Fire Starter Christians? What Spirit Are YOU of?

I came upon the following quote on the Charisma website the other day….spoken by Terry Bates, an Assemblies of God pastor.

'We need 'Fire Starters,' like Elijah, who will call fire down from heaven to confront the culture and false religions with undeniable, uncompromising truth and without political correctness. It was at this point that I began to see people getting up, walking out, shaking their heads." Terry Bates

Totally mirroring Jesus’ response when the disciples wanted to bring Elijah’s fire down on the Samaritan village for not welcoming them….

Samaritans Reject Jesus51 And it came to pass, in the completing of the days of his being taken up, that he fixed his face to go on to Jerusalem, 52 and he sent messengers before his face, and having gone on, they went into a village of Samaritans, to make ready for him, 53 and they did not receive him, because his face was going on to Jerusalem. 54 And his disciples James and John having seen, said, ‘Sir, wilt thou [that] we may command fire to come down from the heaven, and to consume them, as also Elijah did?’ 55 and having turned, he rebuked them, and said, ‘Ye have not known of what spirit ye are; 56 for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save;’ and they went on to another village.

And that just might be why people got up and walked out of his sermon. Jesus is our example, no? We need more peacemakers these days...not more firestarters.....

Mirror or Window? You Decide.....

This morning I followed a link on FB that led to an article on the Charisma website about Perry Noble, a prominent pastor of a Baptist megachurch, and his recent downfall/firing. He was fired for alcohol abuse and his posture toward his marriage…..whatever that means.

The parishioners of the megachurch heard the news on Sunday via Executive Pastor Shane Duffey. He also read Noble’s written statement explaining, among other things, that there was no sexual sin in his marriage, no porn, no cheating and no domestic abuse. The details of the marriage posture allegation is left to the imagination.  

So...the post on FB included a quote attributed to Noble stating that homosexuality was the sin that hung Jesus on a cross. That immediately pissed me off. What a pompous jerk. I went looking for the source of that quote to include in this blog post. Except that I can’t find it anywhere online. Oh to be sure, he thought homosexuality was a sin...a sexual sin...but that the church's preoccupation with homosexuality was out of proportion and unkind.  On his blog, I came across what I think is a particularly ballsy post where he compares the sin of homosexuality to a sin the church is reluctant to talk about….obesity aka gluttony.

Bring that up to an overweight brother or sister in Christ at the next covered dish pot luck and see how graciously your "truth in love" concern is received.

I was not familiar with Perry Noble until this morning. I've never heard his name. What I know now is the result of about an hour of clicking and reading here and there on the internet. I really have no idea what kind of a person he is, his opinions on total reconciliation, divorce, complementarianism, free will, women in leadership roles, etc. I can assume things from what I’ve read but I am not familiar with his preaching or writing. He doesn’t really come off as a pompous jerk in anything I’ve read this morning.

And anyway, similar to a stopped clock that is actually right twice a day, even a pompous jerk can say things that are profound, wise and true now and then. The old eat the meat/hay, spit out the bones/sticks theory works well for me. Like the proverbial diamond in a dung heap, I am on the lookout for truth no matter where I find it. Even if I have to distance it somewhat from the character and behavior of the source.  Today the following quote by Noble struck me as profound, wise and true….

“And it is way easier to use the Bible as a window in order to judge the lives of others rather than a mirror to examine ourselves.” Perry Noble   

“CYA” is not a tenet of the Christian faith

“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it.” – Oscar Wilde

Well, yes and no….

In the recent and ongoing battle taking place in Indiana, we see a spectrum of human nature on display. Unfortunately a lot of it is just ssdd….same shit, different day. Different decade...different bias, but at the heart of it is the human tendency to sort people into categories….us and them.

Are Christians being treated unfairly in this country….even persecuted? One big issue I have with this persecution thing is that it seems many Christians are crying wolf. For so many years, Christians were the king of the hill. Now, when the law requires them to extend the same rights they enjoy to others, some cry persecution. Not being able to force our views and beliefs on others is not persecution. Having to give equal rights to religions and lifestyles we disagree with is not persecution.

But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Christians are losing their rights these days and they are being persecuted. Why does this comes as such a surprise…..an outrage to Christians. It’s not like Jesus did not address this when he said, “If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you”(Jn. 15:20).

The recent law in Indiana is meant to protect religious folks from being sued for refusing service that goes against their sincerely held religious beliefs.  When it is factored down to its lowest common denominator, it seems earmarked to protect Christians who refuse to provide their services to gays….specifically at a gay wedding. The law is vague and there are tons of loopholes that seemed to allow businesses to refuse service almost on a whim. There is an amendment in the works that is a bit more specific but it still seems to be motivated mainly by prejudice and a “cover your ass” mentality.

As far as I can tell, Jesus never taught this. “CYA” is not a tenet of the Christian faith.

I’ve wrangled with this since the day it was announced and Facebook and the internet lit up with indignation. I’ve read articles and blog posts both pro and con. This is a big topic that goes beyond the situation in Indiana. It deals with what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I plan to share some of the stuff I’ve been reading, with my two cents worth thrown in at no additional charge.

More to come…...

Jesus Wept….

And one of the things I read recently  that “fills me with words” is Mike Huckabee's Twitter comment on the gay marriage rulings. The Internet is abuzz about it. Google it and you will come up with pages and pages of results. Some in support.  Some that thoughtfully disagree.  Some that poke fun.  I am no doubt one of the last bloggers to post about it..but post, I must, because it is just so....annoying.  Huckabee said:

Gov. Mike Huckabee ✔ @GovMikeHuckabee

My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: "Jesus wept."

Really? You really think that?

