Brian C. Russell

Okay.

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about Creation again, and apparently this is a big issue for non-believers about Christianity because APPARENTLY we all think the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.

WHAT!?

How in the universe could the world only be 6,000 years old?  And what’s this I hear about dinosaur bones being in the ground as a cosmic joke to the human race from God?!  Is there a Christian archeologist out there, digging up fossils going… “Where’s Ashton?  I’m getting punk’d aren’t I?!”

No wonder people don’t believe this!  It’s ridiculous.

Where in the Bible does it say the Earth’s publication date?  Why is it sooo crazy to believe in the scientific evidence that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old?  It explains a whole lot about the Earth, how it was shaped, why we have earthquakes and volcanoes, etc.  Why is that crazy to believe in… but an unproveable and unreasonable 6,000 years (which… doesn’t even account for really anything…)?

This is frustrating to me.  I have a few people that have mentioned that this very issue is the reason they don’t believe in Jesus (which is a whole other story… but still)!  Why are we stubborn on this?  Does allowing 4.6 billion years come too close to the possibility of evolution being involved?  Why can’t dinosaurs have lived!?

What’s the deal?

Discussions ahoy!

“Again he [Jesus] said, ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?’” (Mark 4:30).

The kingdom of God has been described many ways in the Bible.  Like a wedding, like a workday, like a treasure in a field, and like a vineyard.  The vineyard model has spawned a slew of different analogies over the years because Jesus, himself, gives plenty of different versions of it too.

This stuck out to me the other day as I thought about the idea of “attractive Christianity.”  Most of the people that don’t like Christianity, church or religion in general, don’t like it because of the fruit being produced by those things.  And the idea struck me that I thought was interesting.

A man walking through a orchard comes up to a tree full of fruit.  He reaches to grab one, but notices that it has a huge rotten spot on it.  He aims for another, only to find that it, too, was rotten.  As he scanned the tree, most of the fruit was rotten to varying degrees.  A bunch of good fruit was near the top of the tree, but he had no ladder to reach it, and there were more trees.

So he walked away.

“Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers” (Luke 6:44)

I know that we cannot control other people in our Christian faith, and all we can worry about is the fruit that we bear in our faith and life.  The thought saddens me that people have been turned away because of general Christianity’s and church’s rotten fruit.  I don’t want to be a part of that rotten fruit producing tree.  I fear that one day, our tree will fail to bear fruit at all, and have Jesus say: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mark 11:14).

What can we do to change this trend?  What kind of faith will continue to bear good fruit that people want to taste, touch and plant more of?  When will the Lord intervene and take away every branch that doesn’t bear fruit or bears rotten fruit, and prune ones that do so that we can bear more fruit (Paraphrase of John 15:2)?

“Jesus threw tables around.”

In the Bible, Jesus met the undesirables at their point of need.  People that the church had given up on.  The broken, curse, possessed.  Murderers, accusers…   He did not get mad at them.  He didn’t get angry that the Romans were crucifying His people.  He called people to Him for the hope for another kingdom.  A more fulfilling life and an eternity that he would carry them to.  Something the Romans couldn’t stop.  He didn’t even get angry at the people taking him away, beating him or watching him bleed, suffocate and die.

The people Jesus did get angry at were religious people.  People in a religious role, leading people astray, holding the sick outside the temple, swindling, lying, cheating deceiving.  He threw tables around, screamed at them, and openly confronted their ways in public.  Religious people.

Not everyone else.

His heart broke for the brokenness of the world around Him, and he sought to show people that He would heal them.  Lead them.  That they could live with Him on a personal, honest, open relationship.  That there was a plan and a kingdom that couldn’t be seen, but was greater than the greatest kingdoms the Earth has ever known, and that they could live in it now.

Helping the poor, saving the sick, the homeless, the beggars, the broken, the weak, the oppressed.  God hears their cry, and we are supposed to help them.  To love them right where they are, and to love God so much, that you can put aside yourself and listen to the cries with Him.

And do something about it.

“Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to Suffering.”

The other day, on Facebook on a friend’s page, a discussion came up about Sarah Palin and the idea of politicians representing faith.  I was quick to point out that Jesus never called us to be political.  My biggest problem with people getting political, or protesting things or whatever is that it leads to anger, and that’s not Biblical.

In the words Yoda: “Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering.”  And, I know good and well that Jedi’s don’t really exist, but this is true.  How many times has the conversation about abortion led to violence?  How many times have homosexuals been attacked because of hatred?  How many times has the Bible been used to “prove” violence, suffering, or death of cities, people groups, laws or politicians?

Jesus had two commandments:  ”‘…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22: 37-40).

A common thing I’ve heard is “Hate the sin, love the sinner” (Ghandi), but I don’t think that’s what God wants either.  I think he wants us to be like Him.  And to be like Him, we have to love unconditionally.  This is tough because unconditional love isn’t fair, and neither is God.

God loves people who don’t believe in him, the same as he loves me.  He loves murderers, rapists, homosexuals, abortionists, evolutionists, terrorists, hypocrites, liars, politicians, cannibals… the same as he loves me.  Me who’s grown up in the church, never done drugs… he loves me the same as all people.

