Die Hand, Die Frisst

“Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Matthew 16:6

New International Version

“LightDarkTree”

It’s been a while.

For the last two-and-a-half months, I’ve been on hiatus. Academic obligations means my writing skills are needed elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean that God quit speaking while I was pounding the keys. Now that the end of my first semester as a grad student is over, I can actually sit down, and write something that doesn’t involve my MLA handbook.

While I’ve been indisposed, I’ve found myself examining certain aspects of my walk, namely this blog. One of the main reasons why BCF was founded, was to confront, examine, and ultimately reveal actions, behaviors, and teachings that are antithetical to the Kingdom of God. Some of them we recognize the minute we see them, others, like The Enemy who sired them, are more pervasive and subtle. Unfortunately, it’s those inobvious ones that cause the most trouble. Why? Because they challenge people’s comfort zones, both religious and secular, but for the point of this essay I’m sticking with the religious.

In Matthew 24:24, Christ leaves humanity with the following prophetic warning -

“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”

For the last two-thousand years, we’ve been seeing this come to pass. As Solomon once said ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and organized religion – like any institution – is open to influence if not overt control by The Enemy. So long as people harbor cravings for wealth, power, and status the Devil has a base of operations – just look at the Pharisees.  The teaching and practice of false doctrine has very real consequences, and the fruits born from these heresies is why the modern Christian faith is dying. According to former evangelical Christine Wicker, nearly a thousand people a day leave the church, and the majority don’t come back.

Those of us who – like our non-Christian counterparts – can see the forest for the trees within the church, are persecuted, and kicked out for refusing to drink the false doctrine kool-aid. When the only choices are agreeing with The Enemy, especially after seeing him in all his terrible glory, or taking your chances in the wilderness – nine times out of ten its going to be a trip through the woods. For those who remain under spiritual bondage and oppression, their choice is to either continue believing the lie after seeing the truth, or taking a hike themselves. Nine times out of ten, they’re going to stick it out in the sulfur and fire.

Why?

Because those who resist false teachings, are accused of being against God when the opposite is true, and those earnestly seeking the kingdom are then manipulated into swallowing The Lie. At no point does The Enemy want to run the risk of someone seeing The Truth, and coming from under his control and power. As a result, those of us who speak out are accused of being ‘divisive’, simply for doing what we are commanded to do which is test everything we see, hear, or read to see if it lines up with the gospel. However, if upon testing the teaching proves to be utterly wrong, then we must speak. In Colossians 2:8, Paul writes -

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Right now, Christianity is mired in chaos because of the strange fruit borne by false teachings, and gross misinterpretations of scripture. Individuals like Mark Driscoll, Pat Robertson, Voddie Bauchum, Doug Phillips, Phylis Schalafly, and countless others are perverting the gospels. Shouting down their critics by accusing them of heresy, while touting their own spiritual ‘righteousness’. Their arguments based on twisted interpretations of the Bible, that even non-Christian people know are counterfeit. Patriarchy, Complementarianism, Quiverfull – none of these so-called ‘Christian movements’ have anything to do with Christ other than using His name to validate their poisonous teachings.

For example, take Voddie Baucham who teaches that the reason why older men pursue younger women is because they -

“…yearn for attention from younger women. And God gave them a daughter who can give them that.”

There is nothing biblical whatsoever in that statement, in fact when we go to the word, we find that men leave their wives for younger women for sexual reasons. At no point does scripture say it was because they wanted a surrogate daughter. When confronted with his heresy, rather than go to the Word and God to see for himself, Baucham went on the offensive, and claimed – as predicted – that his critics weren’t ‘real’ Christians. You can read his response for yourself, but the fact remains that his teachings don’t line up with scripture. Also, only one critic in the forty-five blogs I reviewed prior to this post, accused him of promoting incest, while the rest concentrated solely on the fallacies of his message. However, pulling out a red herring like that in order to shout people down is a dialectical tactic as old as language itself, and its called epideixis or ‘praise and blame’.

How it works is the person receiving the criticism “blames” the critics, and attacks their credibility and character. In turn, they praise themselves and those who agree with them because they’ve ‘got it right’. In reality, it’s just The Enemy trying to keep people asleep, so they don’t wake up, and start asking questions. Why? To keep people separate from God. Those who follow these modern Pharisees may look, act, and say the “right” things they have been taught are indicative of a “true” Christian, but they run the risk of not having the one thing that matters most -

An authentic, interactive relationship with the living God.

This is why Christ cautioned us to beware the ‘leavening’ of these folks, as outlined in Matthew 16:6, and why we are commanded to speak out against them – in love. By pointing out The Enemy amongst us, and refusing to collude or agree with him we force him to flee from us (James 4:7). Not only that, we prevent our brothers and sisters from stumbling because of those who are misleading them, purposefully or otherwise.

False teachings, when you get down to their core, negate many of the tenets their peddlers claim to embody. Typically, the first ones to go are mercy and grace, in exchange for shame and guilt who are passed off as the former. They return followers to a life of bondage under the law by making them subject to the rules of men, instead of God, and thus keep them from entering the Kingdom. That last one applies to secular folks as well, because they can see these religious snake oil salesmen for what they are. Unfortunately, they are denied the opportunity to experience the real thing for themselves, and turn from the living God believing Him to be something other. As a result, The Enemy scores two hits for the price of one bad teaching.

“But,” you argue. “They use scripture!”

So did the Devil when Christ was out in the desert for forty days. Specifically, he used it out of context in order to suit his own agenda, which was to get Jesus to cross over to the Dark Side. Yet, the teachings of Christ are divisive, but not in the destructive way of The Enemy. His open people’s eyes, gives them wisdom, and the ability to see when the Devil is walking among them, not as a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), but as a quiet snake hoping to pass by unnoticed. As we press in to God, adopting the culture and beliefs of the Kingdom, we become separate – in the world, but not of it (John 17:16).

