The Unorganized Jesus

from “Church, Take Up Your Mats” --

The truth is that Jesus didn’t have much patience for organized religion. He spent most of his time walking around, meeting people face to face. He had a few donors but no annual operating budget. He brought with him a volunteer group of disciples, but had no paid administrative staff. The numbers of followers ebbed and flowed, growing to the thousands on good days, but on his last, only a couple of faithful women were anywhere to be found.

Kent comments:

I understand that churches can and have sometimes become institutions for their own sake.  This would, of course, be a problem.  In spite of that, there is a serious – and too often glibly repeated – mistake here.  The mere fact that Jesus did something does not necessarily prove that we should do exactly the same thing, the famous novel In His Steps notwithstanding.

During His time on earth, the church as such did not yet exist.  Jesus mentioned it in a “coming soon” way.  So many things connected to an organized congregation could not yet exist, and Jesus could not participate in them directly or even comment much on them in a meaningful way.

So what does that say about how a church should be organized, whether to have donors, budgets, paid staff, etc.?  Absolutely nothin’ – say it again!  Did Jesus have any ‘patience for organized religion’?  At some point, His Apostles would give directions for how His church should be organized, at least in outline form.  So the comment about Jesus and ‘organized religion’ seems to be just so much bluster rather than a well-considered conclusion.

When people, including Christians, do anything together, some degree of organization is unavoidable.  So, unless this writer is advocating that Christians never do anything together on behalf of Jesus, this whole idea is rather meaningless.

It is cool to be anti-institutional these days.  I suppose it makes Jesus seem cool to portray Him as anti-institutional also.  I have a bit of leaning in that direction myself.  But let’s not be silly about it.

Hey, Kentucky!

Kentucky is a place mostly full of a lot of nothing.  Nothing can be very pleasant for some purposes.  But nothing makes no stuff, and making no stuff makes no jobs.

So why do businesses tend to shy away from Kentucky?  Just don’t like Bluegrass – the region, the grass, or the music?  Probably not.

One important reason can be found in a recent study published by the Tax Foundation.  They examined various taxes that negatively affect businesses, and produced a ranking of states by their tax-friendliness to business.  Here is a chart from that study:

The lower the ranking number, the more tax-friendly the state is to businesses.  Kentucky is #22.  But it is bordered on the north by Indiana at #11, and on the south by Tennessee at #14.  And not all that far down the road is Florida, where it is both warm all the time and #5 in the tax-friendliness rankings.

The only bright spot for Kentucky – and it is a rather dim bright spot – is that our neighbor to the north, Ohio, is a miserable #39.  Any wonder businesses are leaving Ohio?  But they are not coming from there to Kentucky.  Why should they?

Kentuckians seem to worry (or rejoice) over college basketball rankings.  That’s fine, but if they pay more attention to things that really matter for human prosperity, they would try to improve our ranking in this important contest.  We have been losing at this for far too long here in Kentucky, the land of taxes.

The Fault Line

From a Leadership article about Steve Jobs:

"In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church's pastor, 'If I raise my finger, will God know which one I'm going to raise even before I do it?'

"The pastor answers, 'Yes, God knows everything.'

"Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, 'Well, does God know about this and what's going to happen to those children?'

"'Steve, I know you don't understand, but yes, God knows about that.'"

The pastor's answer badly underestimated the young teen's intellect and left him unsatisfied. According to Isaacson, Jobs walked away from the church that day and never returned.

For the pastor, that brief exchange was likely incidental and forgettable. Yet it was a turning point that would point Steve Jobs toward eastern philosophy.

Kent comments:

I am very sorry about Steve Jobs.  I am never happy to see anyone abandon the faith.  But it is not at all clear how this little exchange would “point Steve Jobs toward eastern philosophy.”  God does know about deprivations and evils in this world.  Should we pretend that He does not?

There seems to be a never-ending analysis among Christians that parallels the author’s evaluation of this episode.  “If only we had used a different word.  If only I had turned a different phrase.”  In other words, if only Christians could refine their marketing and presentation techniques, think of how many people would accept God’s grace!

While there is nothing wrong, of course, with making the best presentation of the Christian faith we can, there is an important factor that is ignored here:  the individual will.  When you read this rest of this article, you learn that much of Steve Jobs’ character was at odds with the Christian faith.  To be a Christian, Jobs would have needed to repent (as does anyone) of many of his attitudes and actions.

And Steve Jobs was not willing to do that.  It’s sad, but its not the fault of a minister’s Sunday School class.

It was Steve Jobs fault.

As Obama Says . . .

Obama: Roe v. Wade Ensures Our Daughters Have Same Chance to 'Fulfill Dreams'

In a statement on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama said it was a chance to recognize the "fundamental constitutional right" to abortion and "continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams," CNSNews.com reports. Obama added: "We must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman's health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on family matters." On Friday, the Obama administration finalized regulations that would require every health insurance provider to cover all contraceptive drugs, including those that cause abortions.

Kent comments:

Will the ‘right to abortion’ ensure that our daughters have the same rights, etc., as our sons?

Not for the daughters killed in abortions.

And for the daughters who survive the abortion holocaust – they will be afforded that extraordinary ‘freedom’ to produce unwanted children who will die in the abortion mill.

Yes, we live in the land of the ‘free.’  Well, except for those doomed to die before they are born.

Words to live by from our Beloved Leader.

