Understanding the Pilgrims: 11-20-08

My wife and I have an arrangement when we travel serious distances by car. I drive and she reads aloud to me from some book both of us want to get through.

Last year on some trip or other one of the books she read was Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrook. It was a wonderful read that helped me get a better grasp of the faith of the Pilgrims and how all of that played out in the New World.

I still recommend the book.

But I've just learned about another book about the Pilgrims that I also can highly recommend. It's called, simply, Thanksgiving, by Glenn Alan Cheney. It was published last year.

It's a nonfiction account of who the Pilgrims were, with an important description of the religious background out of which they came. Cheney writes with clarity and grace. It's both an insightful and a pleasurable read.

What is especially striking about Cheney's book is that he documents the ways in which the Europeans and the people they met in the New World generally respected each other and developed good relations. It's a story you don't hear very often.

I'll be listing lots of new faith-related books on the blog this weekend, but I thought some of you might want to order the Cheney book in time for Thanksgiving a week from today, so I decided to highlight it here today.

* * *

THROWING PLATES AT GOD?

I don't know what the vanity license plate on the Mayflower would have said (maybe "1st PLYMOUTH"?), but I just read this story about a woman in Indiana whose "BE GODS" license plate has been declared out of bounds by the state, although she's had it for years. Sometimes I think bureaucracy spends too much time being bureaucracy.

Comments

[KCFreeThinkers.org]

Cole, is this what you are talking about?

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (year 2000 version), global Christianity had 33,820 denominations with 3,445,000 congregations/churches composed of 1,888 million (1.8 bln) affiliated Christians.

Not only the fragmentation of Christianity and "becoming rational/i.e. secular is happening, it is also becoming increasingly clear that CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA DO NOT WANT TO DIE POOR AND SICK.

They will adapt, abandon their basic "values" - gays, abortion, stem cell, evolution, and eventually Jesus will be in the background all the time and eventually will die out.

When the current middle age/older folks die out and 30-40% of younger people who are currently not religous (potentially deistic/agnostics/ or still non religous in the future as they mature and settle down) or atheists/agnostics will have kids who will be more technoloigcally, scientifically and just common sense savvy.

The sheer fact of 30% increase in 15 years of acceptance of gays in the military is astounding. With the election of a "secular" president this country is clearly making the right step towards being "not stupid" when it comes to religion.

Obama is going to "annoit" :o) Chief of Technology and also most likely a cabinet post for Education and Science. This will be a statement.

Religious people already found a cop out - god has given us intelligence to learn :o)- our Lutheran contacts from the Bible study keep telling us that, but cannot find a single reference in the Bible about it. We'll hope they will.

Meanwhile, when they have medical problems in the future and something like this happens, there will of course going to be praying to god, but they will go to see a doctor. It is however said in the Bible that diseases and ilnesses are because of lack of faith and sins :o) - yep, it's clearly there :o)

[KCFreeThinkers.org]

eHarmony.com just announced they will add same sex dating to their site as of March next year.

This goes to show you that tides are changing. In order to survive the onslaught of "sexual" sins, churches will have to accept sinners even more now. They'll be paying lip service to the sin en mass, fundamental churches will be rejecting gays/lesbians as always and little by little losing respect and membership unless it is a mega church that has carved a niche with their "own version" of Christianity of "acceptance" of all - like Rick Warren or Joel Osteen. "We love the sinners, but hate their sin, we are all sinners, so who is to say that I am less sinful than gays?"

The convoluted practice of cherry picking will continue forever till Christianity dies out or morphs into something more reminding of sprituality/new age stuff.

Psychology of belief and cultish behavior will always be there. It will still be called Christianity, Jesus will be a much more accepting god, there will be much less emphasis on Yahwheh and maybe OT will completely be forgotten in 100-200 years, kind of like Windows DOS which maybe still the backbone of Windows Vista but has evolved (don't quote me on that techicality, but you get the point).

Christianity of today is WAY differnt than that of 500 years ago - for starters they don't burn witches any more or heretics (well in most places). Christianity of 500 years from now will be something else.

[Dolores Lear]

History Credits Catholic Explorer, Christopher Columbus, founder in Central America. The Major Religion of Central and South America became Catholic, after the Genocide to the Natives.

In North American the Protestants landed at Plymouth Rock and other coastal cities, and Protestantism became the Major Religion, after they did Genocide to the Natives.

In the USA, Freedom of Religion was founded for All, by Christians and Agnostics/Atheists. Protestantism was not supposed to be a State Religion, like in Europe.

Christian Icons on State buildings, Christian Prayer, The Ten Commandments, etc., became the Official State Religion, and after the first few Presidents.

In the 1890s, the Pledge of Allegiance was added, and 'under God' was added in the 1940s, regardless if a Citizen was Religious or Atheist.

Christians say Christianity was always this Way in the USA, but it was added gradually until it really was considered, a State Religion, by the World and Called Christian USA.