We must also be willing to have courage when dealing with those amongst us who are sowing the seeds of ‘strange fruit’ (Hebrews 13:9). After all, scripture teaches us in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 -

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”

And in 1 Timothy 5:17 -

“The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.“

So, what do we do?

For one, if we are truly waking up from the religious kool-aid, and speaking out per the mandate of scripture then we need to make sure our criticisms are actually biblical, and not based on personal opinion. Two, we must never attack, but always speak out in the interest of aiding the person spiritually. Not just shouting them down, or giving ground to The Enemy who has them under his power by acting rudely. This will simply reinforce his control, and validate the person’s false beliefs. Third, we must know the word, and the context in which it was written. This means that in the natural world, we need to know the history of our own religion, and what the sociocultural forces were at work when the gospels were penned.

If someone is peddling false doctrine, and leading others to adopt a false Christian identity forged from a clearly worldly definition of righteousness we cannot remain silent. After all, is it truly better to remain silent in the face of The Enemy, simply because doing otherwise might cause us to appear ‘divisive’? Traditionally, when division has occurred in the church, it was due to a brave minority who dared to speak out against obvious wrongs. Many of these people, died, but their actions sowed seeds that eventually freed millions from demonic oppression. However, that struggle to free the church from the influences of The Enemy is still ongoing. Just because people aren’t being put on the rack, doesn’t mean they’re not coming under attack. After all, as they say in the television series Falling Skies -

Resist or Die.

In this case, however, the death is eternal.

**The title is German for ‘The Hand That Feeds’.

- RJK

And Now A Word From Ryan and Evan…

BCF will be back later this week with new blog posts. I’ve been busy due to academic commitments, and Evan with work. On top of that, we got engaged, and initial wedding plans tends to scarf down your free time. Look for posts on everything from the nature of the war with The Enemy, to human sexuality. Stay tuned…

RJK + EJC

ἀγάπη

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

John 3:16-21

New International Version

“The Sacred Heart”

For the longest time, one of the main themes of this blog has been the concept of agape. The radical love of God and Christ that forms the foundation of the Kingdom, and is the love that humanity is supposed to embody and emulate. We’ve all heard about it, witnessed the fruits of two-thousand years of paying lip service to it, and now we have a rising generation that is hungry for it – globally. I am not surprised that over the last fifty years there’s been a growing movement geared towards an organic, practical Christian faith, and a mass abandonment of worn-out doctrine. I believe, with every fiber of my being, that this is the will of God. There is a reason people are waking up sick and tired of Legalism and Religiosity, there is a reason why the current incarnation of the church is being rejected, and there is a reason why all of said church’s sins (Catholic included) are being aired.

God is housecleaning.

Scripture tells us, God will eventually reclaim His bride, and redeem her. That she will be The Remnant that has ‘a pair of good eyes and ears’ that can see and hear, and will be ready and able to help heal a planet that will see Armageddon and live. Yet, all of these things will hinge on one thing – our ability to understand, embody, and implement agape – The Law of Love.

Like most Christians, I’ve struggled with this concept of agape, since we’re all told to do it, but we’re not really told what it is. Being a scholar, Matthew 7:7 (NIV) naturally applies -

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

In 2011, I started doing this, and over the course of 2012 God started hammering out a definition of agape. Having spent nearly two-decades studying comparative religion, it’s clear Christ knew The Enemy would get himself involved with His teachings. Co-opting them to keep humans in oppression, and separated from God. History is evidence enough. Yet, that is likely why Christ taught in parables, why he told his disciples to ‘seek and you will find’, and why God Himself tells us to test the things we hear, the thoughts we hold, and the ideals we adhere to. This is to teach us how to discern between the antics of The Enemy, and the guidance of God.

Christ hid the crux of his teachings, the founding principle of Christianity, in a seemingly innocuous reply to a crowd of religious hecklers in Matthew 22:34-40 (NIV) -

“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This is agape, and examples are found over and over again throughout the Old and New Testament. After all, God tells us in Hosea 6:6 (NIV) and Matthew 9:12-13 (NIV) He desires mercy over sacrifice. Every situation you can think of where retributive violence seems to be the answer, Jesus does the exact opposite. When Peter cuts Malchus’ ear off in Christ’s defense during Judas’ betrayal, Jesus heals the very man who will escort him to his death, and tells Peter to back down. Let me repeat that -

Heals the man who will escort him to his death.

That is a level of mercy that still escapes us humans. It’s against everything we’ve been taught, everything we believe in, and that includes the current flavor of Christianity. Yet this is the mercy and love of God, and as disciples of Christ this is the level of mercy and love we are expected to show. Unfortunately, most Christians are known for the exact opposite, and that is because they’ve been tricked into a Christianized version of Enemy ethics and morality. The idea of might-makes-right, the idea of power-over as opposed to power-under, the illusion that control of others will compensate for a lack of control of self, and every other hot-mess ideology that is terrorizing our planet.

The best way to start wrapping our minds around this agape in order to start manifesting it in our lives and the world, is to take a frank look at the central themes of the New Testament – Love, Mercy, and Grace. Three things that get a lot of lip service, but very little practice. I know some of you think I’m being harsh, but if this wasn’t the case then Christianity wouldn’t have the black eye it has today. Yet, God teaches us that when we repent of sin, when we truly do a 180, we gain wisdom, and further resistance to The Enemy. Not only that, we gain the ability to guide others, and keep them from making the same mistake through our witness which thwarts The Enemy even more.

We can’t change the last the last 2,000 years of human history, but we can learn from it, and change. To do that, we need to start embodying those three pillars – Love, Mercy, and Grace. Understanding the concept of agape, which leads to that embodiment, means telling the truth. Looking through the Bible it becomes clear that our species is pretty rough. We’re violent, warlike, and a crowd of sick weirdos if The Torture Museum is any indication. The Enemy uses this to beat us down, both in secular and religious society. To the former, he points to the antics of the Church, and says – those guys don’t know their own God from a pop tart. To the latter, he points at the world, and says – forget them, they don’t know your God from a pop tart.