I'm more inclined to believe that Jesus weeps over things like the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard. Or Mark Carson, the man who was shot point blank in the face in Greenwich Village this May; harassed and killed by a  stranger because he was gay. Or what about the countless lives that are wasted through suicide or years of reparative therapy....

Jesus wept about the SCOTUS ruling? Nuh-uh.

Next post….more about Jesus wept. 

Is God Equally Judge and Equally Father?

Slowly but surely, I am making my way through the list of questions I think are birthed when we believe in the God of eternal conscious torment that Chan talks about in his book Erasing Hell. 
Throughout the book, Chan emphasizes the legal/courtroom/God as judge concept when he uses phrases such as….

After Jesus looks at the evidence
He gives His verdict: Believers are awarded everlasting life, while unbelievers are awarded everlasting punishment.
But Jesus goes on to say that God’s courtroom will be much worse, for here the Judge has the power to sentence you to the “hell [gehenna] of fire”
The legal context of this statement ensures that Jesus is referring to the consequences of judgment day.
When Jesus uses stock phrases like “gehenna of fire” in legal contexts like this one, He means a literal place of punishment after judgment. He means hell.
The phrase sentenced to hell is once again reminiscent of something you would hear in a courtroom.

So…is God mainly judge or is God mainly father?
William Barclay, in I Am A Convinced Universalist explained it this way:

Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of God. If God was no more than a King or Judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father - he is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God.

And John Gavazzoni, a favorite kingdom minister of mine, says it this way in his article “My Dad, God”:

One thing stands out clearly to me when I compare my father's relationship with his children to the way our Heavenly Father is presented in conventional orthodox theology. It is simply this: Lou Gavazzoni's relationship with me was paternal, not legal. Whatever factors came into play, all was built on a familial, not a forensic foundation. There may at times have been a friendship element, associate-in-business element, fellow-musician element, boss-employee element, even lord-servant element and yes, the element of judgment came up as well. But, I never stood before one who was essentially a judge, who might, after legal matters were settled, then allow himself to be fatherly.
I stood before my father who might, as necessary, act in a firm, unyielding and corrective judgment as part of his love for me. Yet, it seems clear to me, that most of Christianity assumes that a relationship with God is only possible after legal matters are settled. Our minds are so entangled with what we perceive to be legal, judicial and forensic necessities that we miss the Father-heart of God.

So is God really everyone’s father…or does he only become Father when we “pray the sinner’s prayer” and “ask Jesus to come into our heart”?
More on that….in my next post…..

Can You Pray Away the Gay….?

This morning, via someone’s facebook link, I watched a 10 minute video of a “pray away the gay” altar call by Damon Thompson, an Alabama preacher who heads up a youth ministry called The Ramp. 

His style of preaching is similar to many preachers I’ve heard….and the southern accent is sort of disarming.  He seems likeable.  He seems sincere. 

He dubbed it the hardest altar call anywhere…any time.  And yet they came.  Crying, shaking, kneeling face down on the floor, pounding on the altar with clenched fists, hands raised in pseudo victory.  

My heart hurt for those teenagers…and the message he drummed into their heads….just a carbon copy message of so many other preachers in so many other churches.  Homosexuality is an abomination.  You are second rate…detestable.  God wants nothing to do with you the way you are.  The Holy Spirit?  Well he’s not about to share your house with a homosexual devil.” 

“God has not nor will he ever coexisted [sic] with the devil,” Damon began. “And God’s not gonna come live in there with you and your homosexual devil.”

Sorry Damon…there is no “gonna come live in there” about it.  He is already there in all those sobbing, quivering kids.  

The seed of God is in ALL humanity. Gospel of John?  He is the light that lights every man that comes into the world?  Sound familiar?  He is our life force, our spark…our very breath. Without him sustaining us…it’s curtains…all over but the crying….the fat lady sang.  Ever hear of laminin? You can read a little about it HERE and check out this video.  What about Acts 17?  In Him we live and move and have our being?

Psalm 139?  Where can I run from your spirit?  Even if I make my bed in hell….behold THOU. ART. THERE.   

I truly believe that the verses “about homosexuality” in the Bible, understood in their proper context and not just taken at face value (a concept anyone who has embraced universal reconciliation should be familiar with) are not talking about modern day committed homosexual relationships.  

And just a side trip/rabbit trail here for anyone who takes issue with the idea that there is such a thing as a committed homosexual relationship…clinging instead to the stereotypical belief that gay equals promiscuous….just a couple of thoughts to consider.

A lot of gay folks are hiding their true sexual orientation…and really…who can blame them?  Living in a society where many frown on gay marriage, it isn’t as viable an option as it is for those of us born on the hetero side of the human sexuality spectrum.  For many, their careers, their standing in the community….in the church would be destroyed if they came out in such a blatant (courageous) way.  So they settle for encounters…rendezvous…..without outward commitment. 

And as for those who are truly promiscuous….who engage in risky behavior with many sex partners? If someone has been brainwashed into believing that they are a worthless piece of shit…less than….not good enough…vile, even….then they are apt to act the part…..just like their heterosexual counterparts who have internalized a sense of unworthiness.

Sermons and altar calls like the one depicted in this video, go a long way toward promoting that sense of unworthiness.  Watch the faces of these kids….contorted with pain….wanting to be anyone but who they were created to be.

Rending and Bending Hearts….

I came across two snippets about the heart the other day...via a website that posts daily lectionary based devotionals called The Daily Office.  A new one every day...contents include prayers/  intercessions/ scripture/etc. There are headings like... Collect of the Day / Benediction/ Invitatory/ Jubilate/ Antiphon/ Old Testament Lesson/ New Testament Lesson/ Prayers (guided and scripted) Canticles.  It resounds with ritual and convention....as in stained glass windows, heavy oak pews, ornate communion vessels. It comes across as very "high church" Pretty much the polar opposite of my flying by the seat of my pants, haphazard style of "quiet time." The site is called the The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare. 

