Self Righteousness Part One: Pride

Self righteousness is a problem most if not all Christian struggle with, I would be lying if I said I did not. I believe self righteousness takes many forms, a few we are familiar with and others fail to see or we do not see the whole side of it. This week I will attempt to examine pride.

Pride, many of us have our pride. Proud that I am a Christian, proud that I will go to Heaven, proud that I am better than my neighbor who does not go to church. The list can go on and on. You may say I do not think this way, I ask you to take one minute to reevaluate, search your sub-conscience and then honestly ask if these ideas are not present. Still do not think you apply then you are on the right track in your relationship with God or really good at lying to yourself (I would examine the latter idea more fully before you believe the former.) Does pride lie within in our thinking of ourselves only or how we also think of others. For example, saying I am proud of..., does that differ from self pride? I lean toward is does not. How do we fix this? I think the answer lies in what Paul tells us, boast in Christ only. But what does this mean for us? Should we do away with our awards and honors? I honestly do not know. Is recognition of a person for some accomplishment a form of pride? I think these are many questions we need to explore. I do not pretend to have an answer. I am leaning toward thinking any type of recognition is a form of pride for the rewarded and rewarder. I do not know what this means for me and for all Christians. Please comment with thoughts on this. What is pride to you? How do you fight against it? Any other insights or questions you have.

America and Christians Part Five: Schools

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

[Note: I am not currently a parent, this is based strictly on observation.] There seems to me to be a growing trend for Christian parents to move their children into private Christian schools. I do not think this to be a good move especially if the reasoning is: There are just no Christians in that school. We as Christians should be having our children exposed to and experience what the modern culture of today is. I think parents are shedding off their responsibilities to teach their children their Christian belief systems to schools (and the church, only). It is the parents responsibility to teach their children their value system, school and churches are only helplines not the main source. I realize we live in a more busy world and time seems to be tighter than ever before. Isn’t this all the more reason to be spending time with our children? I realize schools are tough today and many negative influences are present (as I was there not too many years ago and still remember the goings on). This is all the more reason for Christian children to be in the schools. Where else are these lost children going to hear and see other children acting in a Godly way? Also once grown these are the same people your children are going to be working and interacting with, how are they are going to do so effectively if they are not accustomed to the culture. While school sponsored prayer is illegal (as it should be) private gatherings for prayer are still technically allowed. I think the best thing is to find what other children attend the same school as your child that also attend your church or a similar church and have them form a club/prayer group. This will do two things, as your children are witnesses in school (as they should be taught to be) they can invite others to the group and they will have a support system in place when times are tough which they will be. Remember Jesus went to the people not to the side of them. (Two further notes, I have the same opinion of private schools in general [exclusion from general society = lack of ability to interact with society in general] and when I do have children [assuming I do] this prayerfully will be my attitude.)

America and Christians Part Four: The Bible

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

This is probably my most controversial part of this series. This issue (among a few others) has split the SBC and is at times a hotly debated subject. I will attempt to leave most of that argument behind if at all possible and deal with the Bible in the state we currently have it. The unfortunate thing I see with the Bible in some circles is its treatment. Some people currently treat the Bible as if it is a god, whether they mean to or not. I believe this to be a very unhealthy view. Lets be honest with ourselves and everyone else. The version of the Bible we currently have is not perfect. Despite what you believe the original copies of each book to have been we do not have them or any copy that comes close to being a full copy. This is my biggest argument against calling the Bible inerrant, maybe it would have been if we had the originals, but we do not and we do not know exactly what they said. However, we several thousand copies from later dates that generally agree with one another. This is the information we should be promoting, we have more copies of the Bible from antiquity than we do of any other historical work. This fact alone should be proof enough for us. Debating over what the nature of the originals were only confuses our congregations. What comes out in the pew is that the English version in front of the congregant is an inerrant copy of the Bible. This is not the case and by throwing these terms around we are doing more damage than good. If the congregant believes his Bible in hand is inerrant then when presented with factual information to the contrary, what do you think happens to that person. I know of two scenarios that are likely, he boldly defends the Bible making him look the fool to others or he accepts the information and loses faith. Does it matter in the long run if the originals were inerrant, I do not think so. I do I believe the Bible to represent a divine communication, yes. Now you ask how do those two work together. Simple I believe the Bible to be a book about God’s relationship to man and vice versa. Godly men wrote their experiences of God and his relationship. These men are not perfect and their words not perfect either, however the message that radiates throughout the entire Bible is one of seeking a relationship with God (through Christ Jesus). Are there mistakes in the Bible, currently, yes, originally, who knows. Does it matter much, only if you are elevating the Bible to god status, in my opinion. Does my opinion matter much, probably not, does my view of the Bible as a purely relationship book between God and man and vice versa, I believe so. While many will quote 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching...” however this only states it is inspired by God, man still wrote it. To me it is large leap to claim definitively that this proves the original copies to be perfect, does necessarily make it impossible, no, but neither does it prove it. We should quit worrying about the originals and deal with the version we do have, a truthful book that teaches how to have a relationship with the One True God. Does this view perfect everything, no. Does this view fight against scholarly criticism, yes. To me in our day and age scholarly criticism is a major danger facing Christians. It takes only one person to start pointing out problems in the Bible, it takes a large group to defend against these.