There is no doubt in my mind that the preservation of world history was purposeful, in order to help put the scriptures back into context after their being twisted by those in either conscious or unconscious allegiance with The Enemy. The same for Paul, who has been grossly misrepresented as a Christian misogynist, thanks to centuries of thought control where only an elite few were literate, and thus able to ‘interpret’ and ‘teach’ scripture based on personal agendas instead of God’s.

Our world has been struck with a severe lack of love, but staying true to form Christ points the way towards changing this.

Over and over again, throughout the Bible, God shows humanity Grace, Mercy, and Love even when it seems we are far from deserving. After all, in the Old Testament, things got so out of hand on planet Earth, that God decided to just wipe us out, and start over with a clean slate. Yet there was one righteous man, and so He spared the world (Genesis 6:9, NIV). To give you a clue as to just how crazy things must have been, this was before we killed our Messiah.

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

Going back to that incident with Jesus, let’s call it like it is – we are the same species who, over the course of a three-day period, brutally tortured and murdered God’s only Son. In our world, if someone did that to one of our children, we would hunt them down, and do things to that person that would give Dracula nightmares. Yet, we serve a God who has turned to us and said -

‘Yes, you killed my Son, but you still have redeeming value, and I still love and wish to have a relationship with you. In fact, I allowed you to do this to show how far I will go for you. I love you so much, that if possible, I would give my very life for you. You have so much value, that I would trade the life of my Son, to take you back from my Enemy. Despite all the things you do, I forgive you, and if you come to me freely and renounce your allegiance to the practices and ways of the culture and kingdom of my Enemy – I will give you the same heritage and freedom as my own Son. You will all be my children, and I will love you.’

That concept of radical love, is so powerful, it brings tears to my eyes, and yes it is biblical. Just read the opening scripture for this post. That is the God we serve, and when you get your mind around that you start to see the world – both secular and religious – in a completely different light. You start to realize the things that are and are not of God, you start to hear the Spirit, and gain insight and knowledge that brings you to the point I reached last month where you consciously choose to leave behind the culture and kingdom of The Enemy.

That includes elements of both secular and religious society that don’t line up with the culture of and philosophies of God’s holy Kingdom.

Agape gives us the key to rediscovering our true heritage, and figuring out just what’s in the bowl of soup and glass of Kool-Aid that we’re being told is all we need to be happy and healthy spiritual beings. When you get there, you will have to count the cost as outlined in Luke 14:25-30 (NIV) -

“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

 Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you,saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”

The reason why Christ tells us this is that once The Enemy realizes you’ve woke up and left the hot mess Matrix that is this world, everyone who’s still asleep will turn on you, and that includes other Christians who’ve been lulled to sleep by Legalism and Religiosity. There are brothers and sisters who reject what I have to say, because I’m a woman. There are brothers and sisters who reject my credibility, because I have pictures on my skin. There is some thing that leads us to turn on one another, and yet Paul tells us that division based on worldliness is not of God (Galatians 5:19-21, NIV).

The fruits we need to bear, in order to save our religion, and bring forth the Kingdom in this world come from agape. We’re told what they are in Galatians 5:22-26 (NIV) -

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

If we want to do that, if we want to be people who God can use to do that, we need to get our minds completely around the concepts of Grace, Mercy, and Love as demonstrated by God, and then we need to start living it, but if you choose the red pill, and decide to leave the Matrix for the real world remember -

Count the cost.

- RJK

 

The Sinister Urge

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

Matthew 7:1-2

King James Version

“Blind Justice, Blind Judgment”

Normally, I don’t quote from the King James Bible, but sometimes you need a dose of melodrama to the tune of medieval dialect to make a point. In this case, the hazards of being judgmental, and not in a good way. Sure, we’re told that judgment is firmly under the purview of God whenever we’re holding down the pew, but it tends to be one of those scriptures that gets glossed over when following it becomes inconvenient. Usually, this happens when a believer runs across someone they either dislike, disagree with, or both. The result is one person feeling superior (especially where Jesus is concerned), and the other feeling demoralized, dehumanized, and disgusted with both the aggressor and themselves.

Time and time again I’ve watched this scenario play out, and have experienced it in my own life. There always seems to be a ‘reason’ why someone can’t be ‘good’. Whether it’s because they don’t believe in the same God, or because they don’t vote for the same candidate, or some other asinine reason. Their difference becomes a means to demonstrate why one person is ‘right’, and the other is ‘wrong’. Unfortunately, when this happens in damages both parties. The former becomes further entrenched in the culture and mindset of The Enemy, and the other is pushed further away from the Kingdom of God which gives more ground to The Enemy.

Talk about a lose-lose situation.

This ungodly judgment comes from a very specific mental stronghold. For those of you unfamiliar with Christian terminology for spiritual warfare and demonic oppression, a stronghold is some aspect of a person’s life where The Enemy has gained ground. In this case, I am referring to the psychological version. People who judge in the way I am describing have absolutist or all-or-nothing thinking that The Enemy capitalizes on through the use of two spirits – Legalism and Religiosity. A good example of this comes from an actual conversation I had earlier this week with someone I am close to.

Without going into detail, said individual claimed that people who don’t live the same way we do here in Western society are ‘backwards’, and ‘living in squalor’. Individuals in Western society who adopt these practices are ‘weird’, and ‘have something wrong with them’.

Seriously?

Since I know I’ll get an e-mail, the practices in question that were supposedly ‘backwards’ and indicative of ‘squalor’ were co-sleeping, Vegetarianism, and living off the grid.

Wow.

