gave her the faith to believe in Jesus – for even the saving faith to believe in Jesus is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9). Therefore, since God’s role in saving your mom was one hundred percent on His part and nothing on her part, how could she do anything on her part to unravel it? See my point?
I hope you find comfort and encouragement in the power and promise of God’s Word.
Much Blessings,
Rich
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