Today there are Protestant Protests, that Atheists Citizens want to take God out of Government. "It was always this Way".

I was born a Lutheran Protestant in 1922, and did not realize how Other Religious and Atheists Citizens felt.

I was taught 'not' to marry a Jew, Catholic or Black Male. I hope PE Obama, a result of a White Mother and a Black Father, will start Humans to accept, All Humans and their Institutions, are products of Heterosexual Body Birth Parents and Environment.

Christians accept, unconsciously, that God made Protestants the Chosen Race, instead of the Jews, with their Jewish Messiah/Christ.

So Why is the Planet Covered with Pollution and Nuclear Bombs? Why does Any God Religion Member, participate in All this Killing?

To be a Good Citizen, before being a Good Child of God? A Fallen Human cannot be both.

[Dolores Lear]

"God's Daily Promise" 11/20/08.
This week's promise: God is always calling us back to him Wise with spiritual wisdom
"We ask God to give you a complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives, and we ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom.

Colossians 1:9 NLT"
Discerning cultural trends

"C. S. Lewis was born on this day in 1898, and 40-plus years after his death it is startlingly clear that he was not only a keen apologist but also a true prophet for our postmodern age.

Lewis wrote his book Miracles in 1947, before most Christians were aware of the emerging philosophy of naturalism, which says that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything in the universe.

Naturalism undercuts any objective morality, opening a door to tyranny. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis warned that naturalism turns human beings into objects to be controlled and turns values into "mere natural phenomena" that can be selected and inculcated into a passive population by powerful Conditioners. He predicted a time when those who want to remold human nature "will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique."

Why was Lewis so uncannily prophetic?

One reason is that Lewis was a professor with a specialty in medieval literature. This gave him a mental framework shaped by the whole scope of intellectual history and Christian thought.

We Christians need to liberate ourselves from the prison of our own narrow worldview and immerse ourselves in Christian ideas "down the ages." The best way to celebrate Lewis' birthday is to be at our posts, as he liked to say, with renewed spirits and with probing and informed minds.

[Just Thinking]

There is a Spirit of thanksgiving that comes from being forgiven for sin by God. It is that Spirit which reconciles man to God, and there is no other way. Every day is something to be thankful when you walk in the Spirit, accepting grace for wrongdoing and trying to do better because of sincere repentance. InSpire. Living in the Spirit.

Some try to teach other ways to resolve the guilt of sin. Some teach that good works will do it. Some teach that you can twist language to redefine sin away. Others teach finger-pointing as a way to absolution. Others simply refuse to acknowledge that they do anything wrong. But none of it leads anyone to be reconciled to God, and there is no growth or resolution. There will always remain the one side of the person who believes that they are a good person, side-by-side with the other side that does bad things. And there is no way to reconcile any of it, except to be forgiven by the grace of God. Those who are forgiven because of Christ Jesus understand thanksgiving.

Those who spend their lives trying to redefine sin so that their behavior becomes okay often become mentally ill. You can see the demons in force today on this blog. You can see the urgency in rewriting sin, killing off the religion, finding works to redeem, or other excuses for sin. And for what? Nothing. Forgiveness is the grace of God that is there for anyone who wants to change, for anyone who repents and seeks God. Only Jesus, God in the flesh, ever had the audacity to claim that He could forgive sin. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. In Him there is peace with God through forgiveness of sins.

[KCFreeThinkers.org]

JT wrote>>>Those who spend their lives trying to redefine sin so that their behavior becomes okay often become mentally ill.

JT, take god out of it and then you have this "Sometimes people become mentally ill or born mentally ill".

Take the god out of the equation and it all makes sense - you don't need to come up with silliness like this.

JT, feel free to bring your "sins" to our Bible Study this Sat. 7 p.m. We'll see if we can actually demonstrate to you that you are creating your own version of Christianity :o) - the topic will be "Is God Imaginary?"

We'll have a Bible study with Atheists and Christians in Lenexa at Black Dog coffee house. It promises to be an interesting ride. Details are at http://www.KCFreeThinkers.org/calendar.htm

[Will Graham]

Of course KCF's Lutheran contacts know that God has given us intelligence to learn.

But he claims they give no references for this.

Now, if he actually had any contacts, they would have referred him to Mark 12:30-31 and others.

http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/frequency.cgi?number=1271&book=mr&translation=nsn

[Will Graham]

KCF says Christianity will be different 500 years from now; this assumes the weapons science provides will not have eliminated humanity by then.

But will atheism be around? Will there still be Gulags, brainwashing centers, and "re-education" camps?

[Will Graham]

Of course, atheists will still be doing their own version of Cherry Picking.

Interestingly, KCF sent Adam over 20 e mails yesterday, and after Adam answered EVERY one of them, KCF got upset and said he wasn't going to send anymore.

And, of course, today he did!