Getting back to the point, this statement is indicative of the all-or-nothing mindset. In essence what this person said was -

All people who do these things that I’ve been taught are abnormal or wrong (even though they aren’t), are backwards and in squalor, because they aren’t living their lives the way I’ve been taught is normal and right which is exactly like me.

I could write a thousand blogs based solely on the historic examples of what sort of terror this sort of thinking leads to, especially when applied to aboriginal societies, but for the sake of this entry lets just stick to the plain truth – it’s wrong.

Unfair and unrighteous judgment means you have to throw out the entire gospel. Grace and mercy, the founding pillars of Christianity no longer apply to anyone except a select few who’ve got it ‘right’. The Pharisees thought the exact same thing, and look what happened to them. This ugliness, this condemnation of people who aren’t in actual sin simply gives ground to The Enemy, and frankly it needs to stop. Don’t get me wrong, real sin should, and needs to be pointed out. However, co-sleeping, sustainable living, and Vegetarianism aren’t it.

Sorry.

I know some of you out there think I am judging, but I’m not. Instead. I am grieving, and trying to keep others from going down the same poisoned path. It is painful to sit and listen to another Christian parrot lies, and then argue them as though they were truth. It tears at my heart – something I have never felt before – when I watch another Christian negate a person’s entire sense of dignity and worth because of a false concept of righteousness. Less and only weigh and measure another person’s value based on a worldly concept of what it means to be a ‘good’ person.

Having been on the receiving end of this, I can tell you for a fact this doesn’t make people want to be Christian. The exact opposite. Yes, a mass murderer is a bad person. No argument there, but a family who practices co-sleeping? Not so much. The same applies to religion. Telling a person they are nothing because they don’t believe in the Christian God, doesn’t make them want to be a Christian. Sorry folks, I know that is an old standby, especially in Fundamentalist circles, but it is false doctrine, and beating a person over the head with it just drives them away from Christ. I would know, I heard it the entire time I was growing up in the Mat-Su Valley, and it is the #1 reason why my generation would rather take their chances with another religion and potential hellfire than give it a go with Jesus.

I would know, I was one of those folks taking that chance with Paganism because the example set by the locals who ‘had it right’ didn’t endear me to the God of my parents who were Messianic Jews*. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I learned more about being a Christian from folks outside the church, those ‘imperfect’ and ‘worldly’ Christians, than from the ones who supposedly had it all figured out.

In a previous post, I mentioned my friend Diane who was one of several people who were instrumental in my becoming a Christian. FYI, my neighbors didn’t like her. Why? Because she was a woman, and a minister. According to them, women couldn’t be in a position of authority in the church, and I’m just going to stop there since I prefer to leave ungodly sentiments where they belong – in the trash heap. Their unfair judgment of her, based solely on her gender, negated her power and authority as a woman of God, and someone who made a significant difference in the lives of the ornery kiddos who volunteered at the thrift shop she managed.

Self included.

After all, Paul tells us in Galatians 5:19-23 (NIV) -

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

I emboldened those words for a reason. Cruelty is not of God, neither is spiritual arrogance. Hatred, no matter how righteous or justified you think it to be, is against God. True, God has been known to show hate, but not the way humans do. His usually has a good reason (i.e. His hatred of a lying tongue – Proverbs 6:17, NIV), because of the way it affects us, His children, and that includes the whole of humanity. Christians are supposed to be known for the love the show one another (John 13:35, NIV), and that love is what is supposed to change the world.

When I became a Christian, it wasn’t because of people stopping at my parent’s front door with leaflets, or hearing the vitriol of the locals which included the whole ‘you are nothing’ spiel. What led me to Christ was running across Diane, and my sister CJ. They were the first believers I met who treated me like a human being, and didn’t sit around judging me for [insert reason here]. When I met up with CJ, I was in fact a practicing witch, with some serious issues. I admit, I pushed, I poked, I prodded, and in some cases directly challenged her because I could not believe that a Christian could actually be a kind and caring person.

To be honest, for the longest time I thought she and Diane were anomalies, and that is sad. Yet, that is the reality we’re living in, and the one I still see even as someone ‘on the inside’ post-conversion. We’re not known for the love we show one another and the world. Instead, we’re known for the exact opposite. That said, maybe that’s the call for my generation. Those of us who’ve quit drinking the Satanic Kool-Aid, and have tasted the actual fruit and wine of the Spirit need to do the thing that Gandhi said to do which is be the change we wish to see in the world.

That means we need to get messy. Yes, dealing with people with all their problems, flaws, and faults is messy. Some people will never change, scripture tells us this, and that is sad. However, sitting back, and judging the world while patting ourselves on the back won’t make the Kingdom manifest on Earth less and only heal our world and our people. Using outmoded tactics for converting the locals, will turn more people towards the fires of Hell, than towards the cooling arms of God and Christ. We need to take the narrow path, walk the hard road, and do what Christ showed and told us to do if we have any hope of saving our religion, not to mention the planet per Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)-

Get down, get dirty, and love on some messy people.

After all, isn’t that what Jesus would do?

- RJK

The Adventures of Jesus and Goth Bunny

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”

Psalm 139:14

New International Version

“It’s not easy being unique.”

I have an alter ego, his name is Goth Bunny, and he’s a bunny who is Goth. I’ve been drawing him for about a week now, at some point I’ll put a picture up on the blog, but the one I came up with on Saturday for a meme was this -

“Jesus Loves Goth Bunny…And Goth Bunny Loves Jesus.”

I thought it was cute, but in reality it was probably a portend to what God put on my heart today while standing in Wal-Mart. I was waiting in line at the Wells Fargo, apparently I wasn’t the only one waiting to pay rent, and to my eyes he was nondescript. Pale, twenty-something, dressed in black, and sporting some sweet 0G plugs. The might have been 00G, come to think of it, but I digress. While holding down the linoleum, I started noticing some of the looks people were giving the counter-culture guy. FYI, my ear lobes are also stretched, but only to 2G*, and with my hair sticking out they’re hard to see. Anyway, most of the people who were in there shopping, had just gotten out of church, and were giving this guy some major stink eye.

