Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The Passing of Barnes and Keller at PTS

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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PTS

          Even pastors who never enrolled along with conscious not-just-navel-gazing pewsitters are wondering collectively, “What the anything but heaven is going on in that seminary between those stadiums for the Yankees and Phillies?”

          Dang, that was a mouthful; and that’s because there’s a really bad taste coming from the mother of all American seminaries.

          If you haven’t read about the Barnes-Keller fiasco in the NYC metro area reverberating throughout their kingdoms, google it before continuing.

          Whoa.

          Now let’s all sing together, “Blest be the tie that unwinds…And they’ll know we aren’t Christians by our…”

          O.K., this is just another hypocritical reason why Gandhi’s heirs keep lamenting, “I would have become a Christian if it weren’t for, you know, uh, sigh, uh, Christians.”

          You can read all about it, again, in cyberspace or via www.churchandworld.com, www.layman.org, and lots of other religious rags that love to take deserving shots at PTS; but you won’t hear anything about it by clicking on www.pcusa.org because that denomination continues in the delusion that PTS is still one of its seminaries and under its unrecognizably Christian and irretrievably apostate under current management thumb.

          Psst.

          For as long as I can remember and I am only a year younger than my administrative assistant, PTS has had a legal strategy locked away and ready to incarnate if/when the franchise makes any move on it by moving from voluntarily pretended submission to mandatory compliance with the whackos in Louisville and their supporting cast by some kinda denominational decision.

          Before going any further, I am indebted to PTS or, at least, the one in my kodachromed memories; for even I of Pauline sarcasm/cynicism long occasionally for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more.

          I harbor treasured mentoring memories of Sweazey, McCord, Macleod, Dowey, Metzger and Hoagie Haven, Story, Beeners, the Dynamic Duo of Lapsley and Hanson, Felmeth, Mig, Shaull, Hilt, and so many others while puffing Punches and Romeos on the deck; and when I was an important high steepler in KC and WSNC, I raised millions, literally, by tapping one of the most generous guys in the Midwest for their money-making board and…

          But after McCord and Gillespie, it’s been so embarrassing to even admit connections that I’ve had to exercise “creative neglect” and historical amnesia toward/about it so my Christian friends don’t think worse of me than they already do with some kinda guilt by…

          Really, unless you think an elephant is a mouse with glandular problems or have overdosed on St. John’s Wort, you know PTS has become a poster child for Europeanized syncretistic-to-the-max theological education; recalling a comic warning shared by McCord many times: “Did you hear about the two pastors talking at a cocktail party?  One says, ‘I don’t know who I am or what I believe or where I’m going?’  The other says, ‘Don’t worry!  The Presbyterian Church is going through the same thing!’”

          Selah.

          But you know all of that; and if you don’t, you’re still feeding its coffer like a mindless drone though it hasn’t needed anyone’s $ since McCord and Templeton.

          Actually, the preceding is not why I’m writing.

          I’m writing to provide some perspective on how “the deep state” at PTS understands this little tiff.

          It’ll pass.

          That’s their perspective.

          Just like forgetting who won last year’s Final Four or Stanley Cup, it’ll pass.

          I’ll never forget when I sat with my favorite P of PTS and we talked about some seminarians that were protesting, uh, whatever rather vigorously.  He took a long calm draw on his Churchill and confided, “It happens every spring.  Student unrest.  Then summer comes.  Some graduate and leave.  Some finish up on Greek and Hebrew.  Some study somewhere else.  Some take field education assignments and internships.  Then fall comes, a new class comes to replace the class that just left for a 33% turnover, and everybody gets back to work again.  Then along comes spring and we repeat history.  It’s cyclical, Robert.”

          That, mes amis et alumni - Oops!  Sorry!  Weren’t that many back then; though I hear, mirroring the franchise, that it’s now split right down the middle by gender as well as ideology masquerading as theology - is why PTS and its real players ain’t losin’ any sleep over Barnes and Keller.

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Blessings and Love!

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Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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Monday, March 27, 2017

American Funeral

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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    Here's a warning.