Probably because it is the season of Lent and Easter, the theme is repentance. The two snippets that caught my attention and stuck in my thoughts are about the heart.  One is from a short book in the Apocrypha called The Prayer of Manasseh.  The other from the book of Joel. 

I found a few articles about the Prayer of Manasseh...following is a brief, concise description of the prayer found in a post on The Daily Episcopalian.

This Manasseh was a king of Judah, reigning from (roughly) 687-642 BC. And, as far as 2 Kings 21 was concerned, he wins the Worst King of Judah EVER award. The shortlist is idolatry, sacrificing his own children, and widespread murder… The version that 2 Chronicles 33 tells has a twist, though; here he’s carried off to Babylon where he prays a great prayer of repentance, God forgives him, and he returns to try to reverse the evil he has done. 

Another resource I found says this....

Most scholars believe that the prayer was originally composed in Greek, but for such a short book—about 400 words in English—the problem of determining the original language is difficult. Because the Prayer of Manasseh survives both in Greek and in Syriac, Latin (two forms), Ethiopic, Armenian, and Old Slavonic translation, it was clearly popular in the first three Christian centuries, among both Jews and Christians. 

Check out more information HERE

Daniel J. Harrington writes: "What were the words of Manasseh's prayer? Inquiring minds wanted to know. According to 2 Chronicles 33:18-19 the words were preserved in 'the Annals of the Kings of Israel' and in 'the records of the seers.' But neither of these books has been preserved. The Prayer of Manasseh represents what an anonymous author imagined that Manasseh should have said or would have said in his prayer. It was most likely composed in Greek and reflects the language and style of the Septuagint. It is included in some Septuagint manuscripts in a special section called 'Odes.' The most important versions are in Latin and Syriac, and it is included in church manuals from the third and fourth centuries C.E. (Apostolic Constitutions and Didaskalia). The earliest evidence for the work's existence comes from the third century C.E., so it could have originated at any time between the composition of 2 Chronicles and then. It was probably written by a Greek-speaking Jew outside the land of Israel, though Christian authorship is not impossible." (Invitation to the Apocrypha, pp. 166-167)   

So the gist of this is that The Prayer of Manasseh is not the exact prayer Manasseh prayed...and it was written much later, long after Manasseh was gone.  But it is what he could have, should have, might have said.  And perhaps God laid the exact words on the heart of the anonymous author of The Prayer because it really is a great prayer.  A quote by Madeleine L'Engle I happened upon sums it up quite well....

"Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous."

and in another place a variation of that same thought....

it's truth, not fact, and you have to take truth seriously even when it expands beyond the facts.

The beginning of the prayer finds "Manasseh" describing the majesty, splendor, power and glory of God.  In verse 7 he focuses on the mercy of God....

for You are the Lord Most High, compassionate, patient, and merciful

And then he declares his version of "God be merciful to me a sinner." like the tax collector in the temple.

For I have sinned more than the number of sand of the sea; my lawless deeds are multiplied, O Lord, multiplied, and I am not worthy to look and see the heights of heaven because of the multitude of my unrighteous deeds.

And let’s just say that, in spite of the hyperbole, Manasseh was not really overstating the case.  He HAD INDEED sinned.  Among his many crimes….he shot down all the reforms his father Hezekiah had put in place.  He brought back idol worship, rebuilt the altars of Baal and profaned the temple. And he sacrificed his sons in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. Some add the murder of Isaiah to Manasseh’s rap sheet.  Method of execution?  Isaiah was sawed in half.

So…Manasseh was definitely not a nice guy. And he was well aware of this when he knelt to pray. 

In verse 11 he utters my favorite words of the prayer....

And now I bend the knee of my heart, begging for your clemency.

Another version words it thusly....

And now I bend the knee of my heart, beseeching thee for thy kindness.

To wrap this post up (but to be continued in another post) here is one more quote from the Daily Episcopalian….

Then, in a beautiful mixed metaphor, the poet “bends the knee of my heart,” not in excuses or self-justification, but in pure supplication. In these words there is absolute conviction of two things: first, the poet’s sinfulness; second, the character of God—that our God is the God who forgives.

And it is the sentiment about “not in excuses or self justification, but in pure supplication” that brings me to the verse in Joel…in my next post.

