The Gospel of Politics

• The price of a gallon of gas has more than doubled from around $1.45 to nearly $3.00.
• The Consumer Price index has risen by 26% from 147.2 to 200.6.
• The Federal Minimum Wage has increased 17.4%... all the way to $5.15 per hour and has remained unchanged since 1997.
• The number of persons without health insurance has risen from 15.2% to 15.9%.
• The national debt has nearly doubled from 4.7 to 8.6 TRILLION DOLLARS and is increasing by an average of 1.23 Billion Dollars a day.
• Attempted to change our constitution from a document that defines our liberties into one that restricts them with their Federal Marriage Amendment.
• Created the "USA Patriot Act", effectively eliminating our first and fourth amendment rights as US Citizens.

I admit I'm not a very politically minded person. I almost always vote and I try to keep myself informed about what our government is up to but I really just can't throw myself into politics. To me it's kind of like football... when it comes right down to it, I simply don't care... so when I started thinking about writing a new blog it surprised me when my thoughts started towards politics. See, the problem is that for years now I've been under the influence of "Organized Religion" and I've fallen into the trap of just listening to what was said from the pulpit and not bothering to engage my brain. What a waste of ballots I've been.

You've read the list above... have you figured out what it is yet? It's a short list of things that come to my mind when I think of all the accomplishments of the GOP since they gained control of both The House and Senate in 1994. This is the party I have voted for almost exclusively since I was enfranchised. Those six points, as well as many others not listed, are my fault because I didn't think for myself instead of listening to some egomaniac with his own agenda.

This last election was different. This time I really started looking into what my elected officials were doing. Are they serving my interests and those of my neighbors or are they serving the interest of big business? When I started making that my criteria instead of just whether or not they are pro-choice or pro-gay-rights, I discovered that most of the candidates backed by organized religion don't give a rat's ass about their constituency. They care about their constituency's employers. They leave the minimum wage at $5.25 an hour because that helps businesses make profits. They allow the major oil companies to charge outrageous prices for a gallon of gas because it allows those companies to post record profits... in spite of their whining that it's not their fault that gas prices are so high. They allow our nation's largest private-sector employer to provide such piss-poor health insurance that a huge percentage of their employees are on public assistance healthcare in spite of having full-time jobs.

This is the group that's touted from pulpits across America as "God's Own Party", the GOP.

So to those Wal-mart employees who suffer so that the Waltons can live fat... and to those who cannot afford to drive their car to work anymore... to those stuck in minimum-wage jobs and wondering everyday how anyone could ever survive on $5.25 an hour. I'm sorry... I've voted irresponsibly and behaved stupidly. It won't happen again.

To those who walk into a voting-booth, pull the curtain and vote a straight Republican ticket because your preacher told you to... Pull your head out of your ass. It's a LOT easier to breathe out here!

And remember... since you started reading this, our National Debt has increased by $2,665,000.00.

Gone Overboard

Awhile back, a former pastor of ours came to our home to discuss his concerns about Joan and me leaving the institutional church. When I told him that I didn't think it was too much to expect Father to lead us on the path He's chosen for us, our pastor friend told me that he thought I'd gone a little overboard.

I really respect Lin and have spent several months in careful consideration and I think he's probably right.

Several years ago, seeking to be closer to the ocean, my wife and I boarded a great ocean liner. The ship was beautiful and had all the luxurious amenities that anyone could wish for... on-board activities every day... fine dining... top name entertainment... you name it, the ship had it and more.

For the first few years we were very excited about being on board the ship and enjoying all the entertainments the ship had to offer. We worked our way up the ship's social ladder until we became frequent guests at the captain's table and knew all of the ship's officers on a first name basis... but the glamor of the great ship was beginning to fade. Oftentimes, I would stand alone on deck, staring at the water and wishing that I were closer to it, instead of all protected up here on the ship's deck, high above the water-line. When the ship was close to shore I would watch the small sailboats with their decks so near the water and their passengers and crew so busy about the deck, keeping the sails trimmed and the course steady. I could sometimes hear them laughing aloud as the ocean sprayed them in the face, cooling them on a hot day. How I longed for the freedom they had on those small craft... how I yearned to be so close that I could feel the ocean on my face like that!

After years of this longing, my wife and I were standing on deck one day, discussing a new course which the captain had set, when along came a rickety little sailboat. As we watched it draw near, we saw that some of our friends were on board! We waved frantically to them and they shouted for us to wait until they got close and then jump! With great excitement, my wife and I left everything we had and, with only the clothes on our backs, we jumped overboard to join our friends on their adventure.