    Live your life in such a manner that your pastor won't have to lie at your funeral or lead the handful attending in, "Ding!  Dong!  The...is dead!"

    Did you hear about the obituary in Texas back in February written by a daughter about her daddy?

    The obit was so popular that it crashed the funeral home's website.

    It goes, "_____ passed away on January 30, 2017 which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved."

    Later, the daughter explained, "I told the truth...For someone that knew him and family members that knew him, and to see something on there was a complete lie, would've been an insult to everyone that he did bad things to and there were a lot of them."

    Sic.

    I wonder if that'll start a trend at our local favorite funeral home.

    Probably not.

    People prefer fake news.

    Just ask Colonel Jessup and...

    Anyway, in a people-are-strange-Jim-Morrison kinda way, that obit made me think about an American funeral.

    Acknowledging America has always been divided and only God's grace has allowed us to hang around longer than expected and much longer than we've deserved, we seem more divided than ever before.

    Half the country idolizes Trump and half the country still thinks Obama is God's other son.

    Many prognosticators contend America has passed the tipping point.

    Hello, Rome!

    For example, Dan Pope, one of my favorite pastors in town at Open Bible Church where I recommend folks emigrate who hate me for Christ's sake, gave Barna Trends 2017 to me at Starbucks on February 15 which isn't important except to say we're trying to leavenate that joint as much as possible because Jesus said to take the gospel into the world and Starbucks is about as worldly as you can get these days.

    The Barna Group provides current and accurate information, in bite-sized pieces, to facilitate effective decision-making.  Barna Trends is an annual guide to the latest cultural, religious, and political trends that help us to understand what the heaven isn't going on.

    Parenthetically, for those who think it leans one way over the other in reporting "the facts, ma'am, just the facts," its research stats, commentaries, and conclusions are often quoted across the ideological spectrum by major media outlets like CNN, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Fox, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, NY Times, LA Times, and the BDR that seems to have stopped publishing my stuff now that it's changed editors again.

    Among the most disturbing trends in this latest volume is 72% of Americans - cutting across race, faith, left, right, up, down, rich, poor lines - think America is going to anywhere but heaven.

    Founder Barna himself concludes, "Voters are perhaps as upset with themselves as they are with the system...They know something substantial must be done, but either they don't know what that prescription is or they don't have the courage to pursue it...Many resonate with the sense that America has lost its mojo."

    Ya think?

    While I may be wrong, I think the church and politicians are mostly to blame.

    Democrats and Republicans care more about their respective partying than America's health and welfare.

    America's church betrays institutional loyalty to its pathetically peculiar denominations over Biblically Christocentric ecumenism.

    Neither blush when they say, in effect, "Come, let us show ya'll how we can't get together for anyone's sake...not to mention God's."

    Though it's not PC and rather crude, I've reached a simple conclusion.

    America is stupid.

    America's churches are stupid.

    Gump is right: "Stupid is as stupid does."

    Kurt Vonnegut in Palm Sunday comes to mind: "An Indianapolis cousin of mine, who was also a high school classmate, did very badly at the University of Michigan while I did badly at Cornell.  His father asked him what the trouble was, and he made what I consider an admirable reply: 'Don't you know, Father?  I'm dumb.'  It was the truth."

    America and her churches, politicians, educators, pastors, pewsitters, merchants, entertainers, media types, lawyers, judges and all of the below look so stupid because they have turned their backs on the only One who can save us.

    Jesus.

    We've heard it before and we must hear it again because it's the only truth that can deliver us from all of the fake news being barfed up by today's Democrats, Republicans, denominations, so many incredulously secularized pastors and other politicians: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult and left untried" (G.K. Chesterton).

    Samuel records the truth: "God blesses those who bless Him."

    The answer is so simply straightforward.

    Only really, really, really stupid people can't see...Him.

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Blessings and Love!

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Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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Friday, March 24, 2017

The Pauline Gift of Sarcasm

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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    After the last KD that unsettled denominational jingoists mindlessly longing for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more, I want to thank Billy Ward for sending this clip that is really sarcastic.

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Blessings and Love!

