What’s the deal with Barack Obama and Islam?
Is he or has he ever been a Muslim?
And how do Muslims view him?
I received some interesting information in a recent email from ACT for America concerning a series of articles by Daniel Pipes. I urge you to check them out for yourself.
The question about Obama being a Muslim has been flying around the internet and elsewhere for a while now. Did he ever practice Islam? The Obama campaign says no, but is that the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
According to Islamic law, because his father was a Muslim, that automatically makes Obama a Muslim. Sure, that’s beyond his control, but technically you have to say he was born a Muslim since that’s how the religion counts it.
More importantly, though, his school records from Indonesia also list him as a Muslim. Dig a little deeper and you find that Obama actually attended Koran classes and that various classmates and teachers say he could recite verses from the Koran with a perfect accent. They also say he sometimes attended mosque on Fridays with his stepfather.
So obviously Barack Obama was a Muslim, at least for a time. Which means his campaign is lying. Even in his book, DREAMS OF MY FATHER, he mentions cutting up in Koran class. So like the typical politician he says he’s not, he’s whitewashing his past.
What he believed in the earlier part of his life may be up for grabs, but at the age of 27, he came to Christianity thanks to the now infamous Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama has actually spent more of his life as a non-Christian than as a Christian. Maybe that’s why his “Christianity” is one that allows not only for abortion, but also for the killing of born alive babies, a view too radical even for NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) to support. Obama stayed in Reverend Wright's church for 20 years until it turned out to be a liability to his political career and then he dropped his former mentor and pastor like a hot potato.
In any case, I find the symbolism of a U.S. presidential candidate with the middle name of Hussein who went to school as a Muslim in Indonesia more than a little troubling.
The Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan calls Obama ‘the hope of the entire world.’ Sorry, but I don’t vote to elect a president who’s good for the world, although that’s not a bad thing. I vote for someone who’s good for America. It seems obvious the world doesn’t like America’s prosperity and especially her freedoms, even though many benefit from them. Obama seems to think we Americans need to cut back on our lifestyles and get in line with Europe and the rest of the world. I was not thrilled to see him acting as though he were already president when he toured Europe; I was even more upset when I heard him apologizing for America and then lecturing Americans on their failure to speak other languages the way the Europeans do. We’ve never run our country according to the dictates of Europe, the U.N., or anyone else and I don’t think we should start now.
Many Muslims consider Obama one of their own because they reason his middle name is Hussein and therefore he can't be a Christian. If he really was a Muslim, even for two minutes, and then switched to Christianity, wouldn’t he be considered an apostate and worthy of the death penalty? According to Pipes, Muslims in other countries rarely see Obama as a Christian, but consider him either a Muslim or an ex-Muslim. On the other hand, many Arabic language news sources do consider Obama an apostate. This elicits the scary scenario of him getting elected and then having Al Qaeda take advantage of the opportunity to step up their jihad on the Great Satan whose commander-in-chief is an apostate Muslim (although if Obama cuts military spending like he promises, we won't have to worry about defending ourselves).
So our choice boils down to an American war hero who's pro-life and good on terror, but a disaster when it comes to handling the immigration problem or a possible Muslim apostate who thinks America isn't what it used to be and whose big mantra of change involves taxing us into socialism.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Christian Beware
Depressing, but true ... there are many practices out there dangerous to your spiritual health and many ideas that will happily lead you astray from the truth.
Everywhere I turn, I bump into one of them. Astrology for starters. How many of us innocently read our horoscope in the daily paper or in magazines. And yet this is completely against anything in the Bible. According to astrology, the stars and planets influence who you are because of when and where you were born thus leaving God having nothing to do with it. Common sense alone indicates how crazy that is, especially when you think of all the people born on your own birthday, maybe even born at the exact same time as you and how different they are from you. Anyone can fit into any sign's profile if they pick and choose hard enough.
I recently learned that the early Hebrews used the same zodiac constellations, but in a much different way. They call it the Mazzeroth (hope I have that spelled right) and they used it to teach the story of the Messiah to their children using the night sky, starting with Virgo for the virgin birth and bringing it all the way through the year to Leo the lion aka the Savior, the Lion of Judah. How cool is that?!
Oprah, queen of all things non-biblical, has been involved in conducting a Satellite radio class on a Course in Miracles, a faux gospel that turns everything Jesus said and did on its head, even though it claims to be a new revelation from Jesus himself. Which is pretty sacrilegious when you think about it. Supposedly the book was channeled by a woman psychiatrist, a claim even more sacrilegious considering its anti-Biblical stance on pretty much everything. Just knowing it says that sin is the result of lack of love (cue weeping violins here) should be enough to steer you in the opposite direction. What a way to shirk responsibility for sin.
Pastor Rick Warren touts a bunch of similar squirrelly doctrines such as accepting yourself, loving yourself, forgiving yourself, and being true to yourself. We’re all eager to love and forgive ourselves; it’s what gets us into trouble in the first place. When you sin, you’re sinning against the Creator who made you and only He can forgive those sins. Another big name, Joel Osteen, doesn’t like to refer to sin at all and says that God’s only looking at your last two good moves. So don't worry if you just robbed a bank, God will ignore that and focus on the way you helped that llittle old lady across the street on your way there.
The bestselling book The Secret is yet another rehash of the old law of attraction which says if you think about something long enough and really want it and pretend you already have, you’ll get it. Napoleon Hill and every self-help guru after him from Norman Vincent Peale to Tony Robbins will tell you the same thing. The scary part is that there’s now a group of Christians talking about ‘the secret behind The Secret’ trying to turn it into something Christian. Talk about selling out.