Initially, being on the small vessel was exciting and even a little frightening, but our shipmates knew what to do and they quickly showed us the ropes. We loved being out on the open sea with the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces. We soon learned what it means to batten down the hatches, and that a shroud has more than one meaning and that a cunningham is not just a last name. I was finally near the ocean. I could see it up close... I could feel it and even taste it!

There was one thing that disturbed me though, sometimes in our travels we would come across people in the water and they did not want to be rescued, they seemed to like it there and in fact seemed to thrive. They would tell us that water was fine and we could jump in with them. It struck me as pure madness! How could one live at the mercy of the ocean without a captain to set the course and with no boat? Not even a simple row boat!!!

Then one day we encountered a storm and our rickety little boat was dashed to pieces. We were swept overboard and out in to the stormy sea. I have never been more frightened. I thought we would surely drown! I was pulled under several times, I had no breath left in me and was not going to make it but a crew mate, who knew a little about swimming, pulled me up and I could breath again. I was floating without a life jacket. The storm passed and the sun came out. Against all odds we had survived! My wife and I were alive and drifting at the mercy of the ocean's currents.

The two of us stuck together like glue and floated along wherever the ocean would take us. The water was warm and we found that we actually enjoyed floating along together. From time to time we would encounter other floaters and we learned to take courage from the many stories of their adventures. We would laugh together and talk about how much fun it was to see where the ocean would take us next. Often, boats will draw near and offer to rescue us, telling us of the dangers of the open sea and warning us that we could drown if we don't come aboard. We usually laugh and thank them for their concern, but we'd rather stay in the water!

You see, we've noticed that, no matter the size of the vessel, when you're aboard ship, your concern is about the ship and not really about the ocean. Those enjoying the safety of the deck can never know the excitement of feeling the waves roll around them or the freedom of going where the currents take them. They cannot understand the thrill of meeting another person who is also in the water and sharing tales of the sea. Those aboard ship worry about whether the captain has set the right course for them... they spend hours painting the ship and polishing the brass so that others will see what a beautiful ship they are on. They worry about the seating arrangements in the dining room and how often they sit at the captain's table. When you're in the water, you share what the ocean provides with whoever the current brings your way and you share your love for the ocean.

So yes, Lin, I've gone overboard... I rather like it here!

Reputation

Ever notice how worried some Christians are about their reputation? I got an e-mail from a friend today and she was very concerned about what the gas-station attendant, who knows my friend is a Sunday-School teacher, was thinking as she watched my friend get pulled-over by the local police.

That got me thinking, what is 'reputation' in the Bible? Is it a matter of how we appear to other people?

Consider these verses from the Bible:

Matt 11:16-19 "How shall I describe this generation? These people are like a group of children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, 'We played wedding songs, and you weren't happy, so we played funeral songs, but you weren't sad.' For John the Baptist didn't drink wine and he often fasted, and you say, 'He's demon possessed.' And I, the Son of Man, feast and drink, and you say, 'He's a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of the worst sort of sinners!' But wisdom is shown to be right by what results from it." (NLT)

John 10:20 Some of them said, [of Jesus] "He has a demon, or he's crazy. Why listen to a man like that?" (NLT)

• It seems, from these verses, that Jesus himself didn't live up to the expectations of the people when it came to His reputation... yet Jesus was without sin!

• The Apostle Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, was repeatedly jailed and occasionally had rocks thrown at him until he was left for dead.

• In the Old Testament, King David was called a man after God's own heart... but he danced around in his Fruit of the Looms in down-town Jerusalem!

• Isaiah the Prophet walked around for three years NAKED in public!!!

No... I doubt that our reputation as Christians can be based on appearances, too much of the Bible shows that outward appearances mean nothing to God.

So what does?

It's not OUR righteousness... it's GOD'S righteousness!

Phil 3:9 ...and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness , which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; (NKJV)

Eph 5:8-9 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9(for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness , and truth), (NKJV)

2 Cor 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (NKJV)

So reputation comes from being in obedient relationship with God! Not from whether someone sees me screwing up... but from whether God and others see me getting back up and making it right!

There will always be people around us who are looking for something wrong. The likelihood is... they'll find it! They'll decide that we're too friendly with sinners, or that we can't possibly be obeying God's voice because what we're doing doesn't make any sense.

