Easter Spirit?

I have been driving around town looking for the Easter banners put up by the local civic authorities with the word Believe on them like they did at Christmas. But apparently they had forgotten to put them up.

I was at the mall looking for the mass of shoppers preparing for Easter Day, and thought I would wander through the store looking at and enjoying the Easter decorations. It must have been the economic malaise that has recently hit this country, because except for the Card store it seems everyone forgot to check their calender.

On the drive back to my house, I turned on the radio to listen to some Easter music on the easy listening pop channel that each year plays Holiday music. There wasn't any. I clicked on the Christian radio station to catch a couple of hip versions of "He is Risen." But alas nothing.

I  know that Easter has not been completely forgotten. There was a nice collection of dresses for little girls at the department store. I got an advertisement from a local church on special services. And I did read that the average family spends $200.00 on Easter each year for candy, decoration, and dinner.But lets just be honest here, society just doesn't change like it does at Christmas. There is no Easter Spirit among the community at large.

Like it or not, people have a tendency to be different at Christmas. More prone to be generous, secular musicians sing songs about Christ, and profound atheists have symbols of a Turkish Bishop named St. Nicholas all over their children's rooms. But at Easter...it...well...just doesn't happen.

Is it that  bunny that lays eggs and decorates with pastels? Or is it that secular society says enough is enough. We will go along with you on Christmas and give you the virgin birth. But raised from the dead, that we call a halt on. I just don't know. It is just that, be honest, for most of America Easter doesn't have it.

However, one of the great problems with Christmas is that it doesn't stick around. All those good feelings slide away as the credit card bills come at the end of January. Those who catch the Easter vision. It is more than just catching a wave of societal goodness. The realization that you have been chosen by God for eternal life. That Christ died and rose again for you is permanently life changing, and the spirit doesn't quit two weeks into January.

It's an Empty World out there...go forth and fill it with fun loving kids!

In P. J. O'Rourke's now aging irreverent book, "All the Trouble in the World" he makes the case that there has never been a shortage of food, at least in modern times, but there has been a shortage of ethical generous behavior. All those starving people seen on TV are starving not because there is no food somewhere. They are also not starving because people don't want to send it to them. But they are starving because evil people want to steal the food (and everything else they can get there hands on) for themselves.

We, as God fearing lovable anti-abortion American Christians, of course would never condone such a thing. After all, we are the ones often sending the food to be stolen by the evil warlords and government dictators. But have you ever thought about this? Are we depriving young wonderful fun loving kids of life, because having another child will hurt our pocket book, increase our time to retirement, or cause our spouse to quit work making us sell a car, and imagine if we ran out of time to watch our sports in the evening. Well, hum maybe?

But we are running out space here on this earth you say? Nonsense! You can give every person in the world in an 2200 sq. foot two story house and fit all the houses in Texas. Of course it would be pretty cramped, but you get the picture. The rest of entire world would all be fodder for the Nature Channel and thousands of miles of fields of grain.

The replacement rate to keep the population even here in the United States is 2.13 kids per family. We are just about even right now. But that is mostly because of immigrants coming to our wonderful Christian land (thank you Puritans, Quakers, and Anglicans) and having kids because it is a great thing to do. The rest of the world, especially Europe, which we seem to want to have as a model these days,is sliding backwards on a slow train to extinction.

Children are wonderful...go forth and fill the world with fun loving kids. Remember, he who has the most kids wins...sort of.

American Mythology

The mythology that I would rather be rocking and rolling with my buddies in Hell, then bored floating around in the clouds in Heaven, is alive and well in America as seen in this recently opened "performing arts center" called Hells Kitchen in Tacoma. This myth as been perpetuated through the years from bands as diverse as: AC/DC Highway to ...well you know where, Mr. Billy Joel "I'd rather laugh with the sinners then cry with saints," to Death Cab for Cuties recent hit, I will follow you into the Dark.

Strange that I can't seem to find any evidence that "good time rocker" people get to party on in Hell with their buddies. (Seems even here on earth most eventually grow tired of it. ) However in interest of an open mind, I will give anyone $20 bucks and a free night out at Hells Kitchen to anyone who can send such evidence .

