Life During Wartime: How Do We Pray About War?

There's a strange dichotomy to praying for victory in a war. Any war, really, with all of their moral nuances and intricacies, and their inherent wakes of disaster and death. I don't consider myself pro-war or anti-war: I discern on a war by war basis, or more particularly, by a judgment of the individual belligerents. After all, war is not a war without at least two opposing sides. Sometimes, one is right and the other wrong, and other times neither is right. A perfect example of the former is the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

If Ukrainian forces had not fought back against the invaders, this would not be a war at all, but simply an invasion. And if Ukraine had, without resistance, given Vladimir Putin whatever territorial gains he desired by crossing this independent nation's borders, it would have been even less than an invasion, and more of an annexation. But, when Russian military forces invaded Ukraine this past February, the latter took up arms and fought. So, we have two belligerents with two opposite reasons for armed violence.

I'm in favor of Ukraine's war, but not Russia's (or, more accurately, Putin's) - I wholeheartedly support a peaceful, sovereign, and democratic nation's right to defend itself against "a wicked and unjust invasion," as my pastor described it. 

I have no doubt that a great a deal of Russian soldiers who've found themselves on the losing end (thus far) against Ukrainian troops fighting tooth and nail to protect their home don't want to be in Ukraine any more than frightened civilians want them there. I'm sure the same goes historically for just about any army ordered by its government to go to war under unjustifiable circumstances: there were obviously Germans soldiers who despised all the violence and Hitler's delusions, who just wanted to go home as much as a homesick American or Soviet soldier; there were no doubt Argentinian conscripts sent to invade the Falklands who hated the cold, miserable landscape, and knew themselves to be expendable pawns played by their dictator Galtieri to deflect from his military junta's dismal failings.

With all the complexities of war, it's no surprise that praying for a victor in a war is no easy task when you really think about it. When I pray for Ukraine to overcome Putin's evil aims, I'm essentially praying that they're successful in blowing up Russian soldiers - human beings - or at least sending them into retreat or surrender by use of fire and force. This is part of the reality of being a Christian: we trust in an all-powerful and merciful God in the midst of a world of weak flesh and merciless minds. This guarantees we'll find ourselves in situations where it seems there's no winning, no good or honorable way out, leaving us with no idea what to pray for. Fortunately for us, we serve a God who understands our predicament. He came to the earth in the flesh and suffered as we suffer, even to the point of death on a cross. When we go to Him in prayer, even when we don't know what to say, we have peace and confidence that we're talking to a God who understands.

It's easy to be morbidly amused at letters and speeches written by politicians and military personnel alike during various wars throughout history - almost invariably, each will claim God is on their side, that God is for right, therefore He will guarantee their armies' triumph. Of course, only one side "wins" (Clemenceau famously described war as "a series of catastrophes that results in a victory"). Thus, one side of the fight was obviously wrong when it declared they knew God to be on their side. Lincoln put it another way: "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong [...] In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party [...] The contest began. And having begun, He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds." 

Lincoln was being quite the realist in his assessment of the will and work of God in a war. And so too must a Christian be in their prayers when they bring to Him their petitions concerning this or any war. It's very much possible - even necessary - to be a realist as a Christian, as much of an oxymoron as that may seem to many. We know that we live in a fallen world, so we must work with things as they are, not as they ought to be. We retain the hope that things will someday be made new, and that hope gives us strength to endure things as they are. The Christians of the early Church who were being killed by Rome for proclaiming Christ did not pretend everything was fine. It was okay for them to acknowledge the misery and horror they were put through. Admitting a terrible thing to be terrible is not denying God to be powerful. 

As Christians we sometimes equate labeling a situation as bleak with resigning to doubt. This is not the case. The Bible is full of passages that detail how dark and unjust this fallen world can be. In such a chaotic environment, we're bound to find ourselves facing situations where it seems any and all outcomes are attached to some terrible caveat. Just like my prayer that Ukraine will repel Putin's invasion: being a realist, I don't believe God will suddenly strike the Russians with sunshine-filled minds that cause them to drop their guns and return to their own country in peace; I don't believe each side will say "nuts to this," shake hands, and leave each other be; and I doubt Vladimir Putin will humbly acknowledge he was morally in the wrong and withdraw his troops without first suffering a string of military defeats (nor do I hope Volodymyr Zelenskyy sets a dangerous precedent for Eastern Europe by giving Putin what he wants if he'll just stop the attacks). This all certainly can happen, as God is capable of any such miracle, and I'd be delighted to eat my words if that were the end result. But until then, I must accept that my prayer for Ukraine's restored peace and the safety of its citizens includes a victory of firepower over another army of human beings, made as much in the similitude of God as anyone in this violence-ridden world.

In all of this, I'm abundantly grateful for the words the Holy Spirit speaks through the apostle Paul: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God" (Romans 8:26-27).

King David cries out to God in Psalm 139, but ultimately rests in His omnipotent power and knowledge: "You have searched me, LORD, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. [...] Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:1-2, 23-24).

We say it so much that it can ring with cliché, but no matter how often something is repeated, it never loses its strength if it is the truth, spoken in sincerity: "God's will be done." No matter what we pray for, no matter how confused - or confident - we are when we go to Him, may we seek God's will and not our own. God's sovereignty outweighs that of any sovereign nation. A day is coming when all will be restored, and He will judge with righteous judgment.

