An Opinion on In His Steps

Summery of The Text

One fine day a pastor and his congregation sat in comfort. Secure in their expressions of faith and their place in society the pastor and significant members of the church went about the accepted patterns expected by their lives and culture. No body ever did anything unexpected and noone ever had any adventures. Even so, all at once during a routine service an unexpected adventure found them. The resulting conviction facilitated the beginning of a journey. A journey swept off their feet and down the road that would go on and on in the steps of Christ.

Inner Reflection or Scripture Reflection?

The truth is that the story related in "In His Steps" and even somewhat supplemented in "The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life" have always been troubling to me. The Characters in the book are reflective of many Christians who stagnate in comfort and I grant that we could all do better with the focus of following in the steps of Christ as best we are able. The problem I see with this book is not the premise but the method of application. 

The minister in his sermonic stances, our newspaper man in his advertising decisions, the would be professional singer and her renunciations of secular performance, they all show the greatest and most admirable motivation to walk as Jesus walked. The willingness and attempt to emulate our Sovereign Master is something we should always aspire to. We must however ask where we are drawing our source of action to that end.

Sheldon has his characters drawing from inward reflection in order to decide what the most likely action of Jesus Christ would be. As the scriptures are the unerring Word of God that were made manifest in the Person of Christ is it not presumptuous to assume we could reflect internally as we pray and somehow by that means discern the will of God apart from scripture? When we use ourselves as the window through which to guess at the actions of our savior we place personal reflection and emotion above scripture as the basis of our faith. The best case scenario we can hope for in this would be a Christianized Socialism that has a works based salvation message. 

Answer to the Argument

The main argument against this thought I hear is "Jesus and the Bible never addresses [insert issue here] so we must look to other sources for answers." But that does not negate the fact that Paul tells us to be like the Bereans and "Test all things by the scripture." If we are going to break away from using the scriptures as a mirror to judge ourselves, our motivations, and our actions then we might as well join the many who have been led astray into apostasy by the Contemplative Prayer Movement and the likes of Sarah Young who are mixing occultic practices like automatic writing and mantra chanting into Christian Prayer.

"If you work for me, you will think and act like me." - Ummm. NO.

My reaction to http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/30/high-school-football-coach-on-leave-for-praying-attends-game-prays-with/

Sad that the school administrators think they can control a teachers activity and public expression 24/7/365. Are teachers really restricted from public expression of thier beliefs when on thier own time? The students are not compelled or forced to join. Niether is anyone solicited or asked. The couch just went out and prayed. In a public space. While off the clock.

"Kennedy has prayed before and after games since 2008, but was only asked to stop recently after the practice came to the district's attention."

Yep a guy over the past 7 years prays unsolicited and on his own time in a public space and that offends some people so much that in a whim of emotional attention grabbing, a small group of students and at least 1 teacher decide to manipulate members of another religion (members of the Satanic Temple of Seattle) as pawns to supposedly "prove thier point".

They obviously either missed something in that American Government class about free speach and expression or they are not being taught the constitution. Take for instance this snippet:

Senior class president, Abe Bartlett, said he was among those who invited the Satanists.

"The main reason I did it (invite the Satanists) is to portray to the school district that I think we should either have a policy that we (ie. student leaders, administrators, faculty and staff) are not going to have any religious affiliation or public religious practices, or they should say people are going to be allowed to practice their religion publicly whatever their beliefs," the 17-year-old told the Associated Press Wednesday.

Obviously this 17 year old knows very little about constitutional law. Public religious expressions are already protected by the law. The contitution bars the government and its public organizations from infringing on those practices. It would be against the law for a public school to bar its members from religious affiliation and public practice / expession of the same esspecially when it is off the clock and noone is compelled or even asked to join in. That goes for Christian and Satanist alike.

Just because you are employed or affiliated with an organization that gives you a paycheck does not mean you are an indentured servant to be subjegated in action and thought by them.

This was a sad attempt to cause controversy by a small group of people.

Happy Veterans Day!

From the Patriots of the Revolutionary War to our soldiers of modern day our military enjoys a history of Defense, a tradition of standing in the gap for the average citizen, and a standard of honor that has been waved for well over 200 years even in the face of periodic adversity.

A handshake and a thank you for your service is not enough. Of all the citizens of the United States there are very few that truly understand what many of our military families and citizen soldiers have gone through in times of war, or begin to grasp the extent of their voluntary sacrifice of personal liberty during times of peace.