Global warming is a dubious theory that fosters worship of ‘mother earth’ even at the expense of the humans living on it. A bunch of pastors have signed on to the Global Warming agenda as well, in spite of the 10,000 scientists who have come out against it. In fact, scientists have flip-flopped on this subject at least three times in the 20th century, going from telling us it’s warming to warning us of an impending ice age (as happened in the 1970’s). We’re told the oceans will rise and cover major portions of the continents. I guess they don’t realize God sets the boundaries of the oceans and He assures us the waters will only come so far and no farther. The problem with global warming is that debate on the issue is being squelched. Only those scientists who agree with Al Gore and his ilk get research grants. It's all about money and power. (Did you know that Gore's movie cannot be shown in British schools because it has so many factual errors?).
We need to know what we’re getting involved in from a Christian point of view, but how can you keep track of it all. For a solid first step, check out the Spiritual Research Network and its great website which lists hundreds of practices so you can check things out for yourself.
Bottom line.... when it comes to the things of this world, Christian beware.
Everywhere I turn, I bump into one of them. Astrology for starters. How many of us innocently read our horoscope in the daily paper or in magazines. And yet this is completely against anything in the Bible. According to astrology, the stars and planets influence who you are because of when and where you were born thus leaving God having nothing to do with it. Common sense alone indicates how crazy that is, especially when you think of all the people born on your own birthday, maybe even born at the exact same time as you and how different they are from you. Anyone can fit into any sign's profile if they pick and choose hard enough.
I recently learned that the early Hebrews used the same zodiac constellations, but in a much different way. They call it the Mazzeroth (hope I have that spelled right) and they used it to teach the story of the Messiah to their children using the night sky, starting with Virgo for the virgin birth and bringing it all the way through the year to Leo the lion aka the Savior, the Lion of Judah. How cool is that?!
Oprah, queen of all things non-biblical, has been involved in conducting a Satellite radio class on a Course in Miracles, a faux gospel that turns everything Jesus said and did on its head, even though it claims to be a new revelation from Jesus himself. Which is pretty sacrilegious when you think about it. Supposedly the book was channeled by a woman psychiatrist, a claim even more sacrilegious considering its anti-Biblical stance on pretty much everything. Just knowing it says that sin is the result of lack of love (cue weeping violins here) should be enough to steer you in the opposite direction. What a way to shirk responsibility for sin.
Pastor Rick Warren touts a bunch of similar squirrelly doctrines such as accepting yourself, loving yourself, forgiving yourself, and being true to yourself. We’re all eager to love and forgive ourselves; it’s what gets us into trouble in the first place. When you sin, you’re sinning against the Creator who made you and only He can forgive those sins. Another big name, Joel Osteen, doesn’t like to refer to sin at all and says that God’s only looking at your last two good moves. So don't worry if you just robbed a bank, God will ignore that and focus on the way you helped that llittle old lady across the street on your way there.
The bestselling book The Secret is yet another rehash of the old law of attraction which says if you think about something long enough and really want it and pretend you already have, you’ll get it. Napoleon Hill and every self-help guru after him from Norman Vincent Peale to Tony Robbins will tell you the same thing. The scary part is that there’s now a group of Christians talking about ‘the secret behind The Secret’ trying to turn it into something Christian. Talk about selling out.
Global warming is a dubious theory that fosters worship of ‘mother earth’ even at the expense of the humans living on it. A bunch of pastors have signed on to the Global Warming agenda as well, in spite of the 10,000 scientists who have come out against it. In fact, scientists have flip-flopped on this subject at least three times in the 20th century, going from telling us it’s warming to warning us of an impending ice age (as happened in the 1970’s). We’re told the oceans will rise and cover major portions of the continents. I guess they don’t realize God sets the boundaries of the oceans and He assures us the waters will only come so far and no farther. The problem with global warming is that debate on the issue is being squelched. Only those scientists who agree with Al Gore and his ilk get research grants. It's all about money and power. (Did you know that Gore's movie cannot be shown in British schools because it has so many factual errors?).
We need to know what we’re getting involved in from a Christian point of view, but how can you keep track of it all. For a solid first step, check out the Spiritual Research Network and its great website which lists hundreds of practices so you can check things out for yourself.
Bottom line.... when it comes to the things of this world, Christian beware.
Friday, August 22, 2008
How To Be Politically Incorrect
Being called politically incorrect doesn’t bother me at all. I never did like to run with the pack. Besides, political correctness has gone totally loopy recently -- as witnessed by the man who objected to having his department called a ‘black hole’ where projects got lost because he said it was racist.
Holy Toledo, is this guy for real?
I’ve found a series of books that are just the antidote to this kind of ongoing nonsense. They’re called the Politically Incorrect series and have titles like THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE (P.I.G. for short) TO ISLAM (AND THE CRUSADES) and THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING. They’re very much like the Dummies and Idiot’s guides only they’re... politically incorrect (the way Christianity is politically incorrect these days, although the books aren’t Christian per se).
The P.I.G. to Islam has tons of interesting information you might not know such as that the Crusades were a defensive conflict on the part of the West and not the act of aggression Muslims would like you to believe. Or that the Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries and still goes on. I love the blurb they have on the front cover which they call 'praise' for the author -- “May Allah rip out his spine from his back and split his brains in two, and then put them both back, and then do it over and over again. Amen”. This lovely gem is quoted from RevivingIslam.com Must be some real truth-telling going on in the book since it’s pushing someone’s buttons to this degree.