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Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Remaining Faithfully Not Fighting Anymore

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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    Here's a summary of what was said during worship at the first public meeting of Blackhawk Presbyterians for Fidelity hosted by Senior Pastor Bill Ward and Rockford, Illinois' Westminster Presbyterian Church.

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Preface to Message

          After being baptized in a German Lutheran Church in New York City while my dad was fighting in another worldly war, my mom, a Welsh Presbyterian, won another worldly war and we joined the First Presbyterian Church of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.

          That’s where I was forced to memorize John 3:16 and given my first KJV Bible that remains on my desk to this day.

          I was introduced to Jesus as Lord and Savior in a Presbyterian Church.

          My favorite home pastor of all time, The Rev. Harold F. Mante, nurtured my call to ordained ministry; and I think I’m still the only one of his confirmands that ever went on to ordination from the First Presbyterian Church of Forty Fort, Pennsylvania.

          He took me to a seminary in New Jersey when I was in 8th grade to get it all started; and he smiled when I told a professor, “I’ll be coming here some day.  I just want you to be prepared.”

          My call as an undershepherd to the Good Shepherd was nurtured and supported by Presbyterian churches.

          My bills for college, seminary, graduate schools, and every worthless degree collecting dust in my basement were paid by Presbyterian churches.

          Only a few years after being ordained - I think it was 1978 - I visited Hans Evans in a hospital in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.  The renowned pastor of the Coatesville Presbyterian Church was dying of cancer.

          During our last moments together, I confessed, “Dr. Evans, I think I’ve made a mistake by being ordained in our denomination.  It seems to be irretrievably apostate under current management.”

          Yes, that conclusion was reached that long ago.

          He said, “Son, stay in the Presbyterian Church.  It’s the best mission field open to us today; and remember, the difference between coal and diamonds is pressure.”

          Contextualized by our Lord’s high priestly prayer and Bonhoeffer and King and so many others, I have never felt comfortable in running away from houses burning to the ground; but rather running into them to save as many as God enables me to save.

          Matthew 10:16 is my life’s verse as an undershepherd.

          So I have remained in Presbyterian churches.

          While I believe denominationalism is a sin and against God’s will because I believe He came to unite us and enable overcoming of the human for the divine and remain convinced that I will never leave one stinking denomination for another stinking denomination because they all stink, I cannot see myself in any other denomination other than Presbyterian because I’ve spent so many years learning how to navigate through our increasing stench.

          It has not been easy.

          I have watched the increasing insult to God’s holiness in so many ways antithetical to Jesus by the book.

          I have said good-bye to so many friends who have rationalized their exits as not leaving the denomination but the denomination leaving them.

          I have…

          If I have to explain that to you, you are ignorant, deceived, apathetic, defiant, or co-conspiratorial with the dark side.

          But, today, I am praising God for this first inaugural meeting of Blackhawk Presbyterians for Fidelity.

          This is not a resistance movement or rebellion or shadow presbytery or gathering of reckless schismatics scorning institutionally mindless and gutless drones. 

          BPF has only one goal, prayer, and ambition.

          We want to honor Jesus by the book, bring salvation to as many as possible, encourage selfless and sacrificial service as gratitude for confident living in the assurance of eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus, and no longer play footsies with the devil and those under its…

          Please pray with me: You have prepared us for these days, O God, and we want to be faithful to You in all things at all times in all places with all people; and so I pray you will take this sin-stained life of mine, redeemed only by grace through faith in Jesus, and work a miracle so the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart may be acceptable in Your sight and to the glory, laud, and honor of Jesus alone in whose name I pray.  Amen.

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Jude’s Answer to Today’s Infidelities

          “Blackhawk Presbyterians for Fidelity” was launched on November 11, 2016 in Rockford, Illinois during a gathering of PCUSA pastors who remain committed to praying and laboring to be faithful to over two thousand years of Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common sense Christianity.

          BPF identifies, encourages, and equips faithful sisters and brothers for worship, work, and witness.

          Essentially, that’s BPF’s raison d’etre; or as Ricky would say, it’s the purpose driving women and men of faith who want to remain faithfully in a denomination increasingly unrecognizably Christian (Doug Forsberg) and irretrievably apostate under current management (RRK).