Next week is the current last part, Schools

America and Christians Part Three: Politics

Disclaimer: This are only my opinions, presented to generate discussion on the issue. It is completely fine if you disagree. I respect the fact you may have another opinion and ask you respect mine. Comment on any part of this, whether you agree or disagree. Again this is presented to generate discussion.

Originally this post was going to mainly deal with if Christians should become politicians however after having a brief talk with Chris Boggus and him being interested in Christians involvement in voting and the political processes. So I will address both issues, being a politician and participating in the political process.

First should a Christian be a politician? No, because the responsibilities of being a politician lie outside your roles as a Christian. This argument is in very similar to the one in part one of this series. As a politician you are responsible to your constituents, which in a sense makes them your master. Say you get elected and your constituents decide they are pro-abortion but you are not. You can go against their wishes and anger them or you can compromise on your own position and vote according to their wishes. While the first view is completely viable it will kill your chance for reelection. So many politicians compromise on their position to appease their constituents in hopes of reelection and future gains of power. While the corporate world may not be much different I believe a political office only increases a person’s drive for more power and in any way possible. When you begin to look at this in a Christian perspective it goes completely against it. While I realize that a Christian can be in a political position, I greatly fear that compromise will over take them.

This issue is something I have thought long and hard about, especially since I considered becoming a politician while I was in High School and the early bits of college. However as I grew in my walk with God, I realized these two ideas where greatly contrasted. As I grew to love God more I realized that I would not make a great politician and would be troubled by going against my constituents wishes. If you are a Christian and you are considering politics please take a great bit of time to assure yourself you will not compromise your Christian beliefs to appease your constituents, which will most likely hurt your chances for reelection.

Now moving on to what should a Christian’s participation be in the political process. Should I vote, should I openly support candidates, should I lobby, etc. I think there is a fine line here that we have to walk. I do think we should vote, I not sure if we should endorse a particular candidate though, and limited lobbying could be okay. Voting, I believe we should vote because the people running for office do ultimately affect us and our daily lives. We do want to make sure we continue to have our rights that we need. Take for instance, doctors currently are a private practitioners, we do not want them to be force to perform abortions if they do not believe this is a correct practice. Voting can help us keep the rights we do already have. (I do want to mention though, we as “american” Christians take our rights for granted and abuse them. We allow them to make us docile, I feel Christians in countries that preaching and witnessing are illegal are more authentic due to their situation. This has led me to question my above stance on voting but has yet to change it.) Openly supporting candidates I think is a wrong move. People change (and politicians have been known to lie) and we do not want to be publicly endorsing someone that turns out to be against us. Instead we can openly support ideas that candidates endorse. Also I believe endorsing a candidate can lead to a bit of two master syndrome as well. Finally, lobbying, I think limited lobbying is okay. This goes back to endorsing ideas and not candidates. We can lobby to let it be known what stances on certain issues we hold and are likely to vote on. However this is fine line here because we should not fixate on one or two issue but all the issues. Currently gay rights and abortion or the two issues we continue to focus on while ignoring military, health care, treatment of the poor. Our problem seems to be we have decided that even if a candidate is all for helping the poor, providing health care, working to broker peace, but believes in gay rights versus a candidate who is against gay rights but believes first action is to strike back, ignores health care, and is only interested in giving tax breaks to the wealthy, then we tend to vote for the latter candidate. Is this right for us? I think not, we should be informed and make informed decisions based on the candidates entire resume versus two issues. Personally, with the trends in both parties, I currently support half the Republicans agenda and half of the Democrats agenda.

I think now I should discuss whether or not a certain party should be supported over the other. I believe not. We should support the candidates that promote the most correct stances on the issues, whether Republican or Democrat. I do not think it is our place to choose a side, for I choose to be a Christian not Republican or a Democrat.

Please comment with your opinion. See next week's part the Bible.