The P.I.G. to the Bible is filled with great comebacks for anyone who tries to denigrate the Bible. Try sprinkling your conversation with tidbits on how recent archaeological discoveries continue to confirm the historical accuracy of Bible stories or how the Bible made modern science possible or how Biblical laws paved the way for democracy. Turns out the enemies of the Bible are enemies of true reason and tolerance as our Founding Fathers well understood.
The P.I.G. to Darwinism and Intelligent Design and The P.I.G. to Global Warming give the lowdown on those two hot potato topics. After you’ve browsed through them, check out the movie Expelled if you haven’t already seen it. Scientists who question Darwinism in any way are being punished by public institutions using your tax dollars.
I think my two favorite P.I.G.’s, probably because I’ve studied so much about history and literature, are The P.I.G. to Western Civilization and The P.I.G. to English and American Literature.
Multiculturalism is all well and good, but American civilization IS western civilization with its roots in Christianity and Judaism, Greece and Rome, and yes, lots of dead white males. Old-fashioned morality, traditional families, everything many liberals hate can be summed up in two words -- Western Civ... which is probably why high schools and colleges don’t really teach it anymore. And by the way, it was the so-called progressive ideas of the nineteenth century that led to fascism, communism, and two world wars.
The same sorts of things can be said about English and American Lit which is also dominated by dead white males. I learned that one of my favorite authors, Jane Austen, was a fan of the patriarchy. Who knew?? And yet it can’t be denied that the greatest English literature is explicitly Christian and was written by an impressive array of dead white guys (think Shakespeare and Milton for a start).
These books are great, subversive fun for the politically incorrect in all of us.
Holy Toledo, is this guy for real?
I’ve found a series of books that are just the antidote to this kind of ongoing nonsense. They’re called the Politically Incorrect series and have titles like THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE (P.I.G. for short) TO ISLAM (AND THE CRUSADES) and THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING. They’re very much like the Dummies and Idiot’s guides only they’re... politically incorrect (the way Christianity is politically incorrect these days, although the books aren’t Christian per se).
The P.I.G. to Islam has tons of interesting information you might not know such as that the Crusades were a defensive conflict on the part of the West and not the act of aggression Muslims would like you to believe. Or that the Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries and still goes on. I love the blurb they have on the front cover which they call 'praise' for the author -- “May Allah rip out his spine from his back and split his brains in two, and then put them both back, and then do it over and over again. Amen”. This lovely gem is quoted from RevivingIslam.com Must be some real truth-telling going on in the book since it’s pushing someone’s buttons to this degree.
The P.I.G. to the Bible is filled with great comebacks for anyone who tries to denigrate the Bible. Try sprinkling your conversation with tidbits on how recent archaeological discoveries continue to confirm the historical accuracy of Bible stories or how the Bible made modern science possible or how Biblical laws paved the way for democracy. Turns out the enemies of the Bible are enemies of true reason and tolerance as our Founding Fathers well understood.
The P.I.G. to Darwinism and Intelligent Design and The P.I.G. to Global Warming give the lowdown on those two hot potato topics. After you’ve browsed through them, check out the movie Expelled if you haven’t already seen it. Scientists who question Darwinism in any way are being punished by public institutions using your tax dollars.
I think my two favorite P.I.G.’s, probably because I’ve studied so much about history and literature, are The P.I.G. to Western Civilization and The P.I.G. to English and American Literature.
Multiculturalism is all well and good, but American civilization IS western civilization with its roots in Christianity and Judaism, Greece and Rome, and yes, lots of dead white males. Old-fashioned morality, traditional families, everything many liberals hate can be summed up in two words -- Western Civ... which is probably why high schools and colleges don’t really teach it anymore. And by the way, it was the so-called progressive ideas of the nineteenth century that led to fascism, communism, and two world wars.
The same sorts of things can be said about English and American Lit which is also dominated by dead white males. I learned that one of my favorite authors, Jane Austen, was a fan of the patriarchy. Who knew?? And yet it can’t be denied that the greatest English literature is explicitly Christian and was written by an impressive array of dead white guys (think Shakespeare and Milton for a start).
These books are great, subversive fun for the politically incorrect in all of us.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Is It Time To Stop Calling Myself An Evangelical?
A bunch of so-called Evangelicals including Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Leif Anderson, and Tony Compolo signed a letter a while back saying that Muslims and Christians both worship the same God and that both love their neighbors.
That’s news to me!
Even though I’ve only read parts of the Koran, it’s obvious that Allah is nothing like Jehovah of the Bible. Allah is a capricious God who does NOT pride himself on keeping his promises the way the God of the Bible does. In one verse it even says that Allah sends both the righteous and unrighteous first to hell and from there, if their good deeds outweigh the bad and if they’re able to cross a tiny bridge as thin as a piece of hair, they get to go to paradise. If they fail, they fall into the fire. Not quite the same thing as the atoning blood of Jesus.
The Jesus of the Koran is not the Jesus of the Bible. Muslims certainly do not consider him God’s son. (Have you ever noticed how so many religions change Jesus into ‘another’ Jesus to suit their aims -- Morman, Islam, Jehovah’s Witness, New Age, Christian Scientist. Changing Jesus is the first thing you do when you go off the reservation of true Christianity.)
The bottom line is that the Koran and the Bible don’t harmonize in any way, shape or form. Nor is there anything in the Koran about loving your neighbor. You can’t have a peace plan with people who ultimately want to destroy you.