At the Butler Hospital – A New Word…

The next four or five posts…that I’m going to post over the next few days….were written last week…and the week before. During the two weeks I spent with my mom…mostly at the Butler Hospital. She had open heart surgery…a worn out, leaky valve was replaced. I was there  pre/ during / and post op….at times so very homesick…weary, frightened, frustrated. Pick an emotion and I’m pretty sure I experienced it during the two weeks. It was a roller coaster kind of thing for me…and obviously for her.  She is doing very well. I’m glad I was there for her.  Post follows:

~~~~~

The last few days have sucked big time.  I've spent them hanging out in the hospital with my mom....while the medical staff dinks around trying to figure out if, whether and when she needs valve replacement surgery.  Seriously I have been away from home and work for a week and have really not accomplished anything other than sitting with her (which I realize is a worthwhile endeavor) but I am frustrated because I know that AFTER the surgery is when she will need me most.

As is often the case, the best laid plans have been shot to hell by actual events.  This was supposed to be pacemaker surgery.  They thought that a pacemaker/defib would fix what ails her.  Come to find out that it is valve surgery that will fix the problem....not a defib. But we have been waiting to find out when the surgery will be.  If she has to stay in the hospital till then...if she is able to go home in between etc. etc.   I've been staying in touch with work...but as soon as I update them, damn if things do not totally change.  Right now I am waiting for physical therapy to come and evaluate her for discharge.  We are hoping they decide she should stay in the hospital until the surgery next week. Either way, I am probably going home...working tomorrow...perhaps a bit on the weekend ....and waiting to hear when I need to come back for the surgery. 

And the dinking around continues....

But anyway...last night, on my 40 minute drive back to her apartment (where I’ve been staying during my “vacation”) ...I was listening to a Christian station on the radio.  A status quo Christian channel.  But there was an interesting sermon...that introduced me to a new word.  Reciprocity.  Cool word.  I may have seen it in print but had never heard it pronounced.

The preacher talked about how when we sow, we expect to reap immediately.  He compared it to farming.  You don't plant the seed and expect results the next day.  Sometimes in life that's exactly what we expect.  Sometimes we reap what we've sown fairly quickly.  Others times...not so much. 

Law of reciprocity...sowing and reaping....karma....cause and effect. An interesting concept. And indeed...sometimes it does seem to take a long time for all the chips to fall where they may....and then there is always grace that enters into the equation.

Following are a few quotes I found on sowing and reaping….  

 

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.  ~Elbert Hubbard

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.  ~Edwin Hubbel Chapin

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. George Bernard Shaw

"The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy."
~Florence Shinn~

"Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe,
so no thought or action is without its effects,
present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt."
~Norman Cousins~

Tsze-Kung asked, "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" The Master said, "Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. ~ Confucius

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you waste your youth, no repentance will send the shadow back upon the dial, or recover the ground lost by idleness,or restore the constitution shattered by dissipation, or give back
the resources wasted upon vice, or bring back the fleeting
opportunities. The wounds can all be healed, for the Good Physician,blessed be His name! has lancets and bandages, and balm and anodynes for the deadliest; but scars remain even when the gash is closed." Alexander Maclaren

"John," said a father to his son, "I wish you would get me the hammer."
"Yes, sir."
"Now a nail and a piece of pine board."
"Here they are, sir."
"Will you drive the nail into the board?"
 It was done.
"Please pull it out again."
"That's easy, sir."
"Now, John," and the father's voice dropped to a lower key, "pull out the nail hole."

Every wrong act leaves a scar. Even if the board be a living tree the scar remains. Dwight Moody – Sowing and Reaping

Same Theory at Work -2

I came across a commentary on the Huffington Post article, The Great Gay Awakening, on a blog I follow called "Losing My Religion." The Huffington article is written by Cathleen Falsani. She starts the article by saying:'

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians

She goes on to say:

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I'm supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I've been taught that it's impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

And that is the big question...can you be openly gay and authentically Christian?

Even assuming that committed gay relationships are a sin (and I don't believe they are) isn't that akin to asking the question "Can you be openly overweight and authentically Christian?"

The Bible does condemn gluttony after all.

And can you be divorced and remarried for other than purely biblical reasons and authentically Christian? 

You get my point, no?

And that was pretty much the road the author took "back in the early 90's"  Even if it was a sin she felt called to love rather than judge. And she says that loving them was easy…but

 Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

She quotes Jay Baker (Tammy Faye’s son) a well known evangelical Christian as saying:

Examining the original Greek words translated as "homosexual" and "homosexuality" in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

And how about this little tidbit...which I haven't run across in any of my reading....

The word "homosexual" first appeared in an English-language Bible in 1958.

So since homosexual is not an a word in the original language of the New Testament...but rather a word coined by the translators....what does the original word actually mean?  According to Baker, it refers to

male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution -- sex as a commodity -- and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.

So was it a new revelation in 1958 that caused the Bible guys to coin a new phrase that plummets a whole lot of people to the "abomination" category.   Making up words as we go caused a whole lot of trouble with other concepts like...oh....hell for instance.  

And we all know that the Bible has been used to support all kinds of heinous, bigoted, unfair, ridiculous practices.  And the church...the mainstream evangelical church...has bought it....promoted it,  and enforced it all in the name of “for the Bible tells me so” when in actually the Bible says no such thing....

The church has, at best, lagged behind...and at it's worst, it has actually been the oppressor many times throughout history.  Can anyone really trust the evangelical church to  be their moral beacon?  

Baker says we must "weigh all the evidence." 

And everyone should...prayerfully and with an open mind take another look at the scriptures. And, guys especially, should try to get past what I’ve heard referred to as the "ick factor." The "ick factor" is the emotion that is evoked by a mental image of two guys having sex. Truly, it should not be part of the equation...not is it any of our business. 