And if that’s true, who am I not to love those people too?  Where is the justification to protest and get angry about politics, when there’s even a chance that it could lead to hate, and lead away from God?

Recently I heard someone say something along the lines of “I can’t believe in a God who…” and then added something at the end that is subjective, at best.

A few months ago, in the discussion that started me on this idea of holding discussions, the idea of predestination vs. free will came up (or Calvinism and Wesleyan if that makes you happier) and the same sort of idea came up.

“I just can’t believe in a God who…”

Add whatever condition on the end of that you want.  It’s still the same idea.  Conditional devotion.  ”I can’t believe in a God who… doesn’t allow me the right to choose my destiny.  Who allows bad things to happen to good people.  Who doesn’t reward good deeds every time.  Who doesn’t reward long-time service over someone who gets saved on their deathbed.”

“I can’t believe in a God that I can’t understand with my own ideas of morality and logic.”

I don’t think I’m the first person to say that you can’t put God in a box, so I’ll avoid that.  What I do want to discuss though, is how Christians can let this phrase pass their lips.  This isn’t the only time I’ve heard it either.

Personally, I have stayed on the fence for the whole predestination debate.  I can’t decide which one it is, or if it’s either.  I have a feeling that since you can prove both, it probably is both, and we’ll just never really understand.  But, how can people say that “this is the way it is, deal with it” one way or the other?

Are you so convinced of your belief in something subjective that you stake your belief in God on it?  What makes you so sure?  What if you’re absolutely wrong?

How do you think conditional devotion bears witness to the all-satisfying savior that you believe in?

Anyone who’s followed my blog or Twitter or Facebook knows how I feel about LOLcatz.  If you haven’t, let me just say that it’s hilarious… but I can’t stand the spelling.  It drives me nuts.  People have told me that it’s because they’re cats and they’re retarded and can’t type.  I hear that, I guess.

This post is about something more.  LOLcatz are a growing unreached people group in the world.  Christianity hasn’t been able to reach this demographic because of something called grammar.  There just hasn’t been the technological know-how to reach these cute, lazy creatures.

But, now, an online initiative has started to remedy that problem.  I’m not sure if this is a Wycliffe translation or not, but the LOLcat Bible Translation is in full force.

“Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.” (Genesis 1:1, LOLCat)

It’s a full translation.  And now, the LOLcatz of the world will not go without hearing the word of the Lord (Ceiling Cat) in their own language.

“So liek teh Ceiling Kitteh lieks teh ppl lots and he sez ‘Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u beleeves him u wont evr diez no moar, kthxbai!’” (John 3:16)

Now, all those cat-ladies won’t have to fear about their cats’ salvation, because she can minister to them in a language they’ll understand.  And now, LOLcatz have a clear advantage over dogs.

John 3:31:  “The Ceiling Cat pwnz all; Us iz n00bz, can tell from how us talk ROFL. Did ai alreddy sez Ceiling Cat pwnz?”

So, what do you think?  Think LOLcatz can go to heaven?  Or is this completely wrong (as my co-worker stated)?

(Sidenote:  Thanks Ben for this precious discovery!)

Well, today, I went a little crazy on over at Charisma Magazine.  To be fair, the article is absolute horse hooey.  I don’t really want to go into it about the merit of the article because I’m pretty sure someone else is going to be doing a good job of that already, but I would like to go into this whole Halloween issue.

I realize that Halloween is over, and I should just move on with my life, but seriously… are we still having this “Halloween is from the DEVIL!” conversation?

Listen, you fundamentalists out there, Halloween is just as evil as every other holiday.  Sure people go a bit nuts buying costumes that make them look like a murderer, monster, dead thing, or absolute slut-bag.  That’s a given.  But the

holiday itself is just as evil as Christmas when you get down to it.

They’re all consumer-driven holidays that thrive on the idea that people get something, and you need to buy it for them.

The idea that it’s Satan’s birthday is absolutely ridiculous.  Even if it was, wouldn’t you want to water it down by passing out as much candy as you could?

I’m not even talking about what Halloween’s roots are.  I don’t care anymore, and frankly, neither does anyone that celebrates Halloween.  It’s about kids getting candy and scaring people and lately, being a whore.  So, if we’re going to call Halloween evil, let’s just be brutally honest about it and rank it up there with all the other holidays that put more

emphasis on buying and selling than anything else, like Christmas.

Side note:  Notice that the stores skip over THANKSgiving.  Although, if you’re going to get into the history of that, then Thanksgiving is evil too because it’s based on genocide.

The holidays aren’t the evil parts.  It’s everything that we’ve turned it into.

Sure, we can keep pretending like Halloween is evil based on witch’s brew and vampires and demonic possessions, but that’s really just to scare kids and gullible people into missing the important part about holidays, in general, being about buying and selling goods, and less about the people and impact that could be made.

But, that’s something the Christian tract salesmen don’t want you to notice.

Well, there’s my thoughts.

What do you think?