I find it suspicious that it was the Muslim clerics who approached the Christians with this letter idea. I’m thinking they’re pulling a fast one. This might even be a step toward a one world religion (not that this is their intended purpose). Of all the religions in the world, Christianity and Islam are often considered problem children. For the one world religion of Bible prophesy to work, they must somehow either come together or one must be gotten rid of. Perhaps this is part of Satan’s strategy.
All I can say is that any march toward a one world religion shouldn’t start with us. And yet these evangelicals are signing on! Don’t they realize that Christians have to bring down their standards in order to join with other religions? As Brannon Howse so aptly put it, signing this letter is spiritual treason.
Muslims must be loving this latest coup.
I think I’m going to start calling myself a Bible believer from now on.
That’s news to me!
Even though I’ve only read parts of the Koran, it’s obvious that Allah is nothing like Jehovah of the Bible. Allah is a capricious God who does NOT pride himself on keeping his promises the way the God of the Bible does. In one verse it even says that Allah sends both the righteous and unrighteous first to hell and from there, if their good deeds outweigh the bad and if they’re able to cross a tiny bridge as thin as a piece of hair, they get to go to paradise. If they fail, they fall into the fire. Not quite the same thing as the atoning blood of Jesus.
The Jesus of the Koran is not the Jesus of the Bible. Muslims certainly do not consider him God’s son. (Have you ever noticed how so many religions change Jesus into ‘another’ Jesus to suit their aims -- Morman, Islam, Jehovah’s Witness, New Age, Christian Scientist. Changing Jesus is the first thing you do when you go off the reservation of true Christianity.)
The bottom line is that the Koran and the Bible don’t harmonize in any way, shape or form. Nor is there anything in the Koran about loving your neighbor. You can’t have a peace plan with people who ultimately want to destroy you.
I find it suspicious that it was the Muslim clerics who approached the Christians with this letter idea. I’m thinking they’re pulling a fast one. This might even be a step toward a one world religion (not that this is their intended purpose). Of all the religions in the world, Christianity and Islam are often considered problem children. For the one world religion of Bible prophesy to work, they must somehow either come together or one must be gotten rid of. Perhaps this is part of Satan’s strategy.
All I can say is that any march toward a one world religion shouldn’t start with us. And yet these evangelicals are signing on! Don’t they realize that Christians have to bring down their standards in order to join with other religions? As Brannon Howse so aptly put it, signing this letter is spiritual treason.
Muslims must be loving this latest coup.
I think I’m going to start calling myself a Bible believer from now on.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Some Random Thoughts about Islam
It seems that lots of people these days from the media to our very own president are anxious to assure us that Islam is a religion of peace. I always get suspicious when someone insists on this statement being true when I also know that 90% of the world’s terrorist groups are Muslim. Something doesn’t compute. And so I’ve been looking into Islam -- so much so that I even bought a copy of the Koran (Qur’an) so I could see for myself exactly what this fastest growing religion in the world is all about.
The first thing that struck me on reading the Koran is that much of it seems to have been lifted from the Bible, though often subtly tweaked and twisted. Some even estimate that 85% of the Koran is based on Jewish and Christian traditions. Many of the familiar Biblical faces are in there from Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael to Jesus and Mary. Of course, Muslims don’t believe Jesus was the son of God, nor do they think he was crucified, but that it was someone else in his place. In fact, the Koran insists over and over that God has no son. It’s even written along the top of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Methinks they do protest too much.
What’s also really interesting -- and also very telling if you ask me -- is how the Koran states that Jesus was perfect and without sin and yet Muslims are supposed to emulate Mohammad, a ruthless, treaty-breaking bandit who plundered and killed without mercy and who had wives as young as 9 years old.
Even more disturbing is that Muslims are commanded to be actively involved in the extermination of Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims. Any Muslim who doesn’t do this is a sinner. Plus they’re allowed to lie about their intentions, since lying to non-Muslims is perfectly acceptable. So is making treaties you have no intention of keeping. Muhammad did this when he made a treaty with the Jews because he was too weak to defeat them and then, when he had gathered enough strength to prevail, he broke the treaty and slaughtered them all.
Unlike the Bible, the Koran says that women are inferior to men, that they are in the same category as mute animals. A man can beat his wife. He can lock her in a room until she dies. He can use his wife (wives) in any way he chooses. The practice of honor killing, where a Muslim father kills his daughter or a brother kills his sister because they feel she has shamed the family by dating a non-Muslim or refusing to wear a veil or whatever is now a growing trend in the West. It’s happening right here in the United States. Sharia/Muslim law finds this perfectly acceptable and calls for no punishment for the murderer. As if all that isn’t bad enough, Mohammad said that hell is mostly filled with women.
Islam is called a religion of peace, but if you criticize it, the reaction is pure violence. Look at the riots that occurred over a mere cartoon in a Danish newspaper. Just the other day, Random House pulled a book it was about to publish about Mohammad's wife, Aisha, all on the advice of one university professor who told the publisher Muslims might not like it. So now we're allowing a religion we don't even follow to scare us into muzzling our own freedom of speech!
Criticizing the Koran also incurs the death penalty. You can study it, but you can’t question its authority, at least not in Muslim countries. There’s no such thing as a Strong’s Concordance to the Koran. You're not allowed to point out the inconsistencies... and there are plenty to go around. For example, in one place it says Allah created the world in 8 days, in another it says 4, and in yet another it says 6. On the other hand, the Bible has undergone the most intense scrutiny for thousands of years and yet it still stands.
The word Islam itself means ‘submission’ and not ‘peace’ as many people think. It seems to me the peace aspect of it only comes after you’ve been forcibly ‘converted’ at the point of a sword to become Muslim yourself.