I couldn’t believe it.

Only an hour ago, my brothers and sisters had listened to sermons based on a guy who was all about equality and inclusiveness, and yet they were looking down on this guy because of the jewelry in his ear lobes. Back in the day, this would have pissed me off to no end, especially having been on the receiving end of it growing up. When I lived in the ultra conservative Mat-Su Valley, Alaska’s unofficial Bible belt, I really didn’t feel the love of Jesus. Maybe from my boss and lifelong friend Diane, who is an Episcopalian minister, but not from the rest. Her willingness to accept me, a Goth kid, at her business, and even befriend me sowed a lot of seeds towards my becoming a Christian when I was twenty-two.

Yep, you read that correctly, I’ve only been a Christian for eight years come November or December of 2013.

Moving on, because of that experience one thing God has put on my heart, is the way we treat people of the alternative or counter-culture persuasion. In retrospect, it was probably there even before that. I still remember walking through the mall with my parents, and listening to them criticize how some of the teenagers were dressed because they were punked and grunged out. I remember asking what was wrong with the way they looked, after being told I would never go out of the house looking like that.

According to my parents, the way they were dressed meant they were ‘bad kids’, and were involved in [insert delinquent behavior here]. This didn’t make sense to me, after all, my parents had spent years stressing the importance of not judging people based on their appearance. After all, I got a daily reminder of what that felt like when someone hurled the n-word at my head because my mother was Black. Of course I pointed this out, and of course I got smacked for ‘talking back’.

It was my first lesson in the danger of pointing out another person’s hypocrisy, especially your parents’.

Long story short, if it’s wrong to judge a person based on the color of their skin, then it is wrong to judge a person because they have stretched ear lobes, and purple hair. Now before you start e-mailing me, I will point out that dressing like a tramp, or like some kind of sketchy hobo is still a bad thing. One thing us counter-culture folks have to constantly keep in mind is that no thanks to stereotypes, and the people who back them up (every village has their idiots) – we constantly have to put our best foot forward.

I work as a public servant, which means my tattoos are covered, and I wear plain silver or black plugs in my ears since at first glance they look like earrings. I don’t wear my nose ring in my office, just a small stud, and I dress professional. By the time folks find out that I have multiple piercings and tons of ink, they’ve already gotten to know me, and not the version they’ve made up based on my appearance. So, it works both ways -

You can’t judge a person’s quality of character based on how they look, and you can’t challenge misconceptions about alternative and counter-culture folks if you dress like a slob, and act like a jerk.

The kid in the line was dressed nice, he was picking up ones and quarters for his parents (I overheard his conversation with the teller), and was polite. When you judge a person because you don’t think they look the way you think they should, not to mention back it up with man-made traditions, you’re letting The Enemy in, and you’re letting him win. I’ve watched, time and time again, friends of mine come to Jesus, try to find a church, and run into people who think the best way to help them grow in the Lord is to convince them that everything that makes them who they are is ‘worldly’ and ‘sinful’.

On the outside, it looks harmless, but on the inside it leads to religious bondage, and a slow psychological death.

Most don’t drink the Kool-Aid, they know better, but those who have fear operating in them do. They put on the Good Christian Uniform as determined by the particular brand of legalism The Enemy is peddling, and the cycle starts all over again. For those of you out there who are counter or alternative culture, and are either in or out of the closet about it let me tell you the truth -

God has no problem with stretched ear lobes, or piercings, or tattoos, or funky hair colors, or unique clothing styles. Leviticus is referring to tattooing as part of pagan death rites and occultism, and just because they used to pierce the ears of slaves does not mean that context applies in the 21st century. It doesn’t. Just like you can’t pick and choose which parts of the Law to follow, because the whole thing will suck you into legal slavery, the same applies to ancient Middle Eastern culture. You still have to dress modestly, and you still have to keep in mind the possible reactions of others. That doesn’t mean living for them, it means living before them by being the best example of your particular subculture – in a good way.

That means, instead of being the typical rude punk, holding the door open for the folks behind you so they can go in. Simple acts of kindness are remembered just as long as ones of cruelty, remember that.

God has no problem with people who, like myself, are Goth. None. What He does have a problem with is our engagement in any activities that are contrary to culture of His holy Kingdom. The same for Punk, Emo, Hipster, Hippie, or what-have-you. Okay? God has no problem with that, I know there are people out there who would tell you otherwise, and I know they’re going to try to tell me otherwise once this goes live. However, read the Bible for yourself, read the history in order to put the scriptures in question in context, and most importantly take it up with God. Nine times out of ten, that reluctance we’re feeling is because we know we’re different from the way we’ve been taught we’re supposed to be, and we know what the backlash could be if we express it.

If you’re a kid, and not on your own – don’t push it. Wait to be you when you’re eighteen, and out of your parent’s house. Otherwise, it’s just going to cause a hot mess. True, my parents ‘let’ me be Goth when I was in my teens, with a ton of stipulations, but I still wasn’t the ‘real’ me until I got out on my own. Although remember, God said don’t irritate your parents (Exodus 20:12, NLT), so be subtle if its going to cause problems when you visit the ole homestead.

If you’re an adult, on the other hand, it is okay to be the way God made you, and you CAN find a church home that won’t try to turn you into a K-Mart cut-out. It just might take a while. I know, thanks to some preliminary research, that there are a lot of websites out there claiming otherwise, but when you examine the scriptural basis for the naysayers you find it’s out of context. After all, God tells us in Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV) -

Before I formed you in the womb I knewyou,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

God already knows who you are. God doesn’t want you to stop being a Goth, he just want’s you to stop playing around with Wicca. God doesn’t want you to stop being Emo, he just wants to show you that life doesn’t always have to suck. God doesn’t want you to stop being a Hipster, he just wants you to stop shoplifting from box stores as part of your crusade to stick it to corporate fat cats. It doesn’t work, and stealing is wrong.

