pgaughan@nmsu.edu (10/11/89)
Here is a (definitely not original) idea to consider. I think we as a society (individuals can examine themselves...) do not really take God seriously. I read poll results recently that said that most Americans believe in God, but most do not attend any religious body nor do they read the scriptures regularly. The idea is that God is just the "man upstairs". He understands our mistakes and even laughs about them. Sin isn't so bad as long as you keep it to a reasonable level. These are many of the impressions I get from some people I know. If anyone in the audience feels this way, let me make it clear that I believe this attitude is wrong and will win you no mercy in the day of judgement. This attitude is of course not new. The Israelites had to be reminded over and over and over that God was not just like any of the idols of the land. He is not a man that He might be deceived. His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men which can be anticipated. He is the Almighty who is worthy of nothing less that pure, humble worship and obedience. Is the "christian" religious community immune to this attitude? I think not. How do we justify the incredible diversity of doctrines that are preached in the name of Christ? For almost every doctrine there is another one taught somewhere that opposes it. Is God pleased with this? Haven't men's teachings begun to overshadow the scriptures as sources of authority? Patrick Gaughan pgaughan@nmsu.edu [The obvious answer is: No, God is not pleased with man's multitude of interpretations. However sometimes I wonder. There are a number of fairly obvious steps God could take if he wanted a single, unambiguous viewpoint in the Church. So from time to time I find it interesting to consider the possibility that for some reason God finds it acceptable, or maybe even useful, to have a diversity of ideas. C.S.Lewis suggests in the Screwtape Letters (after making the appropriate reversal of viewpoints) that it provides an excellent opportunity for Christians to practice charity and forbearance. If there were a single church with a single authoritative doctrine, it would be very easy to confuse the institution and its doctrine with God. (Indeed there seems to be evidence that this happened to some extendt in the Church as it was before the Reformation. I've often thought of the Reformation as being a judgement on our pride, much as the scattering of mankind after the Tower of Babel. Of course the current situation has its own characteristic dangers as well.) --clh]
hwt@bnr-fos.uucp (Henry Troup) (10/13/89)
This reminds me of a remark of C.S. Lewis' (I think) to the effect that very few people believe in Heaven the way they beleive in Australia. utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bmerh490 | BNR is not | All that evil requires hwt@bnr.ca (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for | is that good men do (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | my opinions | nothing.
pgaughan@nmsu.edu (10/13/89)
<Our fearless moderator notes on my article> [... However sometimes I wonder. There are a number of fairly obvious steps God could take if he wanted a single, unambiguous viewpoint in the Church. So from time to time I find it interesting to consider the possibility that for some reason God finds it acceptable, or maybe even useful, to have a diversity of ideas. C.S.Lewis suggests in the Screwtape Letters (after making the appropriate reversal of viewpoints) that it provides an excellent opportunity for Christians to practice charity and forbearance. If there were a single church with a single authoritative doctrine, it would be very easy to confuse the institution and its doctrine with God.] I am not suggesting that every Christian should have the same views on every point of belief -- there must be room for opinion in some matters. But, I think the set of beliefs open to opinion is fairly limited and that the scriptures teach boldly against false teaching and warn us to be ever vigilant against following such. The tendency in the denominational world today is to gloss over all differences in belief except the acknowledgement that Jesus is the Christ. I do not believe this is the only doctrine that we need to believe and understand to be saved. In Galatians 1:6-9 Paul pronounces the judgement of eternal condemnation on anyone who would change the gospel. Specifically, he refers to binding circumcision to salvation. This change in the gospel seems almost insignificant when compared to some of the strange doctrines I understand are being taught in the name of Christ today. Christ said "Enter by the narrow gate...Because narrow is the gate and difficult the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matt 7:13). My main point is this: We need to examine the differences that exist in doctrines. We need to realize that ALL of these separate bodies of believers cannot be right before God. In short, we cannot take the easy way out by saying, "we're all right". We need to take the difficult path of studying the scriptures for ourselves to find the narrow way that leads to life. Pat Gaughan
wgm@mbunix.mitre.org (Gregory M. Woodhouse) (10/19/89)