To our Veterans, both related to me by Blood and by Birthright of Citizenship, I offer you my thanks and the prayers of my family. Though heartfelt appreciation from us the average American is but a small and intangible token, I pray you accept it. Though it is but a small part of all the honor deserved by your service it is yours completely. Thank you for your service and sacrifice as part of the wall of protection the military has provided for the freedom, self determination, and liberty this nation has enjoyed.

Image is not mine. Image from www.g2mil.com/vetsday.htm

Application of Anger

I would like to share with you some insights from Bible reading today. I focused on these main verses: 

• Psalm 30:5; 
• Proverbs 15:1, 22:24&25; 
• Matthew 18:15-35; and 
• James 1:19. 

For clarification I have compared them each in NASB, NKJV, NIV, and YLT98. After a few readings it is abundantly clear that there are many concepts that can be applied to our interpersonal relationships. All our interpersonal relationships can be boiled down into emotional terms as they are all built on our individual biases and personalities as we encode and decode messages through our internal filters. Following the illustrations and techniques listed out in scripture will help us to refine our interpersonal interactions.

Good Anger 

The first point we must discuss is the categorization of anger. The scripture reading deals heavily with the positive and negative influence and uses of anger. Many in our culture view all external anger as an offense or sin to be avoided. In scripture in Ephesians 4:26 Paul tells his audience that we should be angry if necessary but to “sin not.” The connotation we take away is that there is a form of anger that is sinful and one that is not. Our further reading will give us an understanding.

Psalm 30:5 tells us of God’s anger toward a wayward saint. We call this righteous anger because it s sole motivation is the correction and growth of one who is beginning or is currently straying from the Lord. We can compare this to a parental relationship or a supervisors relationship to his or her subordinates. In both cases the party with authority over the other is imposing a set of rules and then reinforcing them with consequences.

Our personal motives are the main way we struggle in emulating Christ in our roles of authority. As humans, frustrations and anger about the mistakes of subordinates, our personal missteps, wrongs we suffer, or perceive ourselves to have suffered, can be easily misdirected. As an example, God’s anger in Psalm 30:5 was directed toward the sinful actions but the consequences were imposed on the person or people making the mistake. These consequences were imposed in spite of the fact that God loves His people. This is in stark contrast to our human tendency toward venting our anger on the person making the mistake instead of expressing it in relation to the damage the mistake causes. At times we even go so far as to hold back the consequences because imposing them makes us feel bad for whatever reason.

In our capacity of authority we must make conscious efforts to strengthen our interpersonal relationships with mutual respect even as we reinforce rules and policy. One of the ways we can do this is by sandwiching reprimand with encouragement. It is my opinion that while we communicate clearly the reason for the consequences to a person we should bring positives into the beginning and the end of tough conversations. In this way we can clearly encode the value we feel the person or child has while also encoding a clear desire that the same action or circumstance not be repeated. I feel that this is one way to put the concepts we can learn from Bible reading into practice in our interpersonal relationships.

Bad Anger

Examples of anger that is NOT righteous are illustrated in Proverbs 15:1 and 22:24+25. In addition these verses provide some great suggestions on how to react to another persons anger and a warning that should spur us to prevent our joining the ranks of those that are enslaved to anger. One of the ways to diffuse an angry individual is to provide a soft and calm but firm answer. Many times anger loses steam when it doesn’t cause a reaction. Reacting is a knee jerk response to anger, responding is a thought out answer in the face of opposition. If we react as oppose to respond, according to Proverbs 15:1, we only provoke a prolonged and spreading anger in our interpersonal relationships. By contrast Proverbs 22:24+25 warns us of the contagious nature of one who makes anger a lifestyle. It brings back to my memory the words of my grandfather, “You become like who you hang around.”

Matthew 18:15-20 gives us our guidelines for how to react when we are wronged or feel an individual wrongs us. I take this to mean that this is a literal way in which to reconcile a relationship and to respond on an interpersonal level. We also have here a mandate for prayer in cases where a conflict is resolved without reconciliation. Verses 21-35 of the same chapter give us both a promise and a warning to us of how God will respond if we respond to others as He responded to us or if we choose to be unforgiving aggressors, like that angry man from Proverbs, in our interactions with others. To us Matthew 18:15-35 should be a direct example of how a Christian should or should not act in our interpersonal relationships.

The connection of James 1:19 rounds out our proper structure in our interpersonal relationships by reminding us to observe all the facts before responding to any given situation. In short we were created with two ears, two eyes, and only one mouth. We should therefore listen and observe twice as much as we talk.

Should Drugs be Legalized?

In the wake of the legalization of marijuana there are now activist groups pushing for the legalization of all illegal drugs. Some of them make a convincing case with intellectual slight of hand and hypothetical, but unsubstantiated, arguments that are totally outside of a reality that includes free will. 