The Exhausting Legalism of the Secular World

I'm a religious person. My chosen religion is Christianity. I sometimes get flak from fellow Christians for using the terms religion/religious; those words seem to imply a sense of strict dogma, not to mention the word itself being originally tied to the word bondage. But I don't mind that. I want to be "a bondservant of Christ," forever tethered to Him, unable to escape.

Now that my attempt at piety is out of the way, here's some cynicism.

I've long been amazed - and confounded - by how similar the "secular" world is to the "religious lifestyle" (or, what many people think of a religious lifestyle). The rigorous regulations and rituals that are used to caricaturize we religious folk are abundant in a society that claims no official civil faith.

My mother, father, grandparents, teachers, and every pastor I've ever had - combined - have never imposed on me such a stringent and lengthy list of things I'm not allowed to say for fear of condemnation (a more modern term for condemnation being "cancellation"). The list of these forbidden words and terms is always changing and expanding, making it hard for one to keep up with what's linguistically kosher and what is not. 

I don't have that problem in my dirty little spiritual life. I believe the Scripture, that collection of ancient documents and epistles we came to call the Bible, to be the Divinely authored, Divinely edited word of God, and therefore in no need of addition. And, I certainly consider it blasphemous to propose subtractions, e.g. The Jefferson Bible. In this Book, I'm taught that if I were to say something terrible - something truly terrible, something that breaks down and berates others - my sin is forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I'll not be condemned to hell, or cancelled from His love (apologies for such a sappy analogy, but if it fits it fits). And, my brothers and sisters in this faith, should they abide in it, will be true to edify and encourage me to do better, not to distance themselves from me like I'm ripe with moral Coronavirus (unless of course I unrepentantly persist in such sins).

Along with this list of naughty phrases is a tight and non-negotiable list of places I cannot go and businesses I mustn't engage without compromising my soul (at least, my metaphorical soul if one looks at it from the secular point of view). I've been commanded by secular voices that I shall not enter Hobby Lobby because of its owners' stance on birth control, that eating at Chick Fil A is unclean because of its owners' position on same-sex marriage, that if I went to the theater to see Mulan I'm supporting oppression in Asia and should be cast into darkness, that Colin Kaepernick is a wolf in a sheep's disguise because he sat down during the National Anthem, profaning a Sunday football game, making Nike shoes an abomination fit for nothing but the fire.

Oprah have mercy on you if you need gluten free buns to feed your three kids on a hectic afternoon and Chick Fil A is the closest and most convenient option. Your ideological salvation and purity is at stake. Perhaps there's some loophole in the sociopolitical manuals that will allow this, as long as a sacrifice is made to a gold calf, blue donkey, or red elephant. Or one of those weird Green Party carved images.

Speaking of devils, in conversations with non-religious friends, I've noticed something interesting: the ratio of times I've warned them about the wiles of Satan to the number of times I've been warned about the snares of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is probably 10:1. In fact, I can't remember the last time I told an unbelieving friend how ensnared they are by the devil. That's either a reflection on my part of how tactful I am when it comes to discussing matters of religion, or a reflection of how bad I am at preaching such truths.

I thank God that He's never cast me aside if I stray from His commandments, and that His commandments are lovingly crafted for my growth, not to exalt myself as more woke or more patriotic than my neighbor. I'm grateful that He is faithful to love me and teach me to do better should I do wrong. That His grace and understanding permit me to shop at Amazon. That He's set my feet upon a rock and not on eggshells. That He keeps me from being drafted to fight in the Culture Wars, as He's already brought eternal victory through the Cross.

The secular world can follow its own bulls and codes and gods. I'm simply not pure enough, progressive enough, patriotic enough to do so. I wasn't born so holy. It's not in my DNA, I suppose. I'm weak - I need a God of grace and love.

Permission To Plagiarize Me

I noticed something interesting on the Twitter recently. A fellow expressed his concern and disapproval of  preachers who plagiarize other preachers' sermons. I honestly had no idea this was such a problem in Christian ministry. But I do admit there was a time when I myself was very concerned about my own religious writings being stolen. 

Years ago, when I still held the heady but modest title of "lay chaplain," I published a book of sermons, Sheep Named Spike. I'd be happy to autograph it for if you buy a copy. Most of what's in the book is based on my cheaply produced YouTube sermons, but there was also plenty of material that simply came from a flow of creative writing. 

I decided not long ago, however, that I shouldn't pursue "Christian writing" anymore, at least not until I overcome my tendency toward vanity. That is, I noticed so much of what I wrote to proclaim the Gospel was dangerously close to becoming "The Captain Bud Sturguess Show." I found much more of an emphasis on the absurdity and self-deprecation that I used to illustrate whatever point I was making, to the point that Christ was almost a background Player in the sermons. 

So, though I feel the things I published as religious works are still solid proclamations of the truth of Jesus Christ, I think it's best I don't continue writing straight-up sermons, lest I put myself at the forefront. 

Having said that, if in those sermons I wrote something pure, something Gospel-centered, something aligning with Scripture, something with the true zeal of preaching Christ, then I have to acknowledge that it came not from me, but from the Holy Spirit. The front of the book may list my name under the copyright notice, but it's far more accurate to say that anything truly good I wrote is the intellectual property of the Spirit. 

I certainly don't speak for other preachers, but it can only follow that if someone copies my sermons, even word for word, I have no more room to object than I would if a musician rips off Back In Black - Back In Black is not my intellectual property, not the product of my creativity, therefore only AC/DC and their lawyers have a right to file suit against the plagiarist. 

