Traitors for Christ
He exists.
Now, if you are a Christian you already believed that, so it’s not so shocking, eh?
If you aren’t a Christian, you don’t believe it anyway.
In either case, don’t you feel the article’s title makes this post bait-and-switch? You were promised something amazing and got quite the opposite. You have every reason to be annoyed.
Clickbait. Continue reading “The Shocking Truth About the Christian God”
This is cross-posted on qm101.co blog…but I think it is applicable in a Christian context too…
I’ve used this analogy at home and at work to encourage people to keep their “eye on the prize.”
You want to get from point A to point B.
You should be able to go in a straight line. You have every right to be frustrated because you cannot go directly from point A to point B. It may be unfair that a straight line from point A to point B is being blocked.
The list could go on, but it all doesn’t matter, because…
Ultimately, you want to go fro point A to point B.
So, zigzag if you have to.
Every weekday morning when I am home and he has school, I get Augie up and grab the next random book in the series of Arch Books Bible stories. The last article I was reading beforehand on the exercycle was about the alleged“Rape Culture in the Alaskan Wilderness”, but the book was about Jesus raising Jairus’ tween daughter…and even taking time afterward to make sure the girl got food (see Luke 8:40-42, 49-56).
Odd juxtaposition. Man’s actions. Jesus’ actions.
I choose Jesus.
Although I can’t say I was a fan of much of his managerial approach, in a former job one of our parent company’s Cs had an expression, “over their skis,” for people who were in positions they were not qualified for. (I confess that I always worried that he placed me in that category, although he never said he did.)
His statement comes to mind as I continue my trek this year through the entire Bible (now in Ezekiel) and read of the harsh punishments God had for both his chosen nation and nations around them. I will admit I mentally wrestle with how our Lord could use those methods (especially if I allow myself to think about how the young suffered). Yes, as a whole the destruction He brings is done by the hands of other humans (not directly by Him), but that doesn’t change anything, does it? God still has, at a minimum, allowed rape, pillaging, starvation, murder, etcetera as a form of discipline.
If you had the power to stop that, especially for the innocent, defenseless children…wouldn’t you?!
But God not only didn’t, He leveraged it retributively.
And then I am reminded that even though, no, I was not over my skis in that previous job…
I am over my skis in how a universe should be run and how to effectively deal with sin with an eternal perspective…just as our original parents where over their skis when it came to judging whether God was righteous in telling them not to eat of a single tree.
Who am I to judge God? Nobody. Worse. I am over my skis.
During today’s visit to Red Rocks Park I was reminded that no matter how much destruction sin has wrought…
God created life to be amazingly tenacious…
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1, English Standard Version).
Every Saturday since Augie was a toddler, he and I have gone out for a daddy/son only breakfast. As a dad who has travelled and worked too much, it has been an immeasurable blessing. In Antrim, New Hampshire we went to T-Bird (which has a Dunkin’ Donuts); here near Denver Burger King is our normal haunt. If you have ever had BK’s hash browns (with a liberal amount of ketchup), you will understand why. 🙂 Last week, as Augie waited at the counter for our food, I took a picture of his empty chair and tagged it as “Invisible Augie” (we always sit in the same exact place unless some nefarious person grabs his table). This week it took thick dad a bit to realize what Augie meant when he said he had to go to the counter for “Invisible Augie”…but after he mentioned a picture, I caught on. 🙂 However, this week’s tragic suicide of teenager Braxton Caner made me think of how it would be if the image above became permanent. What would I do if “Invisible Augie” permanently replaced “Visible Augie”?: 
Would I still go to Burger King each week? If I did, would the empty chair be an overwhelming painful reminder of what I lost? How would I handle it? How could I handle it? I quickly banished the thought then (and am doing so now) because allowing my mind to wander into that unthinkable space would bring me to tears. Yet, in about an 15 minutes, another father, Ergun Caner, will be again faced with that unthinkable reality as he, his wife Jill, his church, and Braxton’s friends gather together to remember a child who will never be in his dad’s photos again this side of eternity: https://twitter.com/erguncaner/status/494899632023928832
Service for the life of Braxton Caner: Saturday, Aug 2, 2014 at 2pm at New River Church (Hudson Oaks TX)- http://t.co/f5NGnj9bwM
How will he handle it? How could he handle it? With a hope that only Christians can have: https://twitter.com/erguncaner/status/494631123159220226
No words. No sermon. No funny quotes. No answers. No note. Nothing but excruciating pain & the assurance that I’ll see him in Glory
That hope does not mean we do not mourn; the tearing away of part of our heart, albeit temporarily, is still an excruciatingly painful experience. But it is a hope backed by a promise: https://twitter.com/erguncaner/status/494378251649699840
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
Although I agree with Ergun’s choice of Scripture, I prefer to go all the way to verse 18:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, English Standard Version).