I was interested to see the discussion on Halloween. It might help us to put this in perspective if we examine the forces at work in the celebration of holidays like Halloween, Easter and Christmas. When Lucifer fell (Isa. 14), he made the statement, "I will be like the Most High." His motivation has not changed. Whenever we see Satan working it is as a counterfiet substitution for the real thing. He appears as an "angel of light" which at first appearance seems true and authoritative, but upon closer scrutiny shows himself to be false and untrustworthy. This is how he dealt with Eve when he used God's own words to convince her that she had not been told the whole truth and would not, indeed, surely die. We see the same thing in the temptation of Christ, when Satan used the Scriptures to tempt the Lord Jesus to put God the Father to the test. We see it in the prophecies of the end times when the "mark of the beast" appears as a counterfeit to the "seal of God" on the foreheads of the 144,000 chosen of Israel.. We can see it in our own lives as Christians, when we pray to the Lord for direction and Satan quickly manipulates the circumstances around us to mis-direct us. We see it in the activity of Satan in so many churches where he is building into people's lives all of the symptoms of salvation without a genuine experience of being "born again". Satan's activities in holidays follow the same unalterable pattern. When a Christian holiday (if there is such a thing) is established, Satan quickly reacts to divert the attention of God's people (and the world) from the true celebration at hand. I will probably catch some flack for the following suggestions, but hear me out, please. Christmas is really the celebration of the birth of Christ (although we were never commanded to remember His birth, only His death). Satan has effectively diverted the attention of the world from the true purpose of this celebration through the introduction of a jolly, affable character with which the world can associate brotherhood and good will, but which nonetheless succeeds in diverting attention from the Son of God. Easter is the same way. For most of the world that celebrates Easter, the main character is not the dying Son of God, but a large bunny who gives presents and happiness to the children. Another diversion. There is nothing inherently wrong with the characters of Santa Claus or the Easter Rabbit, but Satan is a master at using the good things of the world to keep us from enjoying the BEST things. Halloween was originally a celebration of the patriarchs and saints. Satan has succeeded in once again diverting our attention from the original meaning of the holiday to something else, in this case something that is not as harmless as a bunny. We need to recognize the working of Satan for what it is, and if we choose to celebrate these holidays (which may well be appropriate) that we teach our children not only what they really mean, but why the world's attention has been diverted, and by whom. I suspect that part of the reason we don't recognize Satan's working in things like this is that too many of us have bought the picture of Satan that he has so masterfully painted in the minds of the world - red flannels and a pointed tail. Mark Woodhouse - gmw@mounix.mitre.org [
pgaughan@nmsu.edu (10/22/89)
Gregory M. Woodhouse writes >Satan's activities in holidays follow the same unalterable pattern. When a >Christian holiday (if there is such a thing) is established, Satan quickly >reacts to divert the attention of God's people (and the world) from the true >celebration at hand. I liked the insert "(if there is such a thing)". Who says we have the right to establish a "Christian holiday" if it has not been established by God? I think you missed the point of my last posting. The problem we have with taking God seriously is that we think that if it seems good to us, God will approve. This is presumption and is strictly condemned in the scriptures. I don't think God wants us to celebrate Christmas as a remembrance of Christ's birth. If the origin is from man, we should not claim God approves of it. Besides, the whole holiday is based on the presumption that we know what day He was born, which we don't. Patrick Gaughan
mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell) (10/22/89)
Mark Woodhouse brings up the subject of Satan, and explains that the
holidays celebrated by the Church are being diverted by this active force.
A month ago our church's Church and Society committee had a potluck
forum. The invited guests were "experts" on satanism and the occult.
Ostensibly going to talk about ritual crime, they instead sounded like
people trying to alarm everyone and get us whipped into a furor about
something that isn't what people are worried about. It didn't work.
But something struck me about their presentation. It seemed that they
believed that satanic rituals were really effective. That they *worked*.
And now we see this again, in another guise.
The doctrine of Satan is not so sure as many think. Genesis refers only to
the "snake", and doesn't use any more imagery than that. In fact, part of
the story seems to be a primitive myth about why a snake has no legs (in
the genre of "How the leopard got its spots"). The passage in Isaiah referred
to is nowhere so certain that it refers to the Satan of popular mythology. And
Revelation, let us not forget, is figurative language about events current
in the 1st-2nd century of the Roman Empire.
Of course, I have no doubt what Mark is thinking right now. "How successfully
Satan has fooled this man!" Well, let me allay your fears. I believe that
God is *more* successful in propogating his will than any Satan. I believe that
God's truth wins out over evil's lies. I believe that Satan (if he exists) is
*less* powerful than God, *less* successful than God, and that we know God's
will far more readily than evil's.