It's the same with my sermons. Again, I emphasize that I only speak for myself, not only as part of the royal priesthood of believers, but also as a writer. If another Christian desires to proclaim our Savior from a genuine conviction and longing to bring the Gospel to others, I have no qualms if they Xerox my work and recite it in their own diatribes. Reaching the hearts of our neighbors is far more important than letting everyone know how clever, creative, and original I am.

So, let this blog be a binding contract of sorts - I will not sue, I will not complain that my genius has been ripped off. If something I wrote or recorded for Christ is found to be pure and unadulterated truth, it makes no difference if my name is attached to it. The Name above all Names must be first, and mine not at all. I'm content being a creation rather than a creative.

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't rather preachers be creative and labor over their own sermons rather than recite someone else's work. But truth is truth, and I claim no copyright for it. Let truth abound.   

"It's Not True Because I Don't Like It"

In discussions with others concerning belief vs. non-belief in God, at least the God of the Bible, I'm often smugly bemused by some who, when explaining why they don't believe in God, bypass any scientific or logical reason and, instead, cite what they consider God's flaws: "how could God allow this?", "if He's good why would He do this?" etc. It was strange to me that they equated a perceived poor character with proof of nonexistence. 

But I recently realized I do the very same thing, in reverse. I think of life with no intelligent Creator as cold and empty, arbitrary and meaningless - but citing those negative views on disbelief in a moral God does not equal a rational explanation of why I don't take an atheistic view.

These mindsets on both the part of the believer and the nonbeliever are cut from the same irrational cloth as: "I want to go to Denny's and I don't like wearing a mask, so COVID is a hoax," or "I don't like that Trump lost the election, so it was rigged."

"It's not true because I don't like it" is an unreasonable and precarious way of thinking.

The Unfair Gospel of Jesus

Infamous serial killer, cannibal, and necrophiliac Jeffrey Dahmer accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior just two years or so before he himself was murdered in prison in 1994. For a life lived in disbelief, for well over a decade of murder and gruesome, vile acts upon other human beings, Jeffrey Dahmer served just over three years in custody before, according to the facets of the Christian Gospel, he was sent to the eternal bliss of Paradise. A saint simply being one who is in Christ, Jeffrey Dahmer holds the same title as Billy Graham.

This is unfair. The families of Dahmer's victims, who hoped to see him locked behind bars - and worse - received less than an ounce of justice when you consider Dahmer's short prison term on Earth, and the Gospel's promise that he, having accepted Christ, has been given eternal life with God.

The Gospel is a beautiful Gospel, but it's also a difficult one, a gritty one, a gory one, and by the standards of us fleshly creatures, a very unfair Gospel.

Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes may be unique in their exceptionally bizarre and heinous nature, but his circumstances as a whole are not. Multitudes and multitudes of sinners like Dahmer, like me, like you, have accepted the salvation offered by Jesus Christ through His sacrifice on the cross, and our crimes have been washed away, expunged from our records. We were not punished, we were not stoned to death by the congregation, not swallowed up by the earth, not plundered and torn apart by Babylonian invaders.

I, as the 57th worst sinner who ever lived, am not sorry for this. I feel no guilt or shame that I've been rescued from my sins while having paid no price for it to be so. I regret the price I made others pay in my sinful behavior, but the One who removed those crimes from my record doesn't desire that I wallow in shame and misery over it. He is faithful to give me tasks and duties to glorify Him, to live a life in light rather than the one I lived in darkness. But He's not required me to roll in ashes and beat my breast, declaring what miserable, rotten things I've done; He's not required me to pay a monetary tax as penance to keep me in His embrace.

This is grossly unfair. But if it's any consolation to the outside observer, God played by His own unfair rules when He came to Earth in the flesh and suffered just like you and I do.

He endured temptation, but was without sin. He faced scorn, ridicule and plots against His life, though He had done no wrong, though He had brought an abundance of good in His ministry. He endured every day frustrations and agonies like you and me. And, He was tried and condemned, though without sin, and executed in the most agonizing way possible. A true criminal, an insurrectionist named Barabbas, was meanwhile set free.

While He was fastened by nails to that ominous cross, slowly dying, a criminal crucified next to Him groaned in his own agony that this Man from Galilee had done nothing wrong, and asked the He remember him when He came into His kingdom - if the criminal even knew just what that meant.

The condemned sinless One declared to the condemned rotten one, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

For all his years of habitual offenses and recklessness, a few hours of faith in the One who shows grace and mercy brought the unknown criminal to eternal life where there is no more pain, decay, sorrow or death.

There is no way around it - the Gospel of grace is an unfair Gospel.

drawing by Albert Servaes

"'Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you'...So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen."
-Jesus Christ, Matthew 20:14, 16

3 Ignorant Things Christians Say About Jesus

My pastor is fond of calling it the Ricky Bobby syndrome: "I like to imagine Jesus as a mischievous badger"..."I like to imagine Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt - it's like, I wanna be formal, but I'm here to party." And so too do we often try and mold our Lord to our liking; we say we love Him, and we may even mean it, but our fleshly hearts and minds often manipulate our perception of Him so that He betters fits our personal, political, or social agendas, making it easier to love Him. Three of the things most often cited as attributes of God, though not Biblically sound, include:

1. "Religion/lawyers/politicians/rich people killed Jesus!"
Roundabout 2012 there was a rather popular video on YouTube called "Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus." It was a viral sensation, and was especially popular among those who like Jesus but also love to get hammered every other night and relish hating their exes for various offenses. It was also a popular share for non-Christians who felt they could use it to passive-aggressively spite their more obnoxious Christian friends. Many who touted the video's message had a bitter attitude about the notion that Jesus, though being rich in grace and mercy, could still disapprove of our sins and command us to repent, i.e., turn away from them: He says through Paul in Romans, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?"
When we imply that it was a conspiracy of rich religious leaders that led to Jesus' death, we make Him not the Son of God who came to save us from our sins, but some unwitting martyr. This is a grave mistake: Jesus was not led as a lamb to the slaughter by the will of men but by divine pre-ordination of His Father. He says in John, "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father." And later, to Pilate, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above."

