tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320826620507241679.post7449087793456539898..comments2023-06-21T10:26:47.525-05:00Comments on ("RAM").........Red Alert Moderates: Agitprop in CanadaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5320826620507241679.post-71661318327095045822015-11-30T12:07:29.228-06:002015-11-30T12:07:29.228-06:00Ministers of all colors need to challenge themselv...Ministers of all colors need to challenge themselves: <b>Are they part of the solution, or part of the problem?</b> People go to church for fellowship, to seek inspiration, and to get through a rough patch. Churches rely on membership, both for their revenue and for their sense of purposefulness. They prefer to inspire without being divisive. <br /><br />But politics is inherently divisive, regardless of how morally important it is. A minister's duty is not just to whomever happens to comprise his congregation. His duty extends also to God and to the pursuit of better civilization. That requires willingness to "wrestle with God." That was the point of renaming Jacob. It was only because Jacob struggled with God that he received a new name, Israel. http://www.gotquestions.org/Jacob-wrestling-with-God.html<br /><br />However, modern Christian churches blanch away from struggle, preferring not to rock the boat. Raise up congregations of happy faces on sticks. Approve, bless, and tolerate everyting, including evil -- excepting only to decline to tolerate that which is intolerant of evil. So, modern churches tolerate the acme of evil -- Islam -- which is the glorification of hate, disfigurement, stoning, burning, eye gouging, beheading, and abject surrender of all reason. Moreover, they tolerate that which is inimical to faith, family, and fidelity. That is, they bless what destroys a representative republic that seeks to avail human freedom and dignity. That is, freedom of their own accord to "come to Jesus."<br /><br />There is more to seeking moral guidance from God than a simplistic talisman of loving and tolerating everyone. <b>Spirit based empathy</b> is about more than "loving everything." It also encompasses seeking to overcome evil -- not to celebrate and feed it. Empathy ought not be a code word for blessing depravity and sub-humanness to perpetuate depravity and sub-humanness.<br /><br />For heaven's sake, how do you "tolerate" your neighbors of good faith and good will if you sponsor the importation of brutes to go among them to rape, plunder, and kill them? Why should love and toleration go to trained rapists, plunderers, and killers, but not to long standing neighbors? And what of the future -- should it factor into any instant gratification you may seek from being radically "tolerant" in the present? What does your receptivity to God's guidance tell you about the kind of decency and civilization God wishes to lead us towards? Should we be tolerant of that, as opposed to sacrificing it so we can feel good about "tolerating" brutes in the present?<br /><br />Ministers often make excellent presentations leading up to the question, Does the church believe anything is wrong (or bad or sinful)? Or does it just tolerate and love everything and everyone, and is that even possible? They often get right up to the ring to "wrestle with God," and then they crumple.<br /><br />They fail to engage the important factors that relate to the contest. Their pat suggestion seems to be, yes, give refuge to the Syrian Musliims. With no concern expressed about the nation. Nor for an alternative that would provide refuge in place.<br /><br />Same with concerns about gays. Little appreciation that Gays already are free to do most of what they want, and face little public prejudice for doing it. As if social tolerance, to be moral, should somehow require the next step, being political funding and sponsorship.<br /><br />Jacob wrestled with an angel of God. But most churches nowadays do not wrestle. Nor do they seek or give practical moral guidance. Instead, they tend to claim God loves and tolerates everyone and everything -- as if such a logical contradiction could make any kind of moral sense! They do not help a nation keep its moral balance to preserve itself politically. They make us easy fodder for corrupt vultures, crony plunderers, and mad-dog gangster rapists posing as men of "God" (Allah). And with a well presenting minister, all the sheeple assent.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com