One of the commenters at Losing My Religion took issue with the statement about the church always being behind saying that

….there have been some denominations where this isn’t anything new. the UCC ordained a openly gay pastor in 1974. and before the the Unitarians were way out in front. so the church means the Evangelical one.

He also provides a link to a list of other progressive "firsts" for his denomination...

Will there come a day when we look back in a "remember when" kind of way...and think of the time when homosexuals were marginalized and held in disdain?  I think it will happen, but just like there are those who have not caught up to the civil rights movement and still think the white race has a leg up on every other ethnic group, there will be some who will drag their feet. And, like with the civil rights movement it won’t be right….

Colson, Boyd and Claiborne Video

The second video was from a “Speaking of Faith" radio program where three generations of evangelicals…Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd and Shane Claiborne expressed their opinions on a variety of topics.  The snippet I watched was about homosexuality. Greg Boyd said this,

It seems to me that there's two fundamental issues that Evangelicals do have to wrestle with. The one is simply the terrible, abysmal track record the church has towards gays. You know, the reputation out there is that Evangelicals are homophobic and I don't think that it’s liberal media that's spinning that. I think we've earned the right to have gotten that.

But what's happened is, we have a list and our sins, you know, like gossip and greed and gluttony and not caring about the poor, and all the stuff that's mentioned all the time in the Bible, we minimize.

You can be a church member and have that stuff, but the homosexuality issue is all of a sudden the deal-breaker. And who christened that the deal-breaker sin? I don't get that. I used to wonder why did Jesus attract prostitutes and other, you know, sinners that were judged by religion and the church doesn't? They tend to stay away from us as much as the Pharisees. And one of those reasons might be that Jesus never made a public policy trying to pass laws against them. And here's where politics can get in the way of our Gospel message. They don't want to hang out with us, because we made a platform out of, uh, you know, going after them instead of our sins….

Many conservative Christians feel entitled to speak out against homosexuality….and to make it a political issue…a litmus test issue… because of their interpretation of certain verses in scripture that appear, at least on the surface, to deem homosexuality an abomination to the Lord. I think those verses can be explained using the same principles that universalists use to denounce an eternal hell (reasoning, definition of certain words in the original language, context and the customs of the times)   But that is the subject of another series of posts…one that I wrote about, in part, HERE. 

As far as scripture…well, there are plenty of abominable things that touch the lives of all Christians. More than enough abomination to go around…. 

Proverbs 6 comes to mind….

There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.  ESV

Note the reference to abomination?  Just sayin'….

 

No Clean Hands – the Rise of the Christian and Islamic “Empires”…

If you check out the following graph that depicts the breakdown of world religions, two clear winners emerge….eating up over half of the “pie.” Christianity and Islam.  Together they account for 55% of the world’s population.  That is a big chunk. 

 

 

An article in the Huffington Post (the namesake of this series) claims the reason is

....both Christianity and Islam owe their global success not so much to the magic words in their scriptures as to their effectiveness in practicing forced conversions. Oh, yes, we all know about the growth of the Islamic Empire, whose berobed foot-soldiers held a scimitar in one hand and the Quran in the other. But pull that beam out of your eye, dear Christian reader, and remember the Celts, the West Africans, the Indians of the Plains, the Hawaiians, and countless other peoples whose religions and languages were violently suppressed that they might know salvation through “our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In my journeys around the internet…while reading up on the controversy of the “mosque at ground zero”…. I came across many articles, comments and blog posts warning that the goal of Islam is to take over the US and institute Sharia Law. Many see this as a real threat.

Recently, I’ve been revisiting a topic I first ran across a while back (and wrote about here on this blog)…the Dominionists….the Christian Reconstructionists…the “take America back for God” folks. They  come in many flavors and degrees..but their goal is to make American a theocracy and institute Biblical Law.  Their interpretation of Biblical Law is very literal and very narrow.  Some advocate reinstituting Biblical punishments like the stoning of homosexuals, adulterers etc. (Sound similar to the oppression found in many middle eastern countries?  The Taliban by another name is still the Taliban.)

And the thing is…the history of both religions is tainted with forced conversions, tyranny, oppression, and theocratic rule. 

Pot…meet kettle. 

Comment - Steps to letting go...

I tried to post this in the comments section of the post "Steps to letting go" but Blogger was having no part of it.  First it was too long..so I split it in half...and it was still too long. And then I would have lost it if I hadn't caught on to their sneaky little tricks a long ago (after losing numerous comments when trying to "preview" them) Now, I always copy what I've written before I trust them enough to click "Preview"  So anyway...what I've written below actually started out as a comment...a very long one, I'll admit. 

Jack...
I think I get what you are trying to convey. These lists are hokey and meaningless without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. I don't altogether disagree but as one who believes we can drag our feet a bit even when the spirit is urging (compelling) us to forgive, I think a bulleted list can be helpful.

Recently, I leafed through a copy of Flawed by Design by Jeff Priddy that Keith was rereading. I know, he goes by Martin Zender these days...but I read his stuff years ago when he signed his real name Jeff Priddy...and it seems to have stuck. Anyway...in it I read, 

A disturbed reader objects vociferously. It is Monty: Then why does God exhort us to do the right thing?
Answer: You need to know what the right thing is Monty. There must be a standard. How will you know you've fallen short if there is no standard? How will you know how righteous God really is? How will you know when you've arrived at perfection? You are assuming, I think, that God gives exhortations as a means of testing you, to see what you will do. You may be thinking that God puts forth these exhortations as a challenge, so that you can impress him with your accomplishments.
Not so Monty. This isn't about you; it's about God. Think of scriptural exhortation as a matting inside which God intends to paint a masterpiece. These exhortations are God giving Himself an opportunity to show the world what He can do through you.