God simply wants to make you a better you, and doesn’t care if you have a ring in your nose. Okay, maybe He might frown on those naked ladies tattooed on your arms, but if you’ve come to Jesus you can always have an artist give them some clothes, and not have Igor laser them off to the tune of dozens of treatments on top of thousands of dollars. Although, if you have some images that are really bugging you, and/or dangerous to your walk (i.e. that giant Goat of Mendes on your back), then by all means give them the ray gun. After all the Bible does tell us we’re not supposed to tattoo ourselves with symbols associated with the occult.

So, if you have a Seinfeld tattoo…just kidding!

I’m going to go listen to some Green Day.

- RJK

**The larger the number, the smaller the hole. So an 18G is actually the size of your typical earring wire or stud, a 14G is the gauge for most navel piercings, and a 2G is large enough that I can pass your average drinking straw through the holes in my ears.

Get Off My Asparagus!

“Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah,“Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.

 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.”

Daniel 1:11-17

New International Version

“Persia White – Artist, Activist, and Vegan!”

I’m going Vegan.

For the last several years, I’ve vacillated between a vegetarian and pescetarian diet. The reasons are numerous – 1) I’m allergic to a variety of foods, including pork and chicken, 2) I’m ethically and philosophically opposed to eating GM foods, and 3) according to the CDC 70% of the chronic illnesses affecting Americans can be prevented through a healthy diet. Throw in my staunch opposition to some of the practices utilized by your typical factory farm, and you have a pretty good idea of the reasons behind my decision.

I like being healthy, and I want to stay that way.

Unfortunately, when you tell people that you’re no longer going to consume meat or dairy products, everyone turns into a crackpot nutritionist. Not to mention making your life a living Hell. Despite the fact that I live in one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities after Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland – I still run into people who think the only way to eat is the ‘American’ way. On top of that, they freely parrot urban legends and horror stories about ‘the veggie eaters’. Never mind the fact that when you check into these so-called ‘victims’, you find out why their diets failed. If you don’t eat a balanced, diverse diet, less and only take the time to educate yourself about sources of high-quality proteins, amino acids, minerals, and nutrients then of course you’re going to end up looking like Karen Carpenter.

Yet, facts don’t stop people from sticking in their oar. Sprinkle that oar with some Jesus flakes, and you have the hot mess that was my Google search for this post. Either there were people who had no problem with being a Christian and a Vegetarian orVegan, or you had folks with some pretty kooky ideas about both. One site claimed that when Christ returns, we’re all going to renounce meat, and more than a dozen others claimed that it was ‘worldly’, ‘evil’, a ‘sin’, and ‘against God’.

Okay, I don’t know about the whole veggie revolution ala the Second Coming, but I do know that the first group was right – there is nothing wrong with being a Christian and a Vegan or Vegetarian. I also know that the second group was dead wrong – there is no Biblical basis for their claim that renouncing meat and dairy is an automatic trip to damnation. Seriously, there are people with videos on YouTube using Biblical scripture (taken out of context), to argue just that.

I’m not kidding.

It’s because of nonsense like this, both in secular and religious society, why I was hesitant to make the switch. It’s a little hard to make life-altering decisions when your support network is next to nil. Clearly, for the past six or seven years I’ve had the perfect opportunity to go Vegan. Chicken and pork have already been eliminated from my diet, due to an allergy. Over the last three months, I’ve eliminated dairy, and increased my intake of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Yet, I’ve held back. Why? Because of fear. I was scared to go Vegan, and not because of the potential drawbacks of doing my diet incorrectly. Instead, I was afraid of how others would react. The main reason I’ve stayed pescetarian, was to stop people from judging and mocking me the way they had in 2004. When I first went veg, it was a freakin’ nightmare.

Literally.

Trust me, I certainly wasn’t feeling the love, less and only the love of Jesus after having countless friends and family members make rude jokes, snippy remarks, and passive-aggressive comments about my diet. Apparently, anything other than the traditional American diet was ‘weird’ , ‘unusual’, ‘strange’, or ‘abnormal’. When I pointed out that not all cultures eat the same foods as people in the US, I was treated to some social ignorance and culinary bigotry. On top of the tirade about the supposed disgusting qualities of ethnic food, I was told the only reason why ‘foreigners’ ate that way was because they ‘lived in squalor’.

Indeed.

Throw in having to constantly hear about how I was missing out on a great steak, and you can see why I was in the dietary closet. Telling people you’re going Vegetarian or Vegan is the equivalent of instigating your own psychological mugging, and it shouldn’t be that way. There is nothing wrong with being a Vegetarian or Vegan, or someone who eats a food indigenous to their nation of origin.

There is something wrong with being a disrespectful jerk.

When you sit there and make a big deal out of eating the food that I’m supposedly missing out on, not to mention spewing hurtful remarks, it does not a Christian make. More like the beast who spoke to Balaam, minus some excess body hair, and quadrupedal mobility (Numbers 22:26-28).  Also, making claims that only liberals and non-Christians are Vegetarians and Vegans, or that its part of some bizarre cult of Gaia worship puts you in that category as well. There is not one ounce of scripture that supports any of these claims. There are plenty of meat-eating environmentalists, and please spare me the PETA joke (read: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals). It’s not funny, and not all veggie munches are members of some animal rights organization.

Stereotypes are just as ugly as the person spreading them.

As for the claims that Vegetarianism and Veganism are unhealthy, they are correct only in cases where the person was on a crappy diet that didn’t provide everything necessary for proper health. A nutritionist will tell you that a long-term Vegan diet is possible, it just means you have to know some basic information about plant-based sources of protein, vitamins, and minerals. Especially B12, which is the main culprit in most of those horror stories you find on the web. If you do your research, the risk of malnutrition is minimal, and you’ll have cool facts to allay any concerns. As for the spiritual ones, being a Vegetarian or Vegan is not against God, and anyone who claims otherwise is misinformed.