Case in point is the article "Legalize Drugs Now! an Analysis of the Benefits of Legalized Drugs," which was printed in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Ms. Cussen makes the assumptions that crime rates would fall, quality of life would be improved, and taxpayers would be relieved of a major burden. Maybe this would be a case in an utopian world where drug use only effects the user. 

Ms. Cussen makes some very big presuppositions in her opinions. She assumes: 

1. That drug users only hurt themselves
2. That legalization will lower the crime rate in a meaningful way
3. That lower prices for drugs will mean less users, And
4. That the government will see a net profit from taxing the sale of drugs and associated paraphernalia.

1- It strikes me that one justification of the main argument was the assumption and attitude that drug use only harms the user. This idea goes against the things that I have observed in the practical application of life. Some of the main side effects of drug use are heightened paranoia, violent inclinations and reactions, dulled decision making skills, sacrificing anything to feed the addiction, and with some substances, withdrawal symptoms that rack the body so hard as to be fatal. Any of these things can result in harm to those around or living with a drug user.

Arguments for the legalization of drugs often assume that human beings exist within a vacuum. All humans hold influence with someone simply because interaction is an unavoidable attribute of life. Even silent observation of an individual influences our perceptions of that person and we at times subconsciously pick up mannerisms and habits. One of the observable distinctions of human civilization is that part of being human is that we slowly become like those we hang around and interact with to form a distinct local and natural culture.

2- Lower Crime rate? Only on paper. Just because the legal system doesn't call something a crime doesn't mean that it isn't harmful to the people that participate in it or that the activity is not detrimental to society as a whole. While the posted crime rate would lower, the activity will still remain and the collateral issues stemming from drug use will continue to increase. But hey! as long as the bar charts aren't as scary these people will be able to live with themselves.

Further many of the criminals in our jails on low level drug crimes have those charges as a result of plea bargains. A plea bargain is a deal with the prosecutor which results in violent crimes being turned into lesser charges. This blanket pardoning does not take this into consideration. As a result the streets of many cities will also be flooded with many offenders that will have no rehabilitative support. This brings me to the next point!

3- While I agree with the assessment that drug sales has become an $80bil a year problem that our government spends $10bil a year fighting, it is painfully true that the government would NOT see a net profit from legalizing and taxing these drugs. The rate of medical issues resulting from drug use, impact to productivity and quality, and reduced quality of life that results from addiction will far outweigh any monetary gains. 

4- What net profit is there? The entire illegal drug trade grosses $80bil a year. Even now as drugs are illegal, an article posted by Recovery Ranch, an addictions recovery organization based in Tennessee that treats a myriad of behavioral disorders, sights a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) report that shows a combined societal cost of $559 billion per year due to addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. Since the government and taxpayer in many levels will remain responsible for the fallout of addiction, the cost legalization works out to a net LOSS of $479bil for America while making all addicts become slaves to be harvested through taxation for the financial benefit of the governing authority.

According to this same report, illegal drug addiction and abuse account for a social cost of $181 billion, alcohol abuse and addiction have a social cost of roughly $185 billion each year, while tobacco addiction has a social cost of roughly $193 billion a year. When combined, the costs for these three categories of abuse are what equal about $559 billion per year.

The middle ground of prescription medical use of drugs, though extremely shaky and prone to abuse, is the only possible middle ground. In the case of this argument only in the case of drugs that have the following  characteristics: They are not derived from regulated legal drugs, Naturally occur in nature, and Prove to have medicinal properties after refinement should even be considered for legalization and should be subjected to the same standards as all other legal drugs for medicinal use.

My final conclusion is that drugs should not be legalized. 

If we would look at this from a Biblically Literate Christian point of view we will see that many verses that apply to drug use can be found in the Bibles verses. 

First of all we have Gal 5:20 which tells us those who practice sorcery/witchcraft will not inherit the kingdom of God. Witchcraft in this verse was translated from the Greek word, "Pharmakia" the same word we get pharmacy from. This is telling us that the use of substances for the expressed purpose of changing our mental state is considered sin by the standards of the Bible and therefore should be by those who follow Christ's teachings.

There is also Matthew 5 with the parable of the talents charging us with the responsibility to care for what we are granted. More explicitly there is 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 which states:

16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple

Drugs devastate the mind and body, thus by definition desecrating and destroying the temple God has knitted together for us from before we were born.

Along with this are the several verses in Timothy and Proverbs exhorting us to be sober minded. A clear mental state is such a blessing to those ho posses it. We should not throw it away lightly in our own lives or in our society among the people.