The first thing that struck me on reading the Koran is that much of it seems to have been lifted from the Bible, though often subtly tweaked and twisted. Some even estimate that 85% of the Koran is based on Jewish and Christian traditions. Many of the familiar Biblical faces are in there from Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael to Jesus and Mary. Of course, Muslims don’t believe Jesus was the son of God, nor do they think he was crucified, but that it was someone else in his place. In fact, the Koran insists over and over that God has no son. It’s even written along the top of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Methinks they do protest too much.
What’s also really interesting -- and also very telling if you ask me -- is how the Koran states that Jesus was perfect and without sin and yet Muslims are supposed to emulate Mohammad, a ruthless, treaty-breaking bandit who plundered and killed without mercy and who had wives as young as 9 years old.
Even more disturbing is that Muslims are commanded to be actively involved in the extermination of Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims. Any Muslim who doesn’t do this is a sinner. Plus they’re allowed to lie about their intentions, since lying to non-Muslims is perfectly acceptable. So is making treaties you have no intention of keeping. Muhammad did this when he made a treaty with the Jews because he was too weak to defeat them and then, when he had gathered enough strength to prevail, he broke the treaty and slaughtered them all.
Unlike the Bible, the Koran says that women are inferior to men, that they are in the same category as mute animals. A man can beat his wife. He can lock her in a room until she dies. He can use his wife (wives) in any way he chooses. The practice of honor killing, where a Muslim father kills his daughter or a brother kills his sister because they feel she has shamed the family by dating a non-Muslim or refusing to wear a veil or whatever is now a growing trend in the West. It’s happening right here in the United States. Sharia/Muslim law finds this perfectly acceptable and calls for no punishment for the murderer. As if all that isn’t bad enough, Mohammad said that hell is mostly filled with women.
Islam is called a religion of peace, but if you criticize it, the reaction is pure violence. Look at the riots that occurred over a mere cartoon in a Danish newspaper. Just the other day, Random House pulled a book it was about to publish about Mohammad's wife, Aisha, all on the advice of one university professor who told the publisher Muslims might not like it. So now we're allowing a religion we don't even follow to scare us into muzzling our own freedom of speech!
Criticizing the Koran also incurs the death penalty. You can study it, but you can’t question its authority, at least not in Muslim countries. There’s no such thing as a Strong’s Concordance to the Koran. You're not allowed to point out the inconsistencies... and there are plenty to go around. For example, in one place it says Allah created the world in 8 days, in another it says 4, and in yet another it says 6. On the other hand, the Bible has undergone the most intense scrutiny for thousands of years and yet it still stands.
The word Islam itself means ‘submission’ and not ‘peace’ as many people think. It seems to me the peace aspect of it only comes after you’ve been forcibly ‘converted’ at the point of a sword to become Muslim yourself.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Satan's At It Again!
I find it fascinating that the lies being promulgated by the so-called new spirituality (including Oprah Winfrey and the plethora of new age types she touts on her show) are the very same lies Satan used to deceive Eve in Chapter 3 of Genesis.
A recent dvd on the New Spirituality from Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend is a terrific introduction to a topic that has fascinated me since my own pre-Christian days as a new age seeker of knowledge.
I just love the fact that God provides an end run around Satan right off the bat in Genesis 3, something I hadn’t fully realized until listening to Brannon.
After Satan’s opening gambit to cast doubt on the entire word of God (“yea, has God said...?), there are 4 main lies he uses.
First he tells Eve she will not die (verse 4). This is the same lie that we find in reincarnation and everything associated with it.
Satan then assures Eve that her ‘eyes will be opened’ (verse 5). This is a form of esotericism which is another way of saying you need to enter your own inner sanctum, your own mind and will in order to find truth. Transcendental Meditation is one way people try to do this. The rapidly growing Emergent Church pushes something called ‘contemplative prayer’ which is merely Transcendental Meditation in disguise. Any practice where you ‘empty your mind’ is dangerous -- who knows what might accept your invitation to walk right in and make itself at home (as Jesus pointed out in his story in Matthew 12 where the original demon returns after having been cast out to find the place swept clean so he calls in his buddies and they all take up residence)! As for ‘Christian’ yoga, it isn’t simply exercise, it’s a spiritual discipline that prepares its followers for supernatural connection with unholy spirits. Check it out in YOGA AND THE BODY OF CHRIST by Dave Hunt. Walking the labyrinth is another such practice where you follow a giant maze laid out on the floor and supposedly by the time you reach the center you will have encountered God. These are all non-Biblical, non-Christian ways to get yourself in trouble by accidentally contacting demons. Thanks, but no thanks.
Third lie -- Satan promises Eve she will be like God (verse 5). Today this is known as humanism which puts man at the top of the heap and able to do all the things God can. You’re told you need to love yourself (as if we don’t already) and find the Christ within you. The huge phenomenon of The Secret says you only have to think about and visualize what you want and it’s yours. Many tele-evangelists use the same tactic to get money from people. The ‘name it and claim it’ crowd, otherwise known as the prosperity gospel is a lie. If you can’t preach it around the world, if other cultures can’t identify with it, then it’s not the gospel.
Fourth, Satan promised Eve she would know ‘good and evil’ (verse 5) which is another name for moral relativism. You decide what’s right. At the end of Judges, it says that ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’ (Judges 21:25). This kind of thinking leads to pluralism, i.e. all beliefs are equal and all roads lead to God. Oprah herself insists there can’t be only one way to God. Too bad the Bible disagrees with her. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and there are only two families in this world -- the family of God and the family of Satan.