I found one website that claimed that parents who let their children try a plant-based diet are inviting in ‘worldly influences’, and the secular ones were just as appalling. I actually found  one page where a woman was bragging about feeding the children of her vegetarian friend meat without her knowledge, and I am glad that other mothers in this community took her to task – including the site administrator who was also a mother. However, I didn’t know which was worse. The fact that someone would do this, or the comebacks claiming that parents who raise or allow their children to not eat meat are [insert offensive label here].

If your child wants to try being a vegetarian (I don’t recommend Vegan, and neither do nutritionists for children and adolescents), let them. If you’re threatened as a parent by your child wanting to eat vegetables, not to mention learn how to make nutritional decisions for themselves because you think it’s part of some quasi-pagan Liberal agenda then the problem lies with you. Your child isn’t going to turn into some flaming what-have-you, and sabotaging them isn’t the answer either. When I first went vegetarian as a teenager, my parents’ reaction was to quit buying food altogether unless I resumed eating meat.

You read that correctly.

I found a lot of parents online advocating nonsense like that, and their opponents were right – there is something wrong with you if that is how you respond to your child wanting to eat vegetables. Instead, take it as an opportunity to educate the both of you about proper health and nutrition. Even if they don’t stay veggie, and it really is ‘just a phase’ it can still lead to changes in eating and lifestyle that could benefit the whole family. Trust me, there are worst things your child could be involved in (sex, drugs, adult contemporary music), or doing. I mean, they could be Vegan one minute, and be a smarmy Christian blogger the next.

Ha-ha.

Although, this post doesn’t just apply to omnivores. I’ve met a number of people in my life who give Vegetarians and Vegans a bad name. Veganazis are the reason why people tend to have adverse reactions to veggie munchers. If it’s not okay for an omnivore to give a Vegan or Vegetarian crap about their diet, then by default it’s not okay to give an omnivore crap about theirs. A person won’t change or consider changing towards a healthier diet if they feel disrespected and devalued.

Evan, my domestic partner and the other admin of this site, has a brother who is Vegan, and is a classic Veganazi. We’ve already gone around the rodeo because I’m doing my transition to Veganism in stages, as opposed to going cold turkey (pun not intended). While I could list dozens of examples of how not to be an omnivore or herbivore, some basic ground rules should do the trick -

For Omnivores -

Don’t assume that Vegan or Vegetarianism means you have to adhere to some other religion, or take up some weird lifestyle
Don’t sneak animal products into a Vegan or Vegetarian’s food, some of them might be allergic!
Don’t give them a hard time about wearing leather, not all Vegans and Vegetarians avoid buying animal products.
Don’t try to get them to eat meat or change their mind.
Don’t act like Vegan and Vegetarian food is gross.
Don’t tell them that you’re in PETA — People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
Don’t  make their diet the focus of every conversation.

For Vegetarians and Vegans -

If someone chooses to eat meat, or buy animal products – let them. Just like you want your free will to decline respected, respect theirs.
Don’t force your diet or beliefs on others. If it hasn’t worked for religious nuts, it won’t work for you.
Don’t make rude and offensive comments about their food. If you don’t like it, they won’t either.
Don’t ramble off facts about factory farming or animal slaughter every time you’re at the table. It just annoys everyone.
Don’t try to force everyone to eat like you, fascism is bad.
Don’t give people guilt trips or a hard time for not eating like you. It works both ways.

 
Finally, don’t give a person grief for being a Vegan or Vegetarian, and use God as an excuse. If God doesn’t have a problem with human omnivores and herbivores, why do you?

Food for thought.

- RJK

The Lesser God

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Romans 5

New International Version

“The wages of sin are death…until then you are a zombie…”

Lately, God has been teaching me about the nature of sin. Like most of Generation X, I grew up during the height of the right-wing Christian fanaticism. Apparently, anything and everything that didn’t fit into a very narrow definition of godliness was ‘evil’, and therefore a ‘sin’. Romans 5 was a battle cry for stamping out those ‘unsavory’ elements that were a ‘threat’ to decency. I remember watching specials featuring well-meaning Christian activists who claimed that The Simpsons would unravel the moral fabric of American society. I can still hear the shouts of angry church folk because the Sullivan Arena had booked the punk band Green Day to play their ‘unsavory music’. I didn’t realize that dropping the F-bomb was far more offensive than telling my parents that God would smite them for marrying outside of their race.

Indeed.

So when I became a Christian back in 2004, I had a lot of whacked-out ideas about the nature and definition of sin. Fortunately, thanks to a great network of pastors, friends, and family a lot of the legalistic nonsense I was raised with went the way of the dinosaur. Yet, as time has passed God has continued to refine that work in progress, and over the last several weeks as I’ve really begun to experience the depth of agape as I’ve squared off against the culture of The Enemy.

More about that in an upcoming blog.

Long story short, when most people think of sin, they think of the obvious ones like murder, theft, adultery, lying, Satanism…the list goes on. Both secular and religious society agrees that the items I just mentioned are bad things, but then we start getting into the ‘other’ category. The one that makes everyone uncomfortable, regardless of what they believe, and that’s because like the obvious crowd – these are sins that secular and religious people commit daily.

Don”t worry, I’m not going fundy on ya’ll. I like my spiritual life legalism and religiosity-free.