One of the things that has blessed me in following Ergun on Twitter has been the pictures he takes with his boys. It shows a mutual love between dad and sons that is unmistakable. I only interacted once with Braxton (and his response to me no longer is available on Twitter)… https://twitter.com/AlanCult/status/484532040407056386
@braxtoncaner89 Kudos to you for standing up for your dad. @erguncaner
..but I will miss him. I will miss the selfies with him and his dad. Yes, I know that “with the voice of an archangel” Braxton will rise again (and I will get a chance to finally meet him in person), but those “empty” photographs will be a painful reminder of what sin has wrought on this earth. (For clarity’s sake I do not mean Braxton’s sin…I mean our sin…which first started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and which every single human, except One, has repeated in one form or another.) As my thoughts for this article started wrapping up, this exchange in the movie Serenity came to mind (where a government agent is reviewing footage of a patient’s escape with the doctor overseeing her “treatment”):
Dr. Mathias: [referring to Dr. Simon Tam who has just helped his sister, River Tam, escape] Gave up a brilliant future in medicine as well. It’s madness.
The Operative: Madness?
[Ambles over to the holographic projection of River and Simon escaping through an air vent]
The Operative: Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At his face? It’s love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous.
Look into Braxton’s face in this picture and tell me what you see (image from @erguncaner’s Twitter feed): 
“It’s love, in point of fact.”
From Twitter:
“Where it all ends I can't fathom, my friends. If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.” ― Jimmy Buffett
— Amazon Music (@amazonmusic) July 26, 2014
@amazonmusic: “Where it all ends I can’t fathom, my friends. If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.” ― Jimmy Buffett
As much as any person can, I know where it all ends and I highly recommend Jimmy throw out this anchor:
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain (Hebrews 6:19, ESV).
And this anchor is not limiting, it is freeing…
July 29, 2014 update: WordPress notified me that my site had a large increase in traffic today. Checking the stats, it was this post specifically. Not too much later I read on Twitter the likely reason: Braxton Caner is reported to have committed suicide. My heart aches. Pray for Jill and Egun Caner, their family and church, and his friends. May The Lord comfort them all during this tragic time.
August 11, 2014 update: JD Hall (accused of being culpable) has spoken publicly about the tragedy: http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=81114049210 (please be sure to listen before judging him).
Although it wasn’t overwhelming, last night I generated a bit of traffic on my Twitter timeline with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/AlanCult/status/484532040407056386
@braxtoncaner89 Kudos to you for standing up for your dad. @erguncaner
Braxton is Ergun Caner’s 15 year-old son. Ergun Caner is infamous in some evangelical circles because, at a minimum, he embellished his life story at time when 9/11 made an exciting Muslim-to-Christian conversion story appealing (and, arguably, profitable).
More than one person on Twitter took my tweet as either endorsing the father’s behavior or approving the son’s (assumed) defense of his dad’s actions. However…
https://twitter.com/AlanCult/status/484536452064092160
@MosesModel My tweet to Ergun’s son was supporting a boy standing up for his dad, not weighing in on Ergun himself. Does that make sense?
Now, what caused me to speak up in the first place was reading that some adults on Twitter were going after Braxton (UPDATE: this link no longer works). In a nation where the government and the media treat fathers, at best, as unneeded and, at worst, as buffoons or evil (or evil buffoons), I wanted to commend a boy for standing up for his dad.
And I did. 🙂
But, in fairness to some of those who reacted, I hesitated before I sent the original tweet because I knew it could come off as supporting Ergun Caner. Considering I’ve now stepped into the controversy about Ergun, I figured it was time to elaborate on what I think about him.
Continue reading “In Defense of Braxton (I.E. What I Think About Ergun Caner)”
The concept of free will could be little more than the result of background noise in the brain, according to a recent study.
