April 30, 2007

Today I was thinking about how the world promotes change as always coming from or through rebellion. It got me thinking of Hollywood and stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and the movies never seem to point to conformity as a good virtue.

Even as a young Christian, I was rebellious against the way the church or the way I was taught to do things. Nietzsche taught this as the superman theory; a way of calling into question the weakness of humility taught by the Bible.

There is a t-shirt that has Christ on the cross and below that is the word "rebel." The implication is that Christ rebelled against something in order to bring change. However, Christ came to do only what the Father commanded him and Christ was obedient in suffering and unto death.

People see things as to rebel against in order to find truth, when really what ought to be understood is, truth is already here. Our submitting is the only way to truth and restored relationships.

When Martin Luther went up against the Church of his day, he was submitting to the truth of scripture, not rebelling against something. The reaction of the church leaders was rebellion against the truth of scripture.

April 29, 2007

Next time your finger is cut, suspend your praying over it to see if it heals without a request to God. Then when you get cancer or some other incurable disease, hold off on that praying and see if it heals itself.

The reason we pray for the cancer and not the cut finger is because of fear. Fear causes us to mix superstition in our prayer requests by adding formulas to our prayers.

Formulas are indicated by idioms like:

"if we send up enough prayers they will break through"

"if YOU have enough faith or if you will only believe"

"if you pray hard enough".

Prayer has become a metaphor which has lost its true meaning. It is as to say "God bless you" after sneezing. There is only the connotation of a god and no meaning is needed because we are acknowledging the sneezing, not the reality of a deity. "Pray for the situation" has become more about the situation than the deity I am praying to.