When I first started asking God about the nature of sin, the metaphor He used was ‘the animal nature’. When you look around in nature, animals live by a very specific code – kill or be killed. There is no room for democracy or civilized conduct. An animal do whatever it takes, whenever necessary to ensure its own survival, and the same could be said for immoral human behavior. The way our current society is set up, is akin to that of a sociological parasite. Social Darwinism is king right now, with emphasis placed on what a person can do for you, rather than what you can do for that person. A good example is the following internet meme -

If you were to show that to most people, or ask them that question you’d get some pretty out there responses. I guarantee that the majority of them will be scathing, regardless of that person’s religious or philosophical beliefs. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been called a ‘fool’ by other Christians for ad hoc street ministry, or giving food and money to hobos on the corner. On a larger scale, many brothers and sisters believe that having a certain political belief is the litmus test for ‘legitimate’ faith. Others embrace aspects of The Enemy’s kingdom, because they’ve been duped into believing in a false definition of righteousness. Even worse, there are those in authority who have purposely misled others in order to advance certain personal, social, or political agendas.

Nice.

Everything I just mentioned, is a form of sin. That in-the-background ‘other’ category that makes everyone uncomfortable when it starts being discussed in the fore. If this blog post is making you uncomfortable, there’s probably a reason.

What God has been showing me, is that sin is a virus, and operates like a spectrum disorder. In a nutshell, when infecting a host it causes the person to live in their animal nature, where they only care about themselves, and how they can advance their own agendas. To coin a phrase from the last election, sin enables The Enemy to get a person to go against their own self-interests which is the abandonment of practices and beliefs that hinder their spiritual and intellectual development.

Examples are everywhere, in politics, in the media, and every corner of the globe. When Satan said that he had power and control over the Earth, he wasn’t referring to the actual rock hurtling through space. He was talking about the various governments, corporations, powers and principalities at work in the world (Ephesians 6:12, NIV). The infection of sin is the reason why we’re killing each other by the thousands. Why despite being on a ecologically lush planet, we are languishing in hunger and disease. Why despite knowing the power of cooperation, we continue to war with one another over petty differences like religion and ethnicity.

It is a virus that causes a perfectly decent organism to act like a total barbarian, an animal. Since humans are animals (we do belong to kingdom Mammalia), we have a susceptibility. The difference between humans and animals, is that we have free will, and the ability to live outside our dangerous, barbaric natures. The Enemy, on the other hand, would like us to believe otherwise.

One of the biggest and most dangerous lies to infiltrate the church, (one that isn’t taught at mine, thank God), is that we are just born sinners, and thus helpless when it comes to sin. That we are at the mercy of The Enemy, that we have no control over ourselves, over our lives, or anything that happens in the world. Apparently, everything Jesus said about us being the light of the world and salt of the Earth (Matthew 5:13-16), and having the ability to overcome and overpower The Enemy(Luke 10:18-20), and do everything he could do and more (John 14:12, NIV) was hogwash. Just look at Paul, and Romans 5!

Okay, well, I did that, and then I spent a good measure of time studying it by the Spirit, and at no point do I come to the conclusion that I am The Enemy’s doormat. Instead, I come to the conclusion that because of the fact that the susceptibility to sin exists in all of us, I am vulnerable to it, but if I accept the narrow way of Christ, and come into obedience with the Kingdom of God then I have a chance at developing a resistance if not immunity. After all, James 4:7 (NIV) states -

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

When you look at Romans 5 through that lens, instead of the one prescribed by Augustine, Paul’s words take on a whole new meaning. The chapter that most folks view as a downer, becomes one of hope, and not the Hallmark kind. It means that prior to Christ, we did not have an ability to properly discern or resist sin because The Enemy had deceived us into believing we were helpless and beholden to him. That our animal natures were so strong, so powerful, that we would forever be unable to evolve past them, and that we were doomed to be a barbaric, warrior race. In two-thousand years, he hasn’t changed his tune, just the system of delivery which comes in the concept of Original Sin which claims that we are automatically born evil, and thus doomed.

Once again, thank you Augustine.

If you read through the whole New and Old Testament, sin came into the world through a choice. Adam and Eve were created perfect, but because of the incident in the Garden all subsequent humans have the free will to choose between the knowledge of Good and Evil. In essence, we can choose to embrace the sin virus, or we can choose to resist it. We can live in accordance to the culture of God and His kingdom, which provides a resistance to infection, or we can join the hot mess that is destroying our species and planet. In essence, according to the Bible, sin is a choice. The inborn ‘fallen nature’ that is alluded to is the part of us that enjoys the effects of the virus.

I know this from personal experience, and can tell you that yes I have sin in me.

Hold on, I’m not going to go where you think I am going to go.

There is a part of me, a large part of me, that enjoys false power, that desires revenge when I am wronged, and loves it when someone gets their lumps. I harbor anger and unforgiveness in my heart towards my biological father. Why? For the way he jacked up my Mom. Twenty-plus years of Domestic Violence has left a former U.S. Army Sergeant a physical wreck, and the psychological equivalent of a bag of broken glass. I admit, I hate the man, and I hate him because it makes me feel like I have some kind of power and control. Especially, when having to deal with the broken woman he left behind.

Both secular and religious society would argue that I have a right to be angry, but I don’t have the right to sit around with a black cloud over my head, and making room for The Enemy to expand and grow. The same for the people in my life that wronged me during the height of the hot mess that was 2003-2009-10. If I could forgive them, I should be able to forgive my father, but every time I have to pick up the phone and listen to my Mom I want to drop my Dad with a deer rifle even though the man has been dead for almost ten years.

It is my animal nature, my baser instincts, but I choose to resist them because they are not of God. This is what Paul meant in that whole chapter of Romans. Yes, I have a touch of the virus that comes from The Enemy’s kingdom, except because I know the culture of the Kingdom, and the voice of God I am able to choose to resisting it. I have a better option than being some savage, hellbent on revenge. Not only that, I am surrounded by others who are able to help me discern the milder symptoms, the weaker end of the spectrum. After all, according to Psalm 19:12 (NIV)-

“But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.”

- and Proverbs 27:17 -

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person improves another.”

I’m developing an immunity, are you?

- RJK