Okay…
According to the research, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, decisions could be predicted based on the pattern of brain activity immediately before a choice was made.
Well, looks like we can get into a bit of a “Does foreknowledge require predestination?” argument. But avoiding that tangent…
“The state of the brain right before presentation of the cue determines whether you will attend to the left or to the right,” Bengson said.
Well, a few thoughts: Continue reading “Free Will == Brain Background Noise?”
As I looked out of our apartment complex’s exercise club window into the playground I saw a toddler in one of the swings…
Her mom gave her a single push while actively chatting on her smart phone (and holding the leash of two dogs which, coincidentally, shouldn’t be in the playground).
The toddler had her head turned away from the bright sun and just sat there as her chair swung slower…
And slower…
And slower…
I thought to myself, “That is ‘minimum effort parenting.'” Continue reading “Minimum Parental Effort”
“If you’ve got nothing to hide, then…”
Isn’t that a popular refrain as authorities continue to incrementally invade our privacy?
This is not a political blog; it is a religious one. However, government spying has real-world implications to believers around the world. In many places it is impossible to show your unapproved faith in public (or at least dangerous to), so as nations progressively blur the line between public and private it is sure to increase religious persecution.
So, today I got into a waiting line for ProtonMail, which allows users to e-mail each other in the most secure way possible (and for free). Although it should be noted that nothing is perfectly secure, kudos to those trying to keep private…well…private.
You can sign up for ProtonMail here and donate to their Indiegogo campaign for ProtonMail here. I did both.
Oh, and you can always pray for ProtonMail and innocent people around the world who need the service more than we do. I will do both.
I meant to write these thoughts on my birthday, but as I’ve gotten older time seems to move much more quickly. (Oh, to be 10 again when it seemed like 20 would never come.) A half century has made me appreciate every second of time more; it seems unfair that simultaneously it should pass with increasing rapidity.
But, regardless of its acceleration, there are certain milestones in time that are worthy of inner and outer reflection..and this is one. Going with the “outer” first, this blue planet has never seemed in worse (and worsening) condition to me. And no, it’s not because I am so much more aware of sin (and the results of sin)…decades ago I already agreed with Poison’s statement in “Something to Believe In”: “Sometimes I wish to God I didn’t know now the things I didn’t know then.” Yes, knowledge is a curse in this respect, but it is not why the clouds I see on the horizon are so dark and foreboding. Continue reading “50”
Before an article I posted earlier today, I wrote this on Facebook and Twitter:
Why do we assume a God who can create time can only create it from the beginning forward?
On Facebook my friend Terrance commented:
Elaborate !!! Sounds Interesting
To which I responded: Continue reading “Why Do We Assume a God…?”
Today (and maybe yesterday) I ran into multiple links to “Pope Francis wants Catholics to doubt the Church. He’s right.” by Kyle Cupp. I would posit it is two articles in one.
The first theme is what led to the title of this post (“A House of Cards”) and has to do with infallible belief systems:
According to Catholicism, the core doctrines of the church express absolute truth and therefore cannot be altered, but paradoxically this premise doesn’t preclude changes to its teaching. In the parlance of the church, it only means that a previously proposed understanding wasn’t really unchangeable doctrine. Still, a big deal. By merely entertaining doctrinal development, the church entices believers to question its authority and the exact content of its faith.
Catholicism isn’t the only church that claims inerrancy (at least in aspects)…think of even more recent pseudo-Christian denominations like the Church of Latter Day Saints and Jehovah Witnesses. When a group that has claimed to have a corner on truth changes truth…well, it’s a house of cards. Pull one out (the first wrong “truth” as proven by changing it) and the whole thing crashes down.
Not that folks will not find mental ways to avoid that fact.
The second main point I gleaned out of Cupp’s piece is that, when it comes to God, there really is no way to completely “know” Him: Continue reading “A House of Cards”
…morally corrupt.
Or so it seems to me.
I am not alone:
“Survivor Is The Most Morally Contemptible Show On TV”
Since I am on a mini-vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my family I won’t go into full blown sermonizing, but seriously think about what reality TV encourages (in its subjects and its viewers) and why you watch it. I suspect we are be the equivalent of a NASCAR spectators who only watch the races to see the crashes.
P.S. And I do realize the vast majority of NASCAR viewers don’t fit my example…but I do suspect the vast majority of reality TV viewers, unwittingly or not, do…