Not a bad quote...and parts of it I agree with. The part that pertains to this post is where he says...that exhortations are in scripture to clarify what the right thing is...to set the standard...even though, according to Priddy, Monty does not have a snowball's chance in hell of actually doing any of the things on his own.

That's how I see some of these lists. Some people want to forgive but the thought "forgive your enemies" can seem a bit vague. Sort of like telling a 2 year old to get ready for church. They need it spelled out a bit more....wash your face...get out of your PJ's...put on your shirt...etc. etc. And actually bulleted lists have helped me sometimes. You know...with titles like "10 things you can do today to improve your relationship with your kids." Either by thinking...that's bullshit...or...sometimes...hey....that's a good idea.

But....while surfing extensively for the past few days...I came upon a short excerpt by Corrie Ten Boom. I am pretty sure you have probably read it. I've read it before...several times...but...in light of this series...and your comments, I copied it to post here. I think you will like it....

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

A quote from the Jesus Army...

I digress....

It started with Greg Boyd's latest blog post...delivered to my inbox sometime between when I turned my computer off last night...and when I turned it on again this morning.  I love how things just show up in my inbox...via a process that can only be described as "computer magic".... a term I've stolen from the guy who does the ads for the Red Roof Inn.  He was specifically talking about the free wifi now available at the Red Roof Inn and how you can connect to the internet via computer magic...but I think the term magic applies to just about everything to do with the computer. (and black magic when it doesn't work the way it should)  But anyway...back on track...

Two things of interest stood out in the post.  One is that he is still feverishly..obsessively working on his latest book about Old Testament violence.  He describes it as his:

close-to-insane obsession with explaining Old Testament violence (working on my forthcoming book, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God)

I am..for sure...going to purchase that book when it becomes available. 

And the other point of interest in the post was his review and opinion on another book written by another author...The Naked Anabaptist by Stuart Murray. And of course from there I went exploring.

The link in Greg Boyd's blog post led to a website called the Anabaptist Network...a UK based site that is all about Anabaptists...their beliefs, their traditions, their history.  Very interesting site.  I want to explore it further...but don't have the time this morning. 

I did do a little exploring there, however...and came across a short writing by Murray about his view of the atonement...which is not penal substitution.  Anabaptists...for the most part....do not see the atonement that way.  And, according to Murray, neither did the early Christians.  A quote from the article:

For nearly 300 years, these Christians were committed to taking Jesus seriously, not only as their saviour but as their teacher and example. In the Alpha or Christianity Explored courses of their day, enquirers and new converts were taught, not just the meaning of Jesus’ death, but the meaning of his life and his message.

For nearly 300 years, these Christians were uninterested in developing theories of the atonement. They knew Jesus had died to save them, they preached ‘Christ crucified’ and they celebrated his resurrection triumph over the spiritual and political powers that oppressed them. They drew on various images the New Testament uses, but they did not insist on one formula or explanation. Certainly not penal substitution, of which there is little trace in the early centuries.

And as I clicked around here and there on the website, I came upon a testimony written by a guy in the Jesus Army...not to be confused with Joel's Army.  I went to the site...clicked around a bit and came upon a quote I liked that fit very well with the above quote.  It was on the Jesus Army blog...written by someone named "daydreamer."

When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like. Jesus said “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. He shows just how committed God is to rescuing us. His sacrificial, non-violent, willing death shows the lengths God will go to, to soak up evil. His resurrection shows that death itself is no match for God.

I think this quote captures one of the main aspects of the atonement that the penal substitutionary theory misses...or negates to almost trivial.  Rather than the view that Jesus pays for our sins on the cross...this excerpt declares that that purpose of his death was to "soak up evil."  A good description of the Christus Victor theory of atonement.  And I have a lot more I could say, but I've gotta' go get ready for work. NOW!!! Ugh...TGIF. 

Oh...but before I go...one more quick quote..kind of unrelated..from another entry on the Jesus Army blog...a quote from Rick Warren...

“Many have amputated the hands and feet from Christ’s Body and kept only a big mouth.”

 

Still More…..

And Eby goes on to say that just as the Tree of Life is in the middle....so is the other tree....

Like the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil also stands in the middle of the Garden! To this tree is attached the warning not to eat of it upon penalty of death. Death in the middle. Within. In man's very nature. Thus is it declared with unquestionable certainty that man was formed with the capacity to LIVE IN THE FLESH and WALK AFTER THE FLESH.

Yeah' living in and walking after the flesh seems to come a lot more naturally to most of us than walking in the spirit.  And walking in the flesh....is not good...not good at all...

"For to be carnally minded is death" (Rom. 8:6). One of man's inherent potentials was to know Self as the source and center of his life. But alas! Self would not bring life, it would mean death. Man could make the outer world of appearances, the physical realm, mortal consciousness, the bodily senses and appetites his center but death would be found to dwell in that center.

Anybody but me relate to this?

Eby believes it is only via the Christian paradigm that we can abide in the Spirit.  Others not so much.  Below I am going to quote Robert Rutherford....from his Facebook page....

I speak forth wisdom.... From the fertile banks of the river of Christianity.... But, please, rest assured.... I have traveled this river to it's end..and found the Ocean... Which IS our Father!
Ours is not the only river.... And the ocean is MUCH bigger than we've imagined....God, truly, is not a Christian..... The ocean is MUCH bigger than any river!!!!

C.S. Lewis on Pluralism

Recently, on an e-list where I am a member, someone posted an article warning of the dangers of the slippery slope stuff….a slope this guy thinks several of us “new agers” (under the influence of our ring leader, annie) are whizzing down at breakneck speed. This article was kind of “out there” with its dire warnings about goddess worship.....all stemming from that first little chink we chiseled in the Bible's armor of inerrancy.

But this is no surprise because he has been blaring the “new age” warning siren for the past 6 or 7 months….sometimes with a dogged determination….other times a bit less frenetic. It is not us he is particularly concerned about….but those that we will lead astray. The “baby” Christians. They will be helpless against the new age wares annie and crew peddle.  Any contact with us or the words we write….the thoughts we think…..the beliefs we believe are surely the first step down Apostasy Lane and very likely could result in things like the article warns of. Goddess Worship. Profane, evil, sacrilegious goddess worship. Which is about as far from the truth of what I believe as something can be.