We mistake religion for rules - understandably so, as many of our own have portrayed it that way - therefore we think Jesus and rules are mutually exclusive, we mistake the Law He came to fulfill to mean rules that don't apply, rules, rules, rules. We think this because we find His commands are too far from our comfort zones. But He told us long ago, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

This is not to say Jesus is found or pleased through works. But He certainly desires for us to follow His commands, lovingly crafted and given for our own sake. Not so He will love us, but because He loves us. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

2. "Jesus was a rebel!"

Jesus was and is certainly a controversial and counter-cultural Figure, no matter what place in history one uses as context. No one who claims to be God is going to be without controversy. He indeed turned the world as it was known upside down. But we often distort this counter-cultural element, again to fit our own desires, into a character of sheer rebellion and in-your-face protest. "If Jesus were here, He'd tell [insert social enemy here] where they can stick their [insert policy here]!" "If Jesus were here, He'd be holding a protest sign with the rest of us at the [insert cause here] rally!" 

But this notion of a James Dean/Marlon Brando anti-establishment mouthpiece is Scripturally incorrect. He did not desire to be some voice of the disillusioned; He did not seek to be a trending socio-political hero. He often told those for whom He performed miracles and healings to tell no one about it, and even told His disciples on at least one occasion to "tell no one that He was the Christ" until He was glorified. He knew God's plan, that all of these things would be revealed and manifest to the world - He was not a publicity seeker for some grass-roots campaign. 

Matthew quotes the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah concerning Him: "He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands shall wait for His law." Jesus did not come into the world simply to be a noisy inconvenience to the Pharisees, the establishment, and "the man," whoever that may be. His truth would shine forth throughout the world, by the glory of God, through His disciples given the task to proclaim that truth, but this proclamation did not come from the lusty cries of self-proclaimed rebels.

3. "God is Love!"

Being that God is such a complex and ominous God (why should we lower ourselves to worship only a god we can understand?), many of us try to do one of two things with our claims about Him: we either complicate Him with winding and lofty theological diatribes, or we oversimplify Him. The former can be confusing and a hindrance to the walk of believers - especially new believers - while the latter is just as dangerous in that it attempts to cram a mighty Savior into a compact box with attractive wrapping. Much like when we claim "Jesus hates religion," we try to compress Him into one characteristic like love because our flesh is weak and we can't accept that there are difficult and agonizing tasks He has given us to do; tasks that are not world-friendly, tasks that won't make us popular with progressive or conservative dogmatic in-crowds, tasks that kick down our boundaries and invade our comfort zones. By dumbing down the idea of God to simply "love," we not only impress those around us with our perceived compassion, but we free ourselves from duties that make ourselves and others uncomfortable, justified by the battle cry "but I have love!"
1 John is a book that stresses the importance of love in the Christian's walk; and indeed 1 John 4:8 says explicitly, "God is love.," But this does not mean love is His sole attribute, and it certainly doesn't mean God is merely the concept of love. Rather, He is the Source, Cause, and Creator of all pure forms of love. 

The truth is, Jesus, being God, is far too big to fit into our poorly constructed boxes, made by we who see only through a dim glass: He is not a hippie, a socialist, a conservative, a rebel, a moralist, a pacifist, right-wing, left-wing, Libertarian. He is God, and though He is complex and mysterious He so greatly desired a relationship with us limited human beings that He came to Earth in the flesh, to suffer as we do, to give Himself for our sins, so that we may abandon our worldly gods and have a relationship with Him - a personal relationship with a God whose attributes are unfathomable and who - unfathomably - wants to embrace and save such ignorant people as you and me.

Religion & Bondage

Sometimes I get a slap on the wrist from other Christians if I call my faith "my religion." As the expression goes which we often repeat, "it's not a religion - it's a relationship with Christ." That's the absolute truth. All human rituals and superstitions are dissolved by Christ's sacrifice on the cross and we can have a personal relationship with God the Father through Him and His atoning death and resurrection. And, I suppose another reason Christians don't like for Christianity to be called a religion is due to the world's habit of lumping all beliefs in all deities of any kind or source into one big hasty pile called "religion." God is holy, a word meaning set apart; I can certainly understand, in that respect, why my brothers and sisters in Christ may wince at our faith being added to the pile of religion.

But for me personally, I hope to be religious in the most literal and spiritual sense. The word religion means "bondage." I yearn to be, as Paul was called, "a bondservant of Christ." I want to be fettered to Him with chains I couldn't break if I tried - and I do try, all day and all night sometimes, to break "the ties that bind" Him to me. My natural self craves things harmful to me and others, and harmful to my relationship with God; so my flesh claws at the chains that keep me attached to Jesus. And though it is an "easy yoke, a light burden," He strengthens the shackles for my own good.

I want to be a slave of Jesus Christ, my heart fettered to His.