--
Michael I. Bushnell \ This above all; to thine own self be true
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE \ And it must follow, as the night the day,
mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu /\ Thou canst not be false to any man.
Telephone: +1 505 292 0001 / \ Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!jko@hila.hut.fi (Jukka Korpela) (10/25/89)
In article <Oct.22.11.17.18.1989.24613@athos.rutgers.edu> mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell) writes: >The doctrine of Satan is not so sure as many think. Genesis refers only to >the "snake", and doesn't use any more imagery than that. In fact, part of >the story seems to be a primitive myth about why a snake has no legs (in >the genre of "How the leopard got its spots"). The passage in Isaiah referred >to is nowhere so certain that it refers to the Satan of popular mythology. And >Revelation, let us not forget, is figurative language about events current >in the 1st-2nd century of the Roman Empire. It is true that Satan is not mentioned very often in the Bible and that several references to Satan are rather obscure. But the most striking and explicit references to Satan are exactly those you didn't mention. Those of Jesus. He speaks, according to the Bible, about Satan clearly as a personal being (with armies of other evil beings under his command). (I do NOT regard this as an argument against Christianity.)
geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (10/27/89)
In article <Oct.22.11.15.29.1989.24589@athos.rutgers.edu> pgaughan@nmsu.edu writes: (Speaking about Christmas) >Besides, the >whole holiday is based on the presumption that we know what day He was >born, which we don't. I don't know any Christians who believe that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. -- Geoff Allen \ Since we live by the Spirit, {uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ let us keep in step with the Spirit. ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ -- Gal. 5:25 (NIV)
davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) (10/30/89)
In article <Oct.18.17.35.10.1989.2403@athos.rutgers.edu> wgm@mbunix.mitre.org (Gregory M. Woodhouse) writes: >... There is nothing >inherently wrong with the characters of Santa Claus or the Easter Rabbit, but >Satan is a master at using the good things of the world to keep us from >enjoying the BEST things. While I entirely agree with most of what you said, and applaud you for it, I must take exception with the two points which you have made in this one sentence. First, it is impossible for some good thing from the world's perspective to be of any real value at all. 1 John 2:15-16 says "Love not the world, neither the things {that are} in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that {is} in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.". Matthew 6:24 says "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.". Second, there is something very wrong with both Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. They are not real. God has commanded us not to lie. Exodus 20:16 says "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.". Putting it a different way, He has also commanded us to always speak the truth. Ephesians 4:25 says "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.". Any of us who even have the slightest desire to have our children believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, or any other ficticious character for that matter, is engaging in serious sin by lying to the very people whom we ought to love the most. Proverbs 6:19 tells us that "a false witness that speaketh lies" is an abomination to the Lord. At an earthly and more tangible level, how dare we expect our children to take us seriously ever again when we so willfully mislead them in the very area of their source of fulfillment for their lives. We ought to be spending all that wasted time and effort teaching them about God, His tremendously selfless sacrifice, His unimaginably wonderful promises, and their urgent and unavoidable need of all of these. Perish the thought that we really don't quite trust God and actually believe that there is something that our children would be missing if they didn't have the hope of receiving a gift of little, if not no, real value from Santa Claus? May it never be! May it also never be that we would deceive ourselves with the lie that such lies couldn't possibly actually do any real harm! Any time we expend that is not directed at leading them toward Christ and the salvation He offers is wasted and potentially inflicting infinite damage. Fortunately, God can make up for our inadequacies as parents. This is no excuse, however, for us to take the job He has given us any less seriously. We must raise each and every child which He has blessed us with as though he were a potential member of the KIngdom of God by doing our utmost to train him in the way he must go in order to be fully qualified for that honour! Each of these ficticious beings, i.e. Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the like, is ascribed the characteristic of being the one who is the bringer of all good and perfect gifts. Santa Claus, in particular, is ascribed the characteristic of being the one who is the judge of our behaviour. These are characteristics that we ought dare only ascribe to none other than God Himself, yet even many of those who profusely proffess Christianity do otherwise. Let us not forget God's own claims that He is the sole possesser of these characteristics. James 1:17 says "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.". 2 Corinthians 5:10 says "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things {done} in {his} body, according to that he hath done, whether {it be} good or bad.". Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3
dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) (11/10/89)