Satan only has one tool to lead us astray -- lies and everything connected with them. Sure these lies and deceptions can be a powerful lure, but they’re also one note and easily spotted once you have the truth, although not so easily conquered.
The new spirituality isn’t new at all, it’s just a rehashing of Satan’s original deception. Guess you can’t teach an old dog (Satan) new tricks.
A recent dvd on the New Spirituality from Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend is a terrific introduction to a topic that has fascinated me since my own pre-Christian days as a new age seeker of knowledge.
I just love the fact that God provides an end run around Satan right off the bat in Genesis 3, something I hadn’t fully realized until listening to Brannon.
After Satan’s opening gambit to cast doubt on the entire word of God (“yea, has God said...?), there are 4 main lies he uses.
First he tells Eve she will not die (verse 4). This is the same lie that we find in reincarnation and everything associated with it.
Satan then assures Eve that her ‘eyes will be opened’ (verse 5). This is a form of esotericism which is another way of saying you need to enter your own inner sanctum, your own mind and will in order to find truth. Transcendental Meditation is one way people try to do this. The rapidly growing Emergent Church pushes something called ‘contemplative prayer’ which is merely Transcendental Meditation in disguise. Any practice where you ‘empty your mind’ is dangerous -- who knows what might accept your invitation to walk right in and make itself at home (as Jesus pointed out in his story in Matthew 12 where the original demon returns after having been cast out to find the place swept clean so he calls in his buddies and they all take up residence)! As for ‘Christian’ yoga, it isn’t simply exercise, it’s a spiritual discipline that prepares its followers for supernatural connection with unholy spirits. Check it out in YOGA AND THE BODY OF CHRIST by Dave Hunt. Walking the labyrinth is another such practice where you follow a giant maze laid out on the floor and supposedly by the time you reach the center you will have encountered God. These are all non-Biblical, non-Christian ways to get yourself in trouble by accidentally contacting demons. Thanks, but no thanks.
Third lie -- Satan promises Eve she will be like God (verse 5). Today this is known as humanism which puts man at the top of the heap and able to do all the things God can. You’re told you need to love yourself (as if we don’t already) and find the Christ within you. The huge phenomenon of The Secret says you only have to think about and visualize what you want and it’s yours. Many tele-evangelists use the same tactic to get money from people. The ‘name it and claim it’ crowd, otherwise known as the prosperity gospel is a lie. If you can’t preach it around the world, if other cultures can’t identify with it, then it’s not the gospel.
Fourth, Satan promised Eve she would know ‘good and evil’ (verse 5) which is another name for moral relativism. You decide what’s right. At the end of Judges, it says that ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’ (Judges 21:25). This kind of thinking leads to pluralism, i.e. all beliefs are equal and all roads lead to God. Oprah herself insists there can’t be only one way to God. Too bad the Bible disagrees with her. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and there are only two families in this world -- the family of God and the family of Satan.
Satan only has one tool to lead us astray -- lies and everything connected with them. Sure these lies and deceptions can be a powerful lure, but they’re also one note and easily spotted once you have the truth, although not so easily conquered.
The new spirituality isn’t new at all, it’s just a rehashing of Satan’s original deception. Guess you can’t teach an old dog (Satan) new tricks.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Do Hard Things
There’s a book on the Religion Bestseller’s List called DO HARD THINGS by teenage brothers Alex and Brett Harris. The subtitle is 'A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations' and the gist of their tome is that society expects little of teenagers as compared to what it did in the past and that today’s teenagers default to this lowest position to meet those expectations by having fun, spending their money on themselves, and generally looking out for number one.
Hard things include discipline, doing more than you’re asked, going outside your comfort zone to accomplish something you didn’t think you could, making a difference. The sad truth is we adults need the message to do hard things just as badly as the teens, if not more so.
American society in general expects little of its citizens anymore. And people are happy to oblige. Mostly the government wants us to be steady, reliable consumers and to stay out of its way as it grows bigger and more unwieldy and steals more of our money through taxes which it then gives to people who haven’t earned it. (Has anyone seen Obama’s latest bill to send billions of our dollars overseas to help the poor in Africa? It’s all well and good to help the poor, but according to the Bible it should be voluntary -- this, along with welfare and other similar programs, is legalized, systematic theft). Our entertainment industry has sunk to depicting every immorality known to mankind, all in the name of pushing the envelope and providing the shock value needed for our sadly jaded sensibilities. Most people don’t care enough to protest by voting with their pocketbooks as evidenced by the profits generated by these endeavors.
The good news is that we Christians are not supposed to be just anybody. We’re called to be salt and light to the culture the way William Wilberforce was, or Clara Barton who started the Red Cross or George Washington who was doing a man’s job as a surveyor at the age of 16 and who, as our first president, led our fledgling nation with integrity and honor.
The bad news is we Christians have abdicated from influencing much of anything and are now hiding behind our church walls with Christian books, movies, and TV. We’re not doing hard things like evangelizing or holding our political leaders accountable or trying to take back the culture. We’re not shining our lights for Christ. We’ve allowed sacrifice and selflessness to become foreign concepts. We’ve grown complacent because we've let ourselves.
I know I’m as guilty as anyone. It’s part of why I started this blog. We have so much opportunity to make a difference. We’re free to take up any challenge. It can be anything from starting a home Bible study to running for the school board. All it takes is the first step.
It’s time for all of us to do hard things.