I’ve said it here before….many times. God has revealed himself to me as Father. I know God has no gender per say….but I figure if Jesus called him Father, he probably knew what he was talking about. That is my belief, I have no need to shove it down anyone’s throat.

So, I googled the first few lines in the article…and “presto”….using a bit of google “magic,” I found the site. Oh my! Prolific! Thorough!!  No stone unturned.  Kjos Ministries. Warnings about every freaking thing under the sun. You name it, they’ve slapped a warning label on it!!! The label they use for most everything is “new age.” The old adage about the hammer and nail comes to mind.

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail. Abraham Maslow

Amen to that. We all know how often the Bible is used as a hammer...and not hammer as in useful tool, but hammer as in bludgeoning weapon. The Bible can be used as a weapon against…well, against anything we want to hammer with it. It lends itself to a myriad of interpretations. Taken at the most literal level, heck, it’s against just about everything. Problem is, most of those wielding it as a weapon, don’t agree. So we get a ton of “the only correct interpretation” of scripture.

So anyway...if you want to find out what is wrong with Pokemon, Avatar, Twilight, the Message Bible, the Shack, magic...for heaven's sakes bump magic up there to the top of the list....which brings us to Harry Potter, the Vatican, contemplative prayer, Free Masons, Labyrinths, Pocahontas, Theophostics, the UN (of course the UN), Touched By An Angel, Narnia and the occult world of CS Lewis. Ahhhhh.....CS Lewis. This posts' namesake. Just let me say that the above list does not even scratch the surface of people, places and things this site exposes and warns against. 

Well as is so often the case on sites like this, they mine out perfectly delightful quotes to prove heresy, which is so convenient for heretics like me...and other heretics who read this blog. The article about CS Lewis was no exception!! Following is a rather pluralistic, inclusive sounding quote by CS Lewis....­compliments of Kjos Ministries.

…...in Chapter 10 of Beyond Personality, book three of Mere Christianity, Lewis takes the “all under one roof” idea even further, as he writes,

“There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. CS Lewis

Makes me wonder if it is somehow related to the declaration in 1 John

“....... it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifleth himself even as He is pure.” (I John 3:2-3)

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Revelation 22:4

Ray Prinzing and The Shack....

I came upon the following quote on one of the many...(too many?) blogs I have stashed away at Bloglines.  The name of the blog is Baxter's Ongoing Thoughts.  The post was entitled "Two Gods." 

Since Christmas I have been working around the clock on a book on The Shack. For the next stretch I will be posting some of the material I am working on. By now, The Shack has probably become the best selling book in history, apart from the Bible, or at least it is close to it. Well over 11 million copies have been sold in about 30 languages. At least ten more translations are in the works. The wild, global popularity of The Shack in itself tells me that there is serious spiritual hunger in people’s hearts. I hope and pray it is a sign of the passing of the Augustinian captivity of the Church. Perhaps I am too critical of Augustine, but he is the Father of Western Christianity, and that version has handed down the deadly quagmire of deism, legalism and rationalism—the unholy trinity of the Latin West.

So much has been written on The Shack (pro and con) but I think the vast popularity of the book speaks for itself.  The world is desperate for the God portrayed within the pages of The Shack.  Listen up, world!!  Good news!!!  Great news!!!  He is that God!!  The Good News of the Gospel...if you've seen me, you've seen the Father!!  Hooray.  But...I digress. 

Upon reading this blog post, it reminded me of a post of my own that I started to write a while back comparing a point of theology between a quote from The Shack and a quote from kingdom minister of yesteryear...Ray Prinzing. 

It touches on the total sovereignty issue....a horse I've beaten to death in my mind many times!!  I am dredging my post from the queue....

On EU there was a recent thread called Salt and Peace.  It was a long thread...and honestly, I only had a chance to skim over some of the posts. The topic?  The problem of evil. Exactly what is evil?  Where does it come from? When we deem something evil are we eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  How about when we deem something good?  Same tree?

Some of the posters seemed to look at evil as an illusion.  That really doesn't work for me.  I look around me and I see evil in the world.  If it is an illusion...man oh man, is it ever convincing!!

Does evil come from the hand of God?  Great minds have pondered THAT question down through the ages.  So following are two of the many things that have been said and written about the POE.  The Problem of Evil.  

Are these two unlikely folks ("Papa" from The Shack) and Ray Prinzing expressing similar thoughts?

The Shack:

“Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies.” 

and

Ray Prinzing:

So, what about the evil we suffer?  Did God cause this?  Certainly not in the sense that He would speak a word into a man, saying, "rape this child." Absolutely not! We will not "charge God foolishly." (Job 1:22).  However, as Creator, HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS CREATION, so the ultimate charge is laid at His feet. 

If He allowed it, in a sense He is responsible for it.  He has, however, given man a limited amount of freedom for self-expression, and it was out of this evilness in the wicked heart of man that the deed was wrought.  An example: you have a man with a dog on a leash, and the dog bites a child.  The man did not deliberately bite the child himself, nor did he command the dog to do so, yet, because the man held the leash, we lay the ultimate charge on him.  Satan is the dog on God's leash.  God has the power to control him, yet He allows the adversary to cause much havoc.  So what is the answer?  Look past the dog, look past the leash, and SEE THE HAND OF GOD IN ULTIMATE CONTROL!

Prinzing's message is usually total sovereignty but he back pedals a bit here when asked flat out by a woman who was repeatedly sexually abused during her childhood.  Did God plan it or not? 

More fodder to ponder on this issue that used to haunt me, hound me, torment me. 

"Get the hell out of my church...."

Another uplifting video from our bud, the Baptist preacher (Steven L Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona)This one is short and to the point.  This guy is shouting about how Barack Obama is a devil.  Someone from the congregation says something in opposition (can't quite make out what he says) and the preacher gets really pissy then.  "If you don't like to hear the truth then......get the hell out of my church!"  Emphasis of course on the word MY.  And don't let the door hit you on your way out...

Geez....If I had been the heckler, I think I would have made my exit with the utmost haste...with little chance of the door whacking my "hinder parts"....