Let them think that... it doesn't matter. What matters is what GOD thinks. I'll end this with these verses:

Matt 7:14-27

The Tree and Its Fruit

15 "Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are really wolves that will tear you apart. 16 You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You don't pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles. 17 A healthy tree produces good fruit, and an unhealthy tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit. 19 So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. 20 Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.

True Disciples

21 "Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. 22 On judgment day many will tell me, 'Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.' 23 But I will reply, 'I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.'

Building on a Solid Foundation

24 "Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on rock. 26 But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash."

(NLT)

The Seattle Chill

Puget Sound is divided into two camps: those that have seen the Seattle Chill in action and know it exists, and those who reflexively scream at the first camp to piss off or move out of town.

The Seattle Chill IS an established sociological phenomenon that has been extensively documented, written about and attracted academic interest. A growing number of research professionals are interested in learning why Seattle is such an angry, unwelcoming, repressed, socially backward little city.

As a personal experiencer and student of the Seattle Chill I believe I have isolated the nine key factors that generate it. Few are unique to Seattle. No single factor, or even two or three together, would affect the culture profoundly. But stir them all together and they have a Chilling effect.

Seattle is the only city on earth where all nine key factors intersect in a perfect Big Bang -- a quintessence of dysfunction. It's like seeing the atom split, a borderline mystic phenomenon, with the results being neighbors who won't talk to you and strangers who tell you to piss off when you smile at them.

1. TECHNOLOGY. Wired/Internet culture is inherently isolating. People use the anonymity of e-culture to dodge the work of human relationships. Every office knows the downside of substituting email for face-to-face communication. Impose that culture on a highly wired metropolitan area and it's disastrous.

2. DARKNESS. Admittedly a seasonal factor, because the summers are glorious, but Seattle is characterized mainly by endless, gray, wet, dark winters. Nobody feels like connecting when the sun is gone for months. Seasonal Affectedness Disorder is a known mental condition, and the whole city suffers from it.

3. GEOGRAPHY. Surrounded by water on three sides, the city is difficult to get to. Commute times are longer. Errands take longer. Traffic jams and basic life maintenance tasks snuff out hours that could be used to establish and maintain human relationships. Consequently people do not feel they have the capacity or energy to maintain the ones they've got, let alone start new ones.

4. PARALYSIS. Too few roads and a lame transit system mean we all spend too much time in our cars, alone and stationary. This isolation becomes second nature.

5. TRANSPLANT PRESSURE. The townies resent the newbies for ruining Seattle's imagined Podunk innocence. The Chill tends to segregate Seattleites into groups of locals who went to Garfield High together... and knots of transplants who find each other and share their perplexity about the townies.

6. INSECURITY. Seattle is a sort of Potemkin world-class city, with a lot of gnawing, provincial fears and small-town, small-bore sensibilities behind the 21st-century facade. (In no other city have I heard so many natives proudly proclaim their disinterest in discovering other places, because "everything I could ever want is right here.") Any seventh grader will tell you insecurity impedes social interaction.

7. WEALTH ENVY. Too much new money from quick tech fortunes and unnatural real estate appreciation. It's divided the Seattle population into haves and have-nots who hate each other -- not on the basis of intelligence or faithful hard work, but on arbitrary, lottery like terms: who lucked into the right employer or neighborhood and who didn't. The wealth lottery is a key destabilizer and anger-breeder. That's why your neighbor just stares at you instead of saying good morning. Maybe you bought your place outright on a whim while she's drowning in a 30-year mortgage. She hates you for it.

8. INSTANT GRATIFICATION CULTURE. Thanks in part to dot-com culture, in part to a general decline in societal structure, people expect to achieve all manner of material rewards -- BMWs, Thai diving holidays, granite counter-tops -- virtually overnight and become angry when denied. I've seen 27-year-old tech-world workers fly into rages or sink into funks because they couldn't have exactly the Mercer Island house they wanted. When people lose the concept of investing and earning to achieve things, they lose the ability to relate to people. (And it's not only young people; as someone smarter than me has observed, if you want to see raw anger, try telling any upper-middle-class American woman she can't have something.)

9. POLITICAL IMPOTENCE. The liberal/progressive paradigm is virtually overthrown in the US. The Democratic leadership is inept and incoherent. Some of the movement's last angry avatars are out here clinging to the country's leftmost, jagged edge. Having failed to change the country they are now reduced to snatching cigarettes out of people's fingers and, like the hard right, screaming insults at anyone who disagrees with them. These people have never exactly been relaxed anyway. Now that their eclipse is about total, Seattle's air is weighted with their general rage and disapproval.