The Big ‘Green’ Lie

Does Solarizing Your Home Make Financial Sense?

A report about green energy celebrated a Hawaiian couple that “spent $23,000 to put solar panels on their house . . . . Some neighbors sniffed that only rich people could afford such a luxury.” But “The family’s utility bill dropped from $110 a month to about $23.” The couple saved $87 a month. Right? Wrong. At that rate, they’d break even in slightly over 22 years—not counting maintenance costs to keep the panels functioning efficiently, without which their savings will decline. But suppose they had invested their $23,000 at 4%. In 22 years it would have grown to over $54,508, an average gain of $119.35 a month. Rather than saving $87 a month, the couple is losing an average of $32.35 a month. Their investment will never pay off. It will impoverish them more every year. Forty years down the line (long after the panels wear out), they’ll have forgone $87,423.50 in potential earnings—an average of $182.13 a month. It may be, as the “neighbors sniffed,” that “only rich people could afford such a luxury.” But those who think it’s going to save them money won’t get rich—they’ll get poorer.

Kent comments:

I found this interesting little report at Cornwall Alliance.  This is a very worthwhile resource for those interested in a truly Christian view of ‘the environment.’

It would be interesting to see similar calculations done various other ‘green’ projects.  My best guess is that many of them would be money losers.  We need to remember that money-loser really means resource waster.  So if you think that the ‘greens’ are conservationists, think again.

There is a reason environmentalists are constantly at work to make it more difficult (and thus expensive) to produce energy.  As things now stand, the ‘green’ preferred ways of producing energy are wasteful.  But the greens irrationally hate our current ways of producing energy.  The only way they can make things like solar panels attractive to people is to artificially drive up the cost of competing ways of production by using the force of the state.

The environmentalist agenda is about the use of governmental force to control people.  This means that rainbows, mountainsides, streams, and wildlife are only the images behind which environmentalism hides.  The ‘greens’ really don’t want to save anything as much as they want to control how other people live.

That is not idyllic, pastoral, or beautiful.  It’s totalitarian.

Lies, and more lies

If you are not acquainted with the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, you should be.  This is a group of Christians who have not gone over to the dark side of modern environmentalism, but who are concerned about the physical creation.

In a recent article one of their members explores the deception being foisted on the public by a group (the Evangelical Environmental Network) dedicated to the idea that mixing environmentalism with Christianity will yield anything more than moral and conceptual sewage.

I will not explore the details here.  If you want to do that, read the article for yourself.  In the end, this campaign by the Evangelical Environmental Network is a collection of lies built on a foundation of lies.

One of the most significant reasons why Christianity is not compatible with environmentalism is this inextricable connection between environmentalism and lying.  Environmentalism is a kind of ‘religious’ (in the way that word is so often misused) fervor that attempts to convince humans beings to do things harmful to human beings.  It does this by lying about the danger of human activity that has produced a setting in which human beings can thrive.

These lies are sometimes grand ones, and they are sometimes detailed ones that are somewhat technical in a way that most people will not take the time to understand.  These are often the most effective kinds of lies.  Lies that are very broad in scope at one end of the spectrum, or lies that are very detailed at the other end of the spectrum, are the ones most likely to overwhelm people.  We sometimes tend to ignore them because of the effort required to analyze them properly.

Environmentalists – ‘Christian’ or otherwise – exploit this situation to their advantage.  I try to be charitable with people, assuming that they might be honest but misguided.  In the case of environmentalists, this is not possible.  Their views, as well as the tactics they use to promote their views, are inseparable from a whole collection of lies.

The Cornwall Alliance is a good resource for uncovering these lies.  I highly recommend their work.

PETA People–Wrong, Even When They’re Right

Found an interesting article in Christianity Today recently:

December 8, 2011 12:19PM

FRC, PETA Call for Continuing an Explicit Military Ban on Bestiality

Tobin Grant

In an unlikely alliance, the Family Research Council (FRC) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have found a common cause: the criminalization of bestiality in the military. Both groups are calling for keeping an explicit ban on sex with animals in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) that may be eliminated by the Defense Authorization Act.

Kent comments:

While these two groups both don’t want to decriminalize bestiality in the military (or probably anywhere else, for that matter) they get there by such different routes that this “cause” is only marginally “common.”

Presumably, the Family Research Council opposes bestiality because human beings, being made in God’s image, are qualitatively different from animals.  (The article does not get into the rationale of this group explicitly, but it is a fair assumption.)

PETA, on the other hand, has a radically different reason for their opposition to bestiality.  As the official PETA statement said, they want to “protect all Americans—human and nonhuman alike.”

The PETA people (redundant, but it sounds good) seem to base their rather insane agenda on the idea that animals are persons, and thus “Americans” just like human beings.  To give them their due, however little that may be, they never quite say that animals are persons.  What they do say is that “supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth.”  If that is not personhood, it is as close as you can come to it.

What I can’t quite figure out is how the PETA people think they can know that animals don’t want to have sex with humans.  From perusing their website, my best guess that they think animals are somehow morally innocent and would never “want” to do something like engaging in sex with humans.  Humans, on the other hand – well, we all know how they are about such things.

As one Family Research Council member said about another issue, “PETA folks get this one wrong, too, as they get most things wrong.”  They mostly get this one wrong too.  They just blindly stumbled into the right conclusion for all the wrong reasons.

But that’s just the PETA people way.