Hard things include discipline, doing more than you’re asked, going outside your comfort zone to accomplish something you didn’t think you could, making a difference. The sad truth is we adults need the message to do hard things just as badly as the teens, if not more so.
American society in general expects little of its citizens anymore. And people are happy to oblige. Mostly the government wants us to be steady, reliable consumers and to stay out of its way as it grows bigger and more unwieldy and steals more of our money through taxes which it then gives to people who haven’t earned it. (Has anyone seen Obama’s latest bill to send billions of our dollars overseas to help the poor in Africa? It’s all well and good to help the poor, but according to the Bible it should be voluntary -- this, along with welfare and other similar programs, is legalized, systematic theft). Our entertainment industry has sunk to depicting every immorality known to mankind, all in the name of pushing the envelope and providing the shock value needed for our sadly jaded sensibilities. Most people don’t care enough to protest by voting with their pocketbooks as evidenced by the profits generated by these endeavors.
The good news is that we Christians are not supposed to be just anybody. We’re called to be salt and light to the culture the way William Wilberforce was, or Clara Barton who started the Red Cross or George Washington who was doing a man’s job as a surveyor at the age of 16 and who, as our first president, led our fledgling nation with integrity and honor.
The bad news is we Christians have abdicated from influencing much of anything and are now hiding behind our church walls with Christian books, movies, and TV. We’re not doing hard things like evangelizing or holding our political leaders accountable or trying to take back the culture. We’re not shining our lights for Christ. We’ve allowed sacrifice and selflessness to become foreign concepts. We’ve grown complacent because we've let ourselves.
I know I’m as guilty as anyone. It’s part of why I started this blog. We have so much opportunity to make a difference. We’re free to take up any challenge. It can be anything from starting a home Bible study to running for the school board. All it takes is the first step.
It’s time for all of us to do hard things.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Differences Between Bible Versions
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BIBLE VERSIONS
First a disclaimer. I truly believe that reading any Bible translation is better than reading none at all.
That being said, however, there are some translations more worthy than others, more accurate, closer to the originals. I’ve also found the more you delve into the Bible, the more you tend to want to use the most accurate version you can get.
I’ve been researching this topic for 3 years now. I’ve tried pretty much every major version out there including the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, TNIV, NLT, HCSB, God’s Word, Message, Amplified, and most recently the KJer (more on this latest discovery below). I go through a cycle with every new translation I try. First comes the true love phase. Usually after a while I find a passage whose translation I liked better in a previous version and I end up going back to that version until something else comes along. Talk about fickle!
Truth is, every translation has advantages and drawbacks, both serious and merely esthetic.
My translation of the moment is one I recently stumbled across while reading DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BIBLE VERSIONS by Greg Zeolla. Zeolla not only convinced me that the most literal translation is the best, he also explained how the manuscript text used for that translation makes a stunning amount of difference. In case you didn’t know, the KJV and NKJV versions of the Bible use the Textus Receptus while all the more modern versions use the Critical Text which according to Zeolla and other scholars seems to have been tampered with by the early gnostics. Zeolla figures if God put a word in there, it should be translated and not just the gist of the thought behind it which is what the NIV and NLT versions do.
Anyway, my new Bible love, the KJer is the venerable King James Version with a difference. For starters, every thee, thou, ye, thy, and all the rest of the archaic second person pronouns have been changed to their modern equivalents (you, your, etc.). If the original ‘you’ was a plural pronoun meant to indicate a group of people, there’s a small p next to the word for plural.
Also the old style verb endings est and eth have been removed (doth, seemeth, commandest, etc). But it’s exactly the same KJV in every other way including the order of the words. I was never a big KJV fan -- it always felt like a struggle to get through it. The amazing thing is how easy it is to understand with these few simple changes.
Another cool feature -- archaic words are underlined and there’s a definition provided at the end of the verse in which they’re located. Any confusion is instantly put to rest and I can relax knowing ‘herein’ means ‘on this condition’, ‘ephod’ is a priestly garment, ‘is privy to’ means ‘knows’ and a ‘charger’ is a platter (on which John the Baptist’s head was presented).
Another cool feature is this version shows which Hebrew term is actually being translated for God or Lord also located at the end of each verse (such as Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, etc.) And here’s something I’ve never seen before -- BOTH the words of God in the Old Testament and the words of Jesus in the New are in red.
Will this be my final version of choice? My heart says yes, but the voice of experience tells me it’s highly unlikely. The Bible says that in the latter days knowledge (of the Bible and its translations as well as everything else) will increase. Well, it’s done so exponentially and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
First a disclaimer. I truly believe that reading any Bible translation is better than reading none at all.
That being said, however, there are some translations more worthy than others, more accurate, closer to the originals. I’ve also found the more you delve into the Bible, the more you tend to want to use the most accurate version you can get.
I’ve been researching this topic for 3 years now. I’ve tried pretty much every major version out there including the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, TNIV, NLT, HCSB, God’s Word, Message, Amplified, and most recently the KJer (more on this latest discovery below). I go through a cycle with every new translation I try. First comes the true love phase. Usually after a while I find a passage whose translation I liked better in a previous version and I end up going back to that version until something else comes along. Talk about fickle!
Truth is, every translation has advantages and drawbacks, both serious and merely esthetic.
My translation of the moment is one I recently stumbled across while reading DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BIBLE VERSIONS by Greg Zeolla. Zeolla not only convinced me that the most literal translation is the best, he also explained how the manuscript text used for that translation makes a stunning amount of difference. In case you didn’t know, the KJV and NKJV versions of the Bible use the Textus Receptus while all the more modern versions use the Critical Text which according to Zeolla and other scholars seems to have been tampered with by the early gnostics. Zeolla figures if God put a word in there, it should be translated and not just the gist of the thought behind it which is what the NIV and NLT versions do.