In Search of the Great Pumpkin



Most of us who grew up watching the Peanut Holiday specials know the story. Charlie Brown's friend Linus waits in the Pumpkin Patch on Halloween for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. The Great Pumpkin will come with a bag of toys for the most sincere believer. Of course, the Great Pumpkin never arrives. But Linus will not give up on his belief. Someday he will be the most sincere.

This is the thinking of the Post Modern culture of today. If I am sincere enough in what I believe, whatever I believe will be true for me. Surprisingly, this even appears to be the case for some of the brightest "fact based" minds in our world today when it comes to Darwinism. They apparently believe if they are sincere enough, and look hard enough, Darwinism must be true. This is because they believe there is no other choice.

They still search for Darwin's missing link despite a hundred years of fossil evidence to the contrary, and they gloss over insurmountable problems like irreducible complexity. But worse they force their theological theories as fact on hapless school students sometimes needing the backing of the courts to force compliance. All because they just can't see that there is a designer in the beauty of creation. When our greatest minds are still sitting in their own self made Pumpkin Patches looking to see who is most sincere in their belief that there is no God each October 31st, who needs ghosts and goblins. Happy Halloween!

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

Church, Nara Vista New Mexico

This is a summary of Dr. RC Sproul and Dr. Michael Horton’s lectures on the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church on board the Celebrity Cruise liner Mercury as we sailed around beautiful Vancouver Island in Canada. (Of course, going out to sea to international waters whenever possible to open the Casino.)

The term One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church comes from the Nicene Creed which was called to help settle heresy about the nature of Christ. This is important because the Church and Christ can not be separated. This can be seen at Peter’s preaching at Pentecost where as soon as someone belonged to Christ they were counted among the church.

Christ wants us to be one with each other just as he is one with the Father. Growth of a church is only identified with the spreading of the Gospel, and only the Gospel separates the church from other organizations in the world. The real church is identified by persecution.

Church in Greek means “the called ones.” We are called out of the world to him for we are to be a Holy people. Holy meaning to be set apart. The church belongs to Christ because he bought it. The price He paid was His blood.

Dr. Sproul stated that the church needs to be a place where you can get Holy. He also said that it is the most corrupt institution in the world. This is because as the Bible says when much has been given then much is expected. The church often falls short. The church, however, is not full of hypocrites as is often stated, but it is full of sinners. We are sinners who are all in the process of being sanctified. Since Christ has us covered by his blood, we also need to “cover each other”. (This does not mean ignoring gross sin that requires church discipline.)

The church is Catholic which means universal. (The term Roman Catholic is, of course, an oxymoron.) Dr. Horton said that the church connects us back through history and removes us from our “own dead end stories and plots.” It puts us in His story connecting us all the way back to the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The church is an organic institution where each local body is part of the whole. Local church bodies should consist of at minimum three elements: Preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and church discipline. Americans tend to be too individualist, and many of us want to equate individual spirituality with being part of a local body. This is a bad view. Preaching calls us to catholicity.

Dr. Horton made an impassioned plea against niche marketing in the church giving the example of problems it caused in helping start apartheid in South Africa. As an example, he believes that church youth groups are unintentionally drawing kids away from the church. Many young people graduate college having never participated in a church body or having dealt much with people of different backgrounds and ages. How can we pass on the covenants of the faith if this is true? (60%-80% of today’s Christian kids aren’t Christian by the time they leave college.)

The church is also apostolic. This is important because many today (militant feminists,those who teach Jesus as only a moral teacher), just as the Gnostics back in the time of the early church, want to have Jesus but not the Apostles. Most specifically, they don’t want Paul.

This is not possible. If you deny Paul, you are also denying Jesus Christ who passed on the position of Apostle to Paul. Paul was confirmed as an Apostle by the other Apostles. Dr. Sproul believes one of the major reasons the book of Acts was written was to show the authority of Paul. The Apostles are the foundation of the church as pointed out in the book of Revelation. Without the teaching of the Apostles, the church will crumble because it will have no foundtion.