In article <Oct.29.22.51.00.1989.3890@athos.rutgers.edu> bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: >Second, there is something very wrong with both Santa Claus and the >Easter bunny. They are not real. God has commanded us not to lie. >[...] Any of us who even have the slightest desire to have our >children believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, or any other >ficticious character for that matter, is engaging in serious sin by >the very area of their source of fulfillment for their lives. We ought >to be spending all that wasted time and effort teaching them about God, > Come, sir, this is a bit much. Am I to infer that "Pilgrim's Progress" is a tool of Satan because its protagonist never *really* lived? Fiction (or, more specifically, the ability to imagine counterfactual situations) is exactly like every other gift from God, in that it can be abused. No one denies that. But to single out this practice as uniquely evil is absurd. Were Our Lord's parables *evil* because they never really happened? Does the trustworthiness of Christ depend on whether, in actual historical fact, "A certain man had two sons..."? I personally will be quite content to let my children (if ever I have any) believe in the existence of Aslan, Gandalf, Ransom, The People (Praised be the Power and the Presence and the Name!), and a host of other valuable *fictional* role-models and allegories. Your point about setting up Santa as the "source of gifts and judge of character" is somewhat more appropriate. Nonetheless, I think it would take a particularly stupid and unimaginative child to fail to transfer the attributes of Santa to the proper Person as maturity comes, given early exposure to the Word. "The Thinker" (He *looks* smart, but what does he *do*?)
jko@hila.hut.fi (Jukka Korpela) (11/14/89)
In article <Nov.10.02.33.56.1989.11673@athos.rutgers.edu> dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes: >I personally will be quite content to let my children (if ever I have any) >believe in the existence of Aslan, Gandalf, Ransom, The People (Praised be >the Power and the Presence and the Name!), and a host of other valuable >*fictional* role-models and allegories. I suppose children do not believe in the existence of Aslan & others unless their parents and teachers present them as existent beings. But Santa Claus is very often described to children as a real thing, as real as God. The point is that when they find out that their parents and teachers lied about Santa Claus they tend to think that God and Jesus are a similar case.
aws@itivax.iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) (11/15/89)
In article <Nov.13.12.32.31.1989.6966@athos.rutgers.edu> jko@hila.hut.fi (Jukka Korpela) writes: >I suppose children do not believe in the existence of Aslan & others >unless their parents and teachers present them as existent beings. >But Santa Claus is very often described to children as a real thing, >as real as God. Which is what we did. For the first 4 years of my daughters life we spoke about Santa like he was real. My daughter believed it all. Later we became neutral on the subject and just agreed with whatever she said. When she came up this year and asked if Santa was real. We asked her what she thought and she said she didn't think he was real. We agreed. But you know what? I am convinced that her belief in Santa tought her a lot about faith and altruism. When she was 3 and 4 her favorite game around Christmas was to play Santa. She would collect all her toys, put them in a pretend sled and pretend to give them to all her friends. She became concerned that other children less fortunate than her had a happy Christmes. None of this has affected her belief in God one bit. I think it is like teaching complex subjects to children. When I was little I was tought that an atom was some protons with electrons in orbit around it like planets around the sun. In reality it is nothing like that but I could have never understood it then. Unsing Santa we can teach our children about complex Christian values in a way they can understand. >The point is that when they find out that their parents >and teachers lied about Santa Claus they tend to think that God and Jesus >are a similar case. Not my daughter. Allen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Allen W. Sherzer | Is the local cluster the result | | aws@iti.org | of gerrymandering? | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) (11/15/89)
In article <Nov.10.02.33.56.1989.11673@athos.rutgers.edu> dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes: >I personally will be quite content to let my children (if ever I have any) >believe in the existence of Aslan, Gandalf, Ransom, The People (Praised be >the Power and the Presence and the Name!), and a host of other valuable >*fictional* role-models and allegories. I'm not a great reader of fiction, but I believe that at least one of the names you list refers to some sort of wizard. I would suggest that you get a good concordance and look up all the Scriptures that refer to wizards, witchcraft, and the like. You have effectively stated that you will be content to let your children believe in things which God describes as being an abomination to Him. He also states that those who believe in such mystical entities ought to be punished by death to stop the spreading of these evil concepts. Do you feel that you know more about how you ought to raise your children than God Himself? >Your point about setting up Santa as the "source of gifts and judge of >character" is somewhat more appropriate. Nonetheless, I think it would >take a particularly stupid and unimaginative child to fail to transfer the >attributes of Santa to the proper Person as maturity comes, given early >exposure to the Word. The Scriptures do not teach the concept of permitting