          Anyone in the PCUSA who can’t see that reminds me of Curly crying to Moe, “I can’t see!”  Moe asks, “What’s wrong?”  Curly answers, ‘Nyuk!  Nyuk!  I’ve got my eyes closed.”

          You know the Biblical metaphors on that; and if we have to explain that to you, as bikers like to say, you wouldn’t understand anyway.

          Rockford street preacher William Taylor says, “We can’t fix what we won’t face.”

          It’s time to confess our denomination is infected with a spiritual disease undermining, inhibiting, and threatening our theological heritage.

          It’s time to face what must be fixed for a faithful future.

          Though written to 1st century Christians, Jude’s letter “to those who are loved by God, called to salvation, and kept safe by Jesus” is contemporary to 21st century mainline denominations like the PCUSA that have lost His way, truth, and life.

          Jude identifies infidelities and prescribes fidelity.

          Let’s see the perilous parallels and positive opportunity.

          Jude: “Beloved, though I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith…For certain people have crept in unnoticed…unGodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

          Whoa.

          That’s familiar.

          While the remnant in our denomination in general and Blackhawk Presbytery in particular – women and men of faith who still believe in Jesus by the book - want to celebrate confident living in the assurance of eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus and express our gratitude in loving Him by loving like Him with grace, mercy, forgiveness, charity, universal invitation, hearty welcome, indiscriminate inclusion, and agape with no respect to color, class, or culture, the reality is unGodly people according to over two thousand years of Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common sense Christianity have slithered into leadership as pastors and elders.

          How did it happen?

          CPMs, COMs, EPs, GPs, SCs, and other presbyters like me and maybe you did not do their job to insure candidates for ordination and installation understood their ordination promises.

          That omission has generated a majority of presbyters who either didn’t understand their ordination promises, lied at ordination to get a job that kinda suited them except for the Christology, or changed their minds after ordination and lack the intellectual and spiritual veracity to quit.

          Unconverted clergy have birthed unconvinced laity resulting in Pharisaical reincarnations substituting polity, organizational order, and human traditions for the commandments of God as enfleshed in Jesus and explained in Holy Scripture.

          The result in Jude’s words is a church of both the 1st and 21st centuries polluted by “…ungodliness…grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires…loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage…scoffers, following their own unGodly passions…causing divisions…worldly people…devoid of the Spirit…”

          Simply, the PCUSA, like the recipients of Jude’s letter and its sister denominations today, has been corrupted by leaders who approach salvation, the sanctity of all human life, marriage, lifestyles, charity, and everything important to our Lord and expected of anyone daring to claim Him as Savior with pseudo-profession substituting the egocentric for the Biblically Christocentric: “We know that’s what Jesus and the Bible say, but we think…”

          Jude’s prescription for what’s ailing the church is fidelity: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life…have mercy…save others…”

          We are to be different from them.

          Yes, it’s Biblical.

          We are to be different from them.

          Yes, there are children of light as opposed to…

          The faithful don’t dance with the devil or demonically impressed, oppressed, or possessed.

          The faithful shatter the sound of silence and say the church has lost  His way, truth, and life.

          The faithful are awake; looking up, standing up, speaking up, and acting up for Jesus.

          The faithful salt, shine, and leavenate.

          The faithful remember a prophetic meeting in the parlor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Aurora many years ago when Craig and Bill admitted, “We have lost; and now we must protect our people from them.”

          The faithful know better than to get into tinkling contests with skunks.

          The faithful know trying to be rational with the irrational is illogical.

          The faithful know the birds will end up going where there is food.

          Therefore, the faithful, a remnant in a dying unrecognizably Christian denomination irretrievably apostate under current management, pray and labor together to encourage and equip anyone still believing in Jesus by the book.

          So what does that mean?

          The faithful will no longer exercise the unwitting stewardship of fighting the dark forces of infidelity but will rather unite with sisters and brothers to be faithful to Jesus by the book.

          We will remain faithfully and ignore or exercise creative neglect when it comes to the unfaithful; unless the unfaithful dictate conformity to their infidelities.