Thank God for these bonds! The fleshly, worldly mind would object, "I don't want to be a slave! I want to have freedom in my own thoughts, my own desires! What about what I want?"
I'm scared to death of my own thoughts and desires. I'm such a rotten and wretched man without Christ and His Scripture that any thought or deed I've done apart from Him, anything I've done or said in which I had to run from Him with an unsteady, shackled trot, has been selfish, greedy, lustful, bitter, hateful, bigoted, racist, arrogant. All the things Christ despises, all the things He died to cleanse me from. My imagination is one of my worst enemies.

When humankind is left to its own devices, we come up with the most miserable and vile things we can imagine. We murder, rape, torture, bicker, hate, fight, covet, exploit, abuse, turn a blind eye to injustice and want, indulge in the safety of ignorance, and find a hollow solace in the thought that we're following our own course, the course of human history, governed by humankind's own majestic imagination.

I don't want that. The rest of the world can have its freedom, but I want to find my liberty and peace on the narrow way described by Jesus. It's not fun - it's gritty, it's painful, it's boring, it invites criticism and humiliation. But I would desperately rather be a slave to what is good than a free subject of sin, leaving a wake of hurt and despair wherever I roam.

The most frightening thing God can to do someone is to let them have what they want.

Lord, chain me to Your heart!

A Thing is a Thing, Not What You Think About That Thing

There's a copy-n-paste post going around the ol' Facebook that, to paraphrase, asks people the question, "If my faith in Christ does no harm to you, why are you so against it?" I tend to avoid copy-n-paste things, but one comment on such a post caught my eye:

"lol this is so dumb. Your faith is the biggest argument against equal rights for the LGBT community, the reason why planned parent hood is being defunded , religion is the reason for all of the war in the world. Dumb, gullible, ignorant and oppressive. That's the harm it brings"

What the person who wrote this comment failed to realize is that the Christian faith in itself is not to blame, but people who misunderstand and misuse it.
One doesn't need faith to harm people - Hitler had no faith in any deity, yet he persecuted gays, much like Che Guevara, also an atheist. Not to mention the Marxist atheism that led the likes of Stalin to kill and imprison countless religious Russians. Rather, it is the misuse of a faith (or lack thereof) that causes harm. If a Christian tries to legislate morality by instilling their belief into law, that is misuse of that faith. I cannot support the decision to outlaw gay marriage due to my religious belief, which does not condone it. Concerning any similar situation, how can I hold non-believers to a standard that even I, a believer, can't live up to? That's why I need Jesus, after all.
There are exceptions of course: if a faith teaches against things that are universally agreed upon (well, sort of) by everyone of all faiths and lacks of faith: like murder, robbery, rape, etc. On the flip side, if a faith, condones and encourages something dangerous, like blowing up things in order to bring people into submission to their deity, then that faith must then be considered harmful.

But even the Bible does not teach that faith is something to be imposed on people, but must be a choice. The Crusades, the Inquisitions, were all wrong. So, again, it's not the faith that brings harm - it's those who misuse it. If I claimed Christopher Hitchens was risen from the grave and wanted me to oppress gays, when that's clearly not true, it would be no reflection on Mr. Hitchens - it would be only the result of my own deluded, erroneous use of his name. Likewise with Christianity.

A simple way to put it: a thing is a thing, and not what people say or think about that thing.

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-15-15: "I Saw It On TV"

If asked to give a reason as to why I believe the entirety of God's word, this book we came to call the Bible, to be the absolute truth, I suppose one of my answers would be that I've seen it all unfold before me on television.
The Bible is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, and it peddles no easy answers. It promises persecution and hardship for those who zealously believe and proclaim it, and assures us that evil lies in the hearts of humanity, as our race chooses every day to disavow and disobey the loving and merciful Christ through whom we were formed. I've seen people do hideous things even in His name, blaspheming their Creator who despises such violence and corruption.

On TV, I've seen President Kennedy shot down in Dallas by a confused, aspiring revolutionary. I've seen men fight in Vietnam and be spat upon by their countrymen upon returning home, called "babykillers" by those who claimed to love peace. I've seen masked men kill hostages in Munich during the Olympics. I've seen politicians and trusted public servants lie under deposition when accused of wrongdoing. I've seen a twisted man bent on revenge for what went down at the compound in Waco blow up a building and kill children in Oklahoma City. I've seen planes flown into the World Trade Center towers by suicidal maniacs. I've seen a deranged twenty-year-old man enter a school in Connecticut and slaughter teachers and children; I then saw other mad men deny the first mad man ever existed. I saw one hundred twenty people robbed of their lives in Paris by men who gave themselves the right with bullets and hatred.

And, on TV, I've seen a child called Genie raised in isolation for thirteen years, a child developmentally disabled by abuse, who could not speak, delight in laughter and joy at the sight of helium balloons; I saw her use her hands to communicate, sign language that opened her heart to those around her.
On TV, I saw men and women in New York City risk their lives and abandon their own safety to rescue others in the midst of raining rubble as towers collapsed behind them. I saw a Holocaust victim named Eva Kor forgive and embrace a former SS bookkeeper, Oskar Gröning, at his trial, encouraging him to continue to tell the truth about an atrocity that many deny ever took place. I saw Amish men and women extend forgiveness to a deviant who entered their schoolhouse and executed their daughters; I saw one Amish man embrace the gunman's father. I saw men, victims of prejudice, released from prison for murders they did not commit, freed by DNA, by truth, and by faith, against all odds, against all hope.