Thank you for your interest in the root causes of the Seattle Chill. Anyone who responds here by telling me to piss off or move away is personifying Factors 1,5 and 6.

Christian Business???

Alright... I've finally decided that I am fed up with "Christian" businesses. I know that I'm not the only person on earth who has noticed that, no matter how money-hungry they are, no worldly business-person can hold a candle to the greed levels of those who put on the name of Christ.

Oh, sorry... I guess it's not greed... the "Churchy-correct" term is 'Good Stewardship'. My bad.

When a worldly business-person takes on a person with no experience and no training they expect to have to invest some time teaching that person how to do the job. They have this thing called a 'Training Budget' and they invest in their employee. Not so the "Christian" business-person.

In the name of 'Good stewardship', the "Christian" business-person takes on an inexperienced person, gives them a project, denies them any training even if they offer to train without pay and then bitches them out because they made  too many mistakes and are too slow.

Yes... I'm certain that's exactly how Jesus treated the disciples.

... and "Christians" wonder why the world isn't standing in line to repent.

Some Thoughts About the I.C.

This is part of an E-mail I sent to a friend about her Father's refusal to set foot inside a 'church'. Maybe someone else can get something out of it too.

...... It's not the TV shows that keep your Dad out of church... it's the reality that the shows are based on. Read your New Testament and you'll find that this Corporate Monstrosity that we call "The Church" isn't in there at all!!! The Church shown in the New Testament is PEOPLE under the leadership of Christ in small groups which were led by lay eldership. The word 'pastor' only occurs once in the NT and is never referred to as a priest, which is what a Pastor is in today's institutionalized church. Paul covered the Priesthood issue in Hebrews and we are ALL Kings and Priests before God... and we all have our own Temple. So what's the deal that the Institutional Church (IC) needs to have a "Pastor" who does all the teaching, all the counseling, represents the 'church' to the community, leads the lost to Jesus, prays all the prayers, etc, etc? The reason is that it allows us saints to be lazy!!! We don't need to study God's Word... The 'Pastor' tells us what we need to know! We don't need to visit folks in prison or the hospital... that's the 'pastor's' job! All we need to do is keep throwing our money into the offering-plate and we're good. Peter talks about them in 2 Peter 2, Here are the first few verses for you... but read the whole chapter and you'll see some really familiar stuff!!!

2 Peter 2:1-3

But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach their destructive heresies about God and even turn against their Master who bought them. Theirs will be a swift and terrible end. 2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of them, Christ and his true way will be slandered. 3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction is on the way.
NLT

2 Peter 2:17

17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs of water or as clouds blown away by the wind — promising much and delivering nothing. They are doomed to blackest darkness.
NLT

Sound like anyone we know? I can't tell you how many times I've sat at work at TBN and watched famous teachers tell the audience that if they'll make a pledge of 'X' number of dollars God will give them the money and more. Heck, I've heard that from the pulpit in Parkland! I've also talked with those who gave more than they had and suffered the dissappointment of having their power shut off because 'God didn't come through' and deliver on the preacher's empty promises. And if you confront the 'Man of God' you get a stern warning to 'Touch not the Lord's anointed!', or told that the person didn't have enough faith or some other sorry excuse. Read 1st Chronicles 16 and put the touch not the Lord's anointed into context... it's not talking about preachers, it's talking about Israel... Wait! WE ARE SPIRITUAL ISRAEL!!!!!

Who's touching who here?

That's why Joan, Sean and I no longer "Go to Church"! We go to a Bible-study on Monday nights and meet and fellowship and learn... oh yeah, and we visit the sick at the VA Hospital, we can pray for the sick, we get to teach the group the things God is teaching us and if the person teaching says something unbiblical? We can argue with them without being told to "TOUCH NOT THE LORD'S ANOINTED"!!! Nobody feels the need to be in charge... That's what Jesus is... the Head of His Church. Do you know that He is VERY GOOD at that??? He is!!!

So there you have more than you bargained for... I'll put my soap-box away now but I DO hope you'll think about it. Until the world begins to see real believers following a real, loving, compassionate, caring Jesus who is their friend, they will never want to turn from their sin. Who can blame them? What they see of 'The Church" on the 6:00 news is a "Pastor" fondling boys in the baptismal or messing around with his secretary or telling the world that Ariel Sharon had a stroke because God is judging him or that 9-11-01 is "The gay's fault" or some other stupidity that has nothing to do with God... it's just being perpetrated in God's name.

Heaven help us!
~Archie