          A child of fidelity is BPF.

          Perhaps no one has said it better for us than Hans Kung in On Being a Christian: our agenda is “to discover what Is permanent…originally meant, before it was covered with the dust and debris of two thousand years…[of egocentric philosophy masquerading as Biblical Christology]…This is not another gospel, but the same ancient gospel rediscovered for today!”

          Jude concludes with a glorious doxology of ultimate victory in/through/for Him: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.  Amen.”

          Jude never doubted the ultimate outcome.

          Neither does BPF and the many other faithful movements in His Church.

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Blessings and Love!

Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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Friday, March 17, 2017

Remnant Roars in Rockford

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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Remnant Roars in Rockford

          Only a few missed the irony of the Belvidere Area Chamber of Commerce holding its 102nd Annual Dinner in Rockford on March 16, 2017.

          If I have to explain that to you, you wouldn’t understand anyway.

          Actually, the Radisson did a great job in hosting with a warm and welcoming staff, clean restrooms, and decent meal that were complemented by a hired gun aka speaker who meant well.

          Anyone who’s been reading www.koppdisclosure.com or listening to worship broadcasts via www.bnnsradio.com or showing up in the pews to honor God on Sundays knows I’ve been bantering and moaning about fainthearted mainline denominationalists, pulpiteers, politicians, jurists, educators, editorialists, entertainers, marketers, and other “public” servants who can’t bring themselves to mention Jesus…publicly.

          They forget His corporate warning from Genesis through Revelation for nations, churches, marriages, families, and all of the below: “Return to Me and I will restore you.  If not, not.”

          Jesus was direct and compelling in his personal guarantee with a caution: “If you acknowledge Me, I will acknowledge you.  If not, not.”

          In a glorious example of bravehearted confidence in Jesus as Lord and Savior fueling courage to acknowledge Him and maybe save the republic, Dr. Daniel Woestmann, Superintendent of School District 100, and my favorite mayor of all time, Fred Brereton, prayed and prophesied to the you-could-hear-a-pin-drop packed room.

          Unlike most clergy and other politicians who are so afraid of offending people who insult God’s holiness and forget who birthed America with all of our blessings, Dr. Woestmann ended the invocation “in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

          After receiving the “Distinguished Citizen Award” which recognizes uncommon service to the community and county, Fred said, “As I was trying to figure out how to begin…, I was reminded of the lesson taught by Maria in The Sound of Music, ‘Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start.’”

          Then he extolled his parents who kept their baptismal promises: “I was raised with Jesus…by Jack and Shirley Brereton.”

          That’s when the chatty crowd really hushed up…for good.

          After briefly chronicling what he learned in business and as the longest-serving mayor in Belvidere history, he said, “Then God had a new purpose for my life.”

          That’s when the assembly really, really, really riveted to every one of his words.

          “Jesus said,” he continued, “’Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’  And so I will spend the remainder of my life doing my best to respond to the will of God…And so tonight, I humbly accept this recognition, returning all of the honor and all of the glory to our Father who is in heaven.”

          After an obviously nervous introspection of less than two seconds that seemed like an hour, the faithful cheered with “Amen’s!” and the clueless were, uh, and, uh, remain clueless.

          When Fred trusted my confidence and prayed with me about his future about half way through his last term, I said, “Fred, I am convinced you will do more to honor Jesus and help people than you’ve ever done as mayor even though you are the most loved and respected mayor in Belvidere and Boone County’s history.”

          Fred keeps confirming that discernment.

          There’s a simmering debate in Belvidere and Boone County.

          Do we really want to be more like Rockford or Chicago or Beloit or…?

          Dan and Fred answered that question for everyone everywhere.

          We want to be more like Jesus.

          He’s the only One who can save us.

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Blessings and Love!

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Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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Monday, March 13, 2017

Senseless Christianity

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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Senseless Christianity

          As I recall – it’s a recollection because I tossed all of his books after reading them for academics of no consequence because, as Tony often says, there’s nothing more funny than a smart guy saying such incredibly stupid things – Bertrand Russell wrote his essay “Why I Am Not a Christian” because he believed the soteriological claims and social ethics of Jesus are senseless.