On TV, I've seen human beings do the evil that only comes from hating and rejecting the love of God, the love He instills even in those who don't believe He could do so. And I've seen the good that can only come from Him, in the midst of the ugliness in this world, good and mercy so alien to us fleshly, greedy, angry, creatures who desperately need our Savior. You don't have to take my word for it, but I tell you, I've seen it in person, right before my very eyes. And what I wasn't there to see, I saw it on TV.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings."
-Jeremiah 17:9-10

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 9-20-15: "Queen Elsa Rhapsody"

This past Tuesday saw my last performance of my "summer job," playing Queen Elsa at children's birthday parties. I probably could have kept up the performances through the winter (fitting, as the character is from a movie called Frozen), but at this last party, I exhaled a little too hard and the paunch of my Elsa costume tore. This job playing Queen Elsa was a tough one. Not just because I've still never seen Frozen and didn't know what to say to the kids (besides "you kids go play - ol' Captain Bud needs to sit down"), but also because a nagging thought stayed in my mind, namely, a statute in the Torah (the Mosaic Law) that forbids transvestism.
I tried to remind myself, "It's not like I'm Tim Curry in Rocky Horror. And I'm not wearing this stuff to fill some sensual thrill."

God reminded me of what He spoke through the great prophet Jeremiah to disobedient, wandering Judah: "For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you'" (Jeremiah 7:22-23).

Obey God's voice. And what does God's voice speak to us under the New Covenant sealed by His own blood on the cross, a Covenant foretold by the Torah itself? God speaks, saying we are not under the threat of a cosmic hammer; we are not under the world's misconception of God - we are under the law of the true God. Not the Law of the Moses, the Torah, that beautiful prelude of salvation to come, but the law of grace and righteousness in Christ Jesus.

As I learn more that Christianity is not about rules and fear, I realize that the "secular" world has barked more orders at me than any pastor ever did. The world tells me: "Don't do this, don't do that. Don't say this, don't say that, lest you feel the wrath of Twitter and a boycott. Don't eat this, don't eat that. This is now acceptable, that is not. Saints worthy of praise are: Darwin, Dylan, Reagan, Roosevelt, O'Reilly, O'Maher. And, beware of boogeymen and devils like the Illuminati and vaccines that cause autism."
The world makes for a fickle god with its own unstable religious doctrine. A doctrine of rules and regulations, of exclusion and prejudice, of ignorance, of humiliation, with no redemption unless Oprah can get a tearful interview from it.

I thank God that His voice commands no such things. I thank God that His voice calls me back to Him when I stray, reminds me of the unkillable truth of His joy when I'm alone. I thank God for such a beautiful voice to obey.

OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" -2 Corinthians 3:7-11

The Levite's Concubine: Superstitious Barbarians of the 21st Century

Being that every "trending" news story on my Facebook feed deals with someone killing someone else, I was moved to write this a couple of weeks ago.

One of the most disturbing villains in the Bible is often overlooked, despite the heinous nature of his deed. He doesn't have the notorious reputation of Jezebel or Herod - his name isn't even recorded - but he obviously possessed a mind as sadistic. To summarize a long story, in the nineteenth chapter of the stark and often troubling book of Judges, we're told of an unnamed Levite who, while traveling with his concubine, stayed in the village of Gibeah. There, certain men echoing the depravity of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, surrounded the house where the Levite and his concubine were staying, and demanded to have sex with him. The Levite refused, and forced his concubine outside with the men, who "ravished her so that she died."

The woman later stumbled back to the house and collapsed dead at the doorstep. When the Levite found her, his words of anguish and lament (sarcasm) were, "Get up, let's go." So, seeing that she was dead, he placed her body on his donkey, and when he returned home, he cut her corpse into twelve pieces, and sent a piece of her to each territory of Israel. In the next chapter, he gave his reason for his hideous actions, claiming he did it to make the nation of Israel aware of the rape the men in Gibeah had committed (though it was he who had given her up to them).
All of this wickedness eventually led to a war in Israel.
The final words of the startling book of Judges perfectly sum up why so many atrocities happened in Israel during this period: "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

Today, cozy with Snuggies and Netflix, we look back on such things and want to throw up in disgust, and rightfully so. "Barbaric," we say with disdain. But we, as if we were anthropologists of morality, separate ourselves and our own time from wickedness such as this; we attribute it to a lack of common sense and an abundance of ancient religious superstition. We muse in our minds that today's society, safe in the embrace of the legacies of Steve Jobs and Stephen Hawking, is above such depravity.

But, a look at a few of this year's (2014) news headlines suggests otherwise:
"Body of missing 4-year-old autistic boy found in South Carolina pond."
"8 children stabbed to death in the Cairns suburb of Manoora."
"Boko Haram insurgents kidnap at least 185 women and children in Nigeria."
"Edmonton mass murder: bodies of 7 adults, 2 children found in 3 places."
"Pakistan: Taliban school attack kills 141, including 132 children."
"Dover, NH: Man shoots wife, self in hospital; sister says he did it 'out of love.'"

We gloss over the fact that it wasn't even one hundred years ago that many in the nation of Germany followed a madman named Adolf Hitler and gleefully supported the Nazis' quest to annihilate the Jews from the face of the planet. And we forget there is no shortage of groups today that mold their ideals and charters after these monsters. And we forge that just fifty years ago, these groups in our own country were lynching men for the color of their skin, as racist mayors were unleashing vicious dogs.

Yet we have the nerve to assert that faith in God is out of place in this modern, "civilized" age of reason and carbon dating.