Anyway, my new Bible love, the KJer is the venerable King James Version with a difference. For starters, every thee, thou, ye, thy, and all the rest of the archaic second person pronouns have been changed to their modern equivalents (you, your, etc.). If the original ‘you’ was a plural pronoun meant to indicate a group of people, there’s a small p next to the word for plural.
Also the old style verb endings est and eth have been removed (doth, seemeth, commandest, etc). But it’s exactly the same KJV in every other way including the order of the words. I was never a big KJV fan -- it always felt like a struggle to get through it. The amazing thing is how easy it is to understand with these few simple changes.
Another cool feature -- archaic words are underlined and there’s a definition provided at the end of the verse in which they’re located. Any confusion is instantly put to rest and I can relax knowing ‘herein’ means ‘on this condition’, ‘ephod’ is a priestly garment, ‘is privy to’ means ‘knows’ and a ‘charger’ is a platter (on which John the Baptist’s head was presented).
Another cool feature is this version shows which Hebrew term is actually being translated for God or Lord also located at the end of each verse (such as Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, etc.) And here’s something I’ve never seen before -- BOTH the words of God in the Old Testament and the words of Jesus in the New are in red.
Will this be my final version of choice? My heart says yes, but the voice of experience tells me it’s highly unlikely. The Bible says that in the latter days knowledge (of the Bible and its translations as well as everything else) will increase. Well, it’s done so exponentially and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Where Did Cain Get His Wife
WHERE DID CAIN GET HIS WIFE?**
Have you ever noticed how ignorant most people are about the Bible, that pillar of Western Civilization and cornerstone of our own Constitution? It’s bad enough that according to statistics, whole bunches of John Does and Jane Plains (as my pastor calls them) can’t find Iraq on a map. We’re even more clueless about the Bible.
Up until three years ago, I thought I knew a decent amount about the Bible, having attended Catholic catechism classes until I was 18. Of course, the Catholics aren’t big on Bible literacy, relying instead on church tradition which often contradicts what the Bible says (i.e. the teaching that Jesus was an only child, when the Bible clearly states he had brothers -- at least 4, and sisters -- at least 2). I knew about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the ark, maybe a bit about Moses and the Ten Commandments. I wasn’t encouraged to read the Bible for myself and we didn’t have one in our home.
Why didn’t somebody tell me about the wisdom and truth contained therein (what a great Biblical word)? Even the ability to communicate that you get from immersing yourself in the Bible has been lost.
When I became a Christian, I jumped into Bible reading with both feet. My first year I read the entire Bible through... twice! What a revelation!
One of the more surprising things I learned, was that Christianity is based on reason. We’re supposed to think about what we believe, something that was NOT encouraged in my Catholic youth and which caused me to rebel against anything remotely resembling a Christian church for many years.
Many a person has set out to disprove the Bible. One guy back in the 1800’s, Sir William Ramsey, spent 15 years trying to undermine the history of Luke’s gospel and thus refute the reliability of the New Testament. His quest failed and he ended up a believer. More recently, Palestinian terrorist Walid Shoebat set out to prove to his Christian wife the Bible was a total fake and ended up a Christian himself.
We Christians have nothing to fear from the truth. The Bible is NOT riddled with errors as so many people claim (even the ones who’ve never read a word of it for themselves). Those who think they’ve discovered a mistake haven’t done their homework. If you need a quick fix to the doing-your-homework scenario, check out The Big Book of Bible Difficulties by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe. What a terrific tool for any Christian’s apologetics arsenal. It answers questions I didn’t even know I had. As the authors point out, just because something is unexplained, doesn’t mean it’s unexplainable. That’s how science has worked through the centuries -- it’s only fair to apply those same principles to the Bible.
** So where did Cain get his wife? He either married one of his sisters or his nieces. People lived hundreds of years in those days (a question which is also answered in the book). Plus Adam begot other sons and daughters beside Cain, Abel, and Seth. Corrupted genes weren’t a problem back then, in case you were wondering; they occurred gradually, after the Fall.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Cultivated Christian
cultivate -- to form or refine, as by education (American Heritage dictionary)
I've decided to become a Cultivated Christian.
I spent the first half of my life pleasing myself. Now I want to dedicate my time to the things of God. I want to continually grow in wisdom and the knowledge of the Lord just as it says in Psalms and Proverbs. I want to share what I discover with like-minded others.
And so I hope to blog about EVERYTHING CHRISTIAN in the most eclectic way possible, from the tried and true to cutting edge, from Bible translations to movies, books, and cds and covering an array of topics like history, science, politics, tithing, the antichrist, evangelism, worldviews, the culture war, terrorism, Mystery Babylon, the Nephilim, and everything in between.
I had no idea becoming a Christian would turn into such a speed-of-light rocket ride of learning and growth. I truly believe we need all the knowledge we can lay our hands on. Too many Christians seem to have no conception of the amazingly radical tenets of their faith, never mind anything else. Sadly this has been shown by poll after poll and by statistics that reveal Christians are no different from the average American even when it comes to sharing the same shameful rate of divorce.
Years ago there was a book, CULTURAL LITERACY, which set out to halt the decline of our rapidly depleting stores of cultural knowledge via a dictionary style listing of the people, places, and things of Western Civilization. Now it's time to cultivate Christianity and Biblical Literacy as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.
Marilyn
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