          Back in the early 70s when I had to pretend my professors’ syllabi were worth the paper used to print them, I did the usual brown-nosing thing, tilted my head in profound pseudo-attention, puffed on my pipe which really improved my grades in Europe, and waxed eloquently in saying nothing like a recent President because scholarships often depended upon the aforementioned.

          Of course, when you think about it, Christianity does sound senseless in a lot of ways.

          Really, “In the beginning, God created…”

          That means God was before the beginning.

          Then there’s this from Jesus – Emmanuel or “God with skin on” which is another mindblower – “I am the alpha and the omega…”

          Whoa.

          That means He was before the beginning and after the end.

          I can’t begin to tell you how many bottles of Excedrin that compelled.

          O.K., while I prefer to believe I’m not related to a tadpole though looking at the behavior of some people begs the question and makes those Planet of the Apes movies seem reasonable, I’m one of those guys who doesn’t take the bait on those creationism versus evolution debates that keeps freshman philosophy and religion classes going when professors run out of notes and have to fill out the hour.

          While I’m sure I’ll be wished dead – that’s how Democrats and Republicans and progressives and traditionalists and mainline denominationalists and other fundamentalists have taught us to discourage dissent – I think God could have done it by evolution or just, you know, kinda willed it.

          I’m Lutheran in that regard; letting God be God and doing whatever the heaven that He wants/wills to do.

          Bruce Ennis, a really smart guy from MIT who said really smart things, said just before I presided at his funeral back in the early 80s, “If this Someone, whom I call God, has the power to grant life on earth, simple logic would dictate that He could also grant life elsewhere, which I call heaven…To any intelligent and perceptive human being exposed daily, as he is, to the beautiful miracles of this earth, and realizing that only some Power greater than he could produce such miracles, it must seem that an atheist has a low degree of intelligence, coupled with an abysmal lack of perceptivity, a deplorably egotistical self-esteem, and an unseemly arrogance.”

          Kinda like Russell.

          Or as somebody once said, “To believe that everything on earth and in the universe just happened without God as Creator is akin to believing there was a big explosion in the print shop and the dictionary just happened/appeared when the dust settled.”

          Tony is right.

          Really smart people often say really stupid things.

          But, admittedly, Christianity can seem so senseless at times.

          If it weren’t for God being God and doing Godly kinda things which is why we refer to Him as almighty or capable of doing whatever the heaven that He wants/wills to do, nothing this side or that side of whatever would make any sense.

          It only makes sense because God is sovereign.

          God.
         
          Get it/Him?

          God!!!

          And the Bible keeps reminding us that He loves us, came in Jesus to prove it, and we’ll live happily ever after if we accept that/Him.

          That really makes no sense.

          God loves us even though we break every behavioral rule that He gave to us from Genesis through Revelation.

          God loves us even though we keep crucifying Him in government, courtroom, classroom, commerce, media, entertainment, and even churches that increasingly ignore or defy Him and pretend He never meant what He so clearly and conclusively communicated in Jesus by the book about the sanctity of all human life, marriage, lifestyle, mercy, forgiveness, unconditional love, and…other stuff so obviously more important to Him than us.

          It doesn’t make sense that God keeps loving us when we have this anything but heavenly repeated history of not loving Him back.

          Truth is we are no heavenly good without Him.

          So as we look at all of the things that smart jerks like Russell say prove Christianity is senseless – eternal life and loving enemies and miracles and incarnation and resurrection and all the rest – I think, and I may be wrong, the most senseless thing about Christianity is God just keeps on loving us and wanting us to be His in time and forever and keeps inviting us and welcoming us and including us when we return to Him when we’re so bent on doing things that are no heaven good by commission or omission.
         
          The only thing that makes Christianity sensible is God.

          God says He is gracious.

          Grace- filled.

          He provides what we don’t deserve – confident living in the assurance of eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus – and doesn’t decree what we deserve which is anything but heavenly.

          So, O.K., let’s admit it.

          Christianity doesn’t make sense.

          Praise God!

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Blessings and Love!

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Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!

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