The most strident of atheists looks at the roots of religion - any religion - as a blithering group of bumpkins and jumpy, guilty simpletons attributing good and bad to an object, some stone monolith perhaps, and bowing down to it with caveman-like grunts and Pentecostal-like hooting. But I see the exact same thing happening in the unbelieving world today, in reverse: those who curse the notion of faith in disgust bowing down to the accelerator mass spectrometer, with proud announcements that carbon dating and the humor of Seth MacFarlane have come to save us from religion, and if we only believe in the words of Christopher Hitchens, we can be saved from ghastly superstitions of old, and everything will be alright - and explained.

Before and after the Flood, God describes, as a whole and without exception, the natural hearts of man as continually evil. We need a Savior. We need a Power not of our own making. We are wretched by nature, and would never tell ourselves so. We exalt ourselves like the Pharisees who plotted to kill Jesus, that we are above the barbaric nature of men of old. But an hour spent watching the news proves otherwise.

We need Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was given as an atonement for our sins, so that our hearts may be open to true love, to the knowledge of the mercy and grace of God, the zealous desire He has to cleanse us of sin and give us everlasting life.
We today are no better than the marauders and rapists of ancient days. The ability to Skype has not made the hearts of man any less prone to fanaticism, racism, or barbarianism.

"Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, who dwell securely, who say in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know the loss of children'; But these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: the loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness because of the multitude of your sorceries, for the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, 'No one sees me'; your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; and you have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one else besides me.' Therefore evil shall come upon you; you shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; you will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know" (Isaiah 47:8-11).

Hashtags and ribbons for awareness don't make us better than killers, thieves, and rapists of eras gone by. Only the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ can deliver us from our evil selves. Dismissing this God we call a superstition, an ignorant crutch, has not made our hands less bloody, our minds less warped, our wisdom less hollow. In denying the need to be more like the repentant thief on the cross, we remain the brute, barbaric Levite. And what's more, we are Pharisees of time: we exalt ourselves as better than the dregs of days past because we can read On the Origin of Species and watch Religulous on our tablets, with a handful of Starbucks, and a mouthful of gluten-free pretzel puffs.

"There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
-Luke 13:1-9

That's Not Science - And That's Not Jesus

A few months ago, a friend asked me about my widely criticized, Biblically-influenced, belief that our planet is only several thousand years old, rather than the hundreds of millions of years believed by most scientists (though to be honest, even if one goes by the Bible, he still has no positive idea how old this world is). I didn't want to debate my beliefs, and basically stated that I trust God more than I trust man, and that I believe in the divinity of His word, this Book we came to call the Bible. I don't dispute that my spiritual beliefs are dogmatic - if I believe something to be an absolute truth, such as "2 plus 3 makes 5," I also can't help but be "dogmatic" if I refuse to believe the possible answer could be pi. When pressed further about my beliefs, I pointed out how many times scientists have been wrong over the centuries; for example, many of Aristotle's theories are now known to be butt-over-tea-kettle wrong, and yet he's still lauded as one of the grandfathers of science.

My friend's response was simply, "That wasn't science."

For a while, I thought that to be a silly and dodgy answer. But the more I thought about it, I realized my friend was right. No, Aristotle's misses weren't science. I believe God gave us science to study and better care for our environment, our bodies, and so forth - and being so, I believe true science, much like true religion, holds one true answer to our questions, even if man provides a myriad of blunders to try and explain them.
Man's wrongs don't render science null and void. Even now-defunct scientific theories that were widely held until just the 19th century - the Miasmatic theory of disease, Luminiferous aether, the immovability of Earth's continents, the "static universe" (if I've misspelled Miasmatic or Luminiferous, I apologize) - have been debunked and abandoned in droves, yet that doesn't make science a waste of time. And it didn't negate the many times scientists have been right to be somehow wrong.

Likewise, man's wrongs don't render my God or my faith in Jesus as the Messiah to be useless. The Westboro Baptist Churches, the false doctrines of Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and etc., are all against God's words, twisted doctrines that claim Him but are in direct opposition to His truth. Man's lies and evil actions don't render God's truth ineffective. Fred Phelps was to Christianity what Immanuel Velikovsky was to independent theory. The abominable "Phinehas Priesthood" is to Christianity what Cyrus Teed was to...to um, not-getting-electrocuted-and-developing-wildly-inaccurate-theories-about-the-planet.

If a person does something in the name of Christ that is actually against Christ - picketing funerals, condemning someone to hell while frothing at the mouth, banishing someone from attending their church because they've been divorced, etc. - this is not the command or love of Christ. Much like my friend's assertion that it was not "science" to believe the universe to be spherical and finite. Just because I misidentified that obsolete belief with science doesn't make it science.

A disproven theory is not science, much like hypocrisy is not Jesus.

I've always found the Bible to be in harmony with nature and science. Certainly the Bible acknowledges God's creation and sovereignty over these things (Psalm 147:8, Isaiah 5:6, Job chapters 38 and 39), which many dispute. I understand that. But, the Bible doesn't claim that angels dump buckets of water from the sky to make rain - it acknowledges rain as moisture and precipitation descending from clouds (Psalm 147:8, Proverbs 25:14, Ecclesiastes 11:3, etc.). The Bible doesn't claim mischievous sprites make flowers and grass in underground factories - it acknowledges that plants need seeds, rain, soil, and such to grow (Deuteronomy 32:2, Leviticus 26:4, Jesus' parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, etc.).
The Bible never described Earth as a flat center of the universe, but a planet suspended in space, when as yet no images from satellites and space stations existed (Job 26:7 - Job is, by the way, widely accepted, even among non-believing scholars, to be among, if not the, oldest recorded book of the Bible).
The Bible never claimed a fixed amount of stars or celestial bodies, as other early astronomers did - God alluded to an uncountable amount of stars when He told Abraham in Genesis 15:5, "'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'"