our children to be misled until they reach an age when we decide that they are old enough to understand the truth. You seem to have a lot of faith in the fact that your children will successfully transfer their faith to Christ as they get older. There are at least two problems with this statement. First, how do you know they will ever reach maturity? What if they die before then? Are you demonstrating the greatest possible love for those whose lives God has entrusted you with by knowingly permitting them to not have faith in Christ for any period of their lives? If your hope is that some time in the next several years they will develop true faith in Christ then God might just decide to teach you a very hard lesson by permitting their lives to be taken in a car accident, house fire, fatal childhood disease, or whatever, before then. A truly loving parent would be beseaching God on a continual basis for the salvation of his children. He would also, as an evidence of the sincerity of his pleas, be doing everything he can do develop that faith in his children. Part of this necessarily would involve the teaching of how to discern what ought not to be trusted. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.". What your children learn when they are young is what will have the greatest impact on them when they are older. By permitting them to exercise faith in the wrong things when they are young you are in a sense guaranteeing that it is those sorts of things which they will exercise faith in when they get older. The best age to teach a child those values which should become part of his subconscious nature is when he still implicitly trusts his parents' wisdom in all matters. This is more true the younger the child is. Children understand more than they are typically given credit for when they are very young. Many parents assume that their children really do not understand very much just because they have not yet developed the skills to speak sufficiently well to make that understanding obvious. Romans 10:17 says "So then faith {cometh} by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.". I actually believe that one of the best things a parent can do is read the Scriptures aloud to his child while that child is still within the womb of his mother, and then trust that God will open the spiritual ears of that child and perhaps even save him before he is born. With this approach a couple need not suffer any great anxiety if that pregnancy ends in a miscarriage because there would be a very great probability that God used that miscarriage as a way of calling home to Himself a very young child whom He had already saved. There are a number of Scriptures in which God specifically outlines His thoughts on idol worship. He declares that we ought not have faith in anyone/thing other than Himself because they cannot hear, see, smell, feel, or think. Note that Santa Claus, the easter bunny, or any ficticious character in a book, movie, or comic strip, definitely fall into this category. He then goes on to say that both those who invent such idols and those who believe in such idols are just as dead as the idols themselves. One such Scripture is Psalm 135:15-18 which says "The idols of the heathen {are} silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; neither is there {any} breath in their mouths. They that make them are like unto them: {so is} every one that trusteth in them.". Is this the sort of people you want your children to be? Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3 [The only one of that list that could be considered a wizard is Gandalf. However the way Tolkien envisioned a wizard is somewhat different from what I think you have in mind. His wizards were sent into the world by the One specifically to deal with evil. It is probably best to think of them as sages. They studied historical lore. Gandalf certainly did things that might be considered magical. But the impression you get is of a combination of use of laws of nature that are different than ours, and specific powers given to him by the One for use in fighting against the forces of evil. I know people who have claimed that some fantasy caused them spiritual problems, in the sense of tending to lead in the direction of the occult. I can see this for some of Charles Williams' work, but it seems less of an issue with Tolkien. --clh]
khaddad@uunet.uu.net (Kayed Haddad) (11/15/89)
Dear friend in Christ, Yes, we need to take God seriously. Though we can not follow His law preciously, still we must listen to His voice. Let us read in Gensis chapter 3 verse 4. God said to Adam and Eve that once they eat from the tree of good and evil they will die. And because they did not listen to His voice, they failed from the glory of God and therefore died. The Psalmist says that the path of the Lord is straight, yet the ungodly stumbel . We have to be careful of how to respond to God and follow His divin rules. It is hard somtimes to follow the divin rules, yet Christ promises us that the Helper will always be with us and guide us to the right direction. But we have to rely completely on God and have faith in Him. lying as you mentiond is the worse thing to use. Recently, I have gone through an experience which taught me a good lesson about how to trust God and rely heavily on Him. I have learned that when I lie I completely become dependent on myself and thus thinking that I am my on god. To lie means to rely on what you think or believe is right and others are wrong.By doing this you become preoccupied with your self then resist all other opin- ion. Put it in another way, lying is actually the separation between us and God. When we lie , we basically separate ourseleves from God and believe on what we think is right. So, let us always be honest with ourselevs and with God as well. He wants you and me to listen to His voice constantly .