“All right. You can come in.”

At the end of my last post, I quoted CS Lewis' as he told the tale of his conversion.

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

**Warning** "F-bomb" alert!!!!

I recently read two of Anne Lamott's latest books. In Traveling Mercies, she tells the tale of her conversion. Like Lewis she was indeed reluctant...adamant, in fact, that it just wasn't happening. Like Lewis, her belief in God came first...then she met up with Jesus....

After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light to make sure no one was there—of course there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this. And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud,”I would rather die.”

I felt Him just sitting there on His haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing Him with.

Uh-huh...sure...okay. Apparently, at that point, she hadn't heard of "irresistible grace" ala Calvin. She hadn't heard the parable of the good shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep to find the wayward one, or the widow who tore her house apart to find the one lost coin or that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. And at the time she was lost indeed. The story above happened after she had complications following an abortion. She was still a drunk (a word she uses throughout the book to describe herself ) and was using drugs...and she made some really poor choices with men. But Jesus hounded her (you know, as in "the hound of heaven")...only she doesn't use a canine analogy but rather the the analogy of a feline...a little cat...that relentlessly follows you around, rubbing up against your legs, trying to get in, being a total pest. But she knew that the total pest who wouldn't go away...was Jesus.

I began to cry and left before the benediction and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said; “Fuck it, I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.”

Okay...so God did not knock her off her donkey...nor did he blind her for a few days....but he did get her attention. And now she is a unique and delightful part of the body of Christ...touching many with her down to earth, irreverent essays that reveal a heart in love with Jesus and offer the reader profound snippets of spiritual truths. At some point, I plan to write a series of posts about some of those snippets. In fact, there is a snippet in one of her quotes right in this post that I find profound. As I reread this post....with the intent of editing out redundant ramblings and unnecessary phrases, alas, I ended up ADDING TO rather SUBTRACTING FROM it. So much for succinct. BUT as I was "editing" I came up with a profound snippet of my own. Profound to me anyway. And so much for succinct!! More to come.....

And the Last One -Letting Go Of Resentment

In a comment on Stepping Over Our Anger...the first post, Will mentioned a verse from Psalm 18 that had comforted him during a troubled time in his life...

Psalm 18:29 For by You I can run against a troop, By my God I can leap over a wall.

His mention of that particular Psalm caused me to go back and reread it.  As it turns out, I've already written about about Psalm 18.  One of my favorite verses is Psalm 18:35 which the NCV renders:

You stoop down to make me great.

I love that verse because he does truly stoop down to make us great...but there is lot more stuff to take notice of in this Psalm; stuff that just so happens to go along with the theme of these past few posts.
So, as I've mentioned, Step 4 in the Twelve Steps of AA is about introspection...about performing, with God's help, a fearless moral inventory. It is about shining  the light of reason on our old resentments. It helps us flip the switch in order to see our own complicity. About that Ray Prinzing quote...no need to curse the darkness.  Simply turn on the light.   Psalm 18:28 words it this way:

For You cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine; the Lord my God illumines my darkness.  NRSV

The Message says this...

God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes. Psalm 18:24

Psalm 90 talks about how our iniquities are set before him

our secret sins in the light of your presence.

I reread several chapters in a New Earth today at the gym.  The following phrase caught my eye

Seeing is freeing... 

Indeed it is...
And again in Psalm 18, it declares

you rescued me from the man of violence.18:48

Perhaps I am taking this verse out of context a bit...but I wonder if the "man of violence" dwells within us rather than outside of us.  The carnal man...in scripture.  The egoic mind in A New Earth.
There was other stuff I underlined and took note of as I read (my dog eared copy of) A New Earth at the gym...and that makes this a good place to say....
More on that....tomorrow.   

And Still More On Stepping Over Our Anger

Okay...lets take a look at Step 4.

Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

You can find the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions on line HERE.  Web sites with instructions, insights, opinions and commentaries abound.  Just google any variation of 12 Steps and you will find them...lots of them.

It is Step 4 that deals mainly with introspections and self assessment.  It starts out in a round about way...asking us to list those individuals or institutions we resent/hold grudges against/or are angry with.  No trace of the moral inventory of OURSELVES there.  Easy enough list to generate.  No problem with column one.  The actual worksheet describes it thusly:

1. Column 1: Page 64: “In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry.” (Complete column 1 from top to bottom. Do nothing with column 2,3,4 until column 1 has been completed.

Okay...on to the second column.  In that column we identify just what it is about the person, situation or institution that pisses us off.  The instructions say to start at the top...and work our way down...listing why we were angry with each of the people/things in Column 1. Again...not too difficult.

2. Column 2: Page 64: “We asked ourselves why we were angry.”

Okay, now what?  We identify what was wounded.  Again, not too difficult or humbling.  In fact, so far, most egos probably revel in this process

3. Column 3: Page 65: “On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal, or sex relations, which had been interfered with? “

Again, pretty easy to identify. But then...THEN....we move on to the final column.  This one is not so easy because it takes the focus off of them...and puts the focus on us.  We have to look at ourselves.  (There's that "put down the magnifying glass, pick up the mirror" thing again.  Damn...not the mirror) 

4. Column 4: Page 67: “Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s.”

Now, I should point out the the previous three steps have more or less acknowledged that we cannot do anything by self effort alone and it is God who will work the changes in us.  This list is not about self effort or willpower or whatever.  It is about awareness, thinking things through...acknowledging our part in difficult situations.

I think the introspection and self assessment shines the light of reason on these dark places in our hearts, these resentments that govern our thought process.  Ray Prinzing used to say there was no need to curse the darkness.  Simply turn on the light. 

More about this tomorrow....

Oh...and if you want to take a look at some of those work sheets...with the prompts about resentments, fears etc.  Check THIS out, and THIS and THIS.....