Likewise, when contrasted with myths, the Bible always makes a distinction between the natural and the Supernatural. Unlike in the myth of Icarus, where it was supposed that men are just somehow able to fly when they strap wax wings to themselves. I once read a Native American legend during which a warrior went to sleep and told his thigh (or in other versions, his excrement) to keep watch and speak to warn him if enemies approached - because apparently that's just how it works.
Not in the Bible. When miraculous and awesome events are described, they're always separated from natural occurrence and attributed to the supernatural work of an omnipotent and all-powerful God. This ranges from Creation to the plagues of Egypt to Jonah surviving in the belly of a large fish, and most importantly, to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It's a Pasteur-like dismissal of spontaneous generation - the Bible teaches that the awesome doesn't "just happen."

Scientists and science may not always, nor have they always been, in harmony. And, those who claim the name of Christ are not in harmony with the truth of the Lord when they blaspheme His name with evil ideas and doctrines.
But truth can never be separated from itself. 

The New Pharisees (Why Hating Religion is a Very Religious Theology)

The problem with trying to fit the Gospel of Jesus Christ into a passing fad slogan, like “WWJD?” or “I Hate Religion, But I Love Jesus,” is that a mere catchphrase does not and cannot encompass all of the gorgeous truth of Jesus, nor do they tell of all His gifts and sacrifices, neither of His teachings and commands. This was the big problem with “What Would Jesus Do?” For one, it implied Him hypothetically, when the fact is that Jesus does still work today, being alive and well; any good we do is His labor on our hearts. The slogan also failed to tell of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection.

This past year, YouTube and Facebook were swarmed with the popularity of a spoken word poem/video that proclaimed hating religion but loving Jesus. The problem with a wildfire catchphrase instead of the wildfire Gospel, again, is that it failed to proclaim all of the good news about Christ; only God’s word does that, this big Book we came to call the Bible.
But the more disconcerting problem with “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” is that so many believers, and non-believers, failed to grasp what hating religion truly entails.

Anti-religious theology in Christianity is nothing new. Pastors like Mark Driscoll, a wonderful speaker but one who is often more concerned with making a hip, in-your-face theological statement than with following Scripture, have often made not-quite-accurate statements like “religion killed Jesus,” and further condemns “religious people.”
If Isaiah chapter 53, John 10:17-18, and many other passages, give anything to this matter - which they do, being the very word of God - we’re told that Jesus’ sacrifice was the will of God the Father, that you and I would be reconciled to Him. It was not the will of rich villains that Jesus die for us, He was not an unwitting or unwilling Martyr that held the convenient side effect of saving our souls. No, Jesus’ death was the will of His Father God, a predetermined event first foretold by God Himself when He cast Adam and Eve out of Eden.

Did the New Covenant free us from offering sacrifices or other things that today one would call “religious?” Of course. But religion was not what led Jesus to the cross. It was the desire of God to free us from sin. And as we’re told in Romans, the Law (the Torah) was not sin.

The religion, so to speak, condemned by Jesus was the notion that our works save us; the belief that sinning less than one’s neighbor make us better, that physical and temporary rituals justify us, that anything other than Jesus is what redeems us. That is the religion condemned by Jesus Christ. He did not condemn going to church on Sundays, or some other day, to have fellowship with believers, did not condemn the idea of tithing, did not condemn giving to the poor (quite the polar opposite, actually).

The funny aspect of so many of my brothers and sisters who ravenously condemn “religion” is that they, in their theological dogma, become quite religious themselves, at least by their definition of the word.

I've been judged by a brother for putting a dollar in the collection plate (yes, I’m very cheap). He denounced the notion of tithing at church, and went so far as to say that anyone who does so only does so for approval by other church members (I don’t know how he knew the hearts and minds of everyone who tithes, but that’s another matter). This naturally made me very wary of putting anything in the collection plate, even if it was my usual I.O.U., for fear of my brother’s criticism.
So, my brother’s anti-religious theology had the same effect of the self-righteous scolding of a Pharisee; a Pharisee who might have scolded someone for bringing his donkey out of a ditch on the Sabbath, or partaking of a Feast with unwashed hands. During the time of Jesus’ walk as a Man, Pharisees routinely berated others they deemed in violation of the Law, and exalted themselves above them. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who pray in the temple is an astounding illustration of the mind of the religion He indeed condemns.

So, my brothers’ denouncement of my putting money in the church collection plate (or the I.O.U. I indeed would have tried to pay), though knowing nothing of my heart’s intent, told me that my deed was not good enough, and his view made him closer to God in a hip, new way because he deems himself smarter than, or above, some weekly thing done by other believers.

Do you really think Pharisees are gone, that they don’t scold and judge among us today? Do you really think you're incapable of judging others, of esteeming yourself better than anyone, just because you deem yourself “non-religious?”
No, the Pharisaical mind is still alive and well. Not only in those who exalt themselves because they follow tradition, but in those who exalt themselves because they don’t.

The Pharisaical mind is alive and well in those who curse a brother or sister because they pray in the King James “thy” and “thou” language, in those who label another believer’s worship “not good enough” because he does it the same day every week at the same building.

Tell me, how is this different than the Pharisees who condemned their brothers and sisters two thousand years ago?

“…he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wrangling of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.” -1 Timothy 6:4-5
“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” -Philippians 2:3