Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
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"Christianity is not a vaccine against stupidity.
Fortunately, people don't go to hell for being stupid.
Talk about grace!"
RRK
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"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...
People don't come to church for preachments, of course,
but to daydream about God."
Kurt Vonnegut, Palm
Sunday, 1981
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"Stupid is as stupid does."
Forrest Gump
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Anybody can be
saved - live forever and confidently in the meantime
- by grace through faith in Jesus.
Even stupid
ones...and there are plenty of 'em in the church.
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Just read, for
example, Matthew 15 and 23 and ask, "Uh, didn't any of those holy
gals/guys in seminary pay any attention to Him?"
Looking at
today's church and how so much of it's either ignorant, deceived, defiant,
apathetic, or very dark about..., my guess is...
Hell, I didn't
until...
BTW, if you're a
pulpiteer or pewsitter, don't feel so badly.
Look at our
government.
Obviously, too
many of 'em haven't read the Constitution along with those Amendments aka Bill
of Rights or bothered to consider America's spiritual roots.
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I've known
Christians like me can
be really, really, really stupid for as long as I can remember.
My parents made
me go to church even though I complained about the guy up front looking like
the grim reaper; and I'll bet there are kids today who look at women and
men paid to be holy in
silly religious clothes and wonder if they're related to Darth Vader or it's
Halloween.
I've never been
able to figure out why the preacher or somebody who likes to play pastor
making announcements steal time from worship to repeat what's already in the
bulletin and newsletter.
Here's a favorite.
Gal/guy gets up
there in the chancel and starts, "Shall we pray?"
Like we're gonna
vote on it!
How about this?
Passing the
peace.
Really.
That's just
another illustration of churches stealing time from worship to get people to do
what they should be doing before and after worship and always.
Now go back to
the quotes at the top.
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My first reading
of Bonhoeffer was in 1/73.
I know that
because I've dated books that I've read ever since consuming The Random House Vest Pocket Dictionary
of Synonyms and Antonyms back in 7/71.
While I've thrown
out most of my library that I'd kept to impress people with my
erudite bibliography and only have a bunch of Bibles and some seminal
stuff left, I took my Bonhoeffer books with me along with Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged while
visiting my upper-octogenarian parents in Pennsylvania back in April.
Rand reminded me
why people around the world have always crossed borders and hopped over walls
to get into America.
Our government
seems to have lost sight of that.
In addition to
the Constitution and Bible, Rand's book should be required reading prior to
their swearing in.
She's also got
some pretty powerful things to say about romance.
After pounding
through Rand, I spent most of my time with Bonhoeffer and was reminded how he
has shaped so much of my life and ministry.
I confess getting
a tad more than ___ed as I read his consistent Biblical Christology and how
clergy to the left often quote him out of context and so
mindlessly/dishonestly; especially when they blabber on and on about his
"secular" Christianity or "religionless" faith. They
are so full of...
Bonhoeffer would
never have said, "I know that's what Jesus and the Bible say, but I think...because I've
got more light than Jesus and the Bible."
Any connection
between the left that quotes him
- just like any connection between most mainliners and Jesus - and
him/Him is purely coincidental.
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"Anyone who deliberately disassociates himself from the
Confessing Church
cuts himself off from salvation...They have no anchorage in
theology to
enable them to withstand the waves surging around
them."
DB
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While reminded of
why I remain a missionary to mainliners and run into fires rather than away
from them because people are not saved by running away from
fires juxtaposed to Bonhoeffer's going back to inevitable martyrdom in
Germany rather than retreating to the monastic security of NYC's Union
Seminary at Niebuhr's invitation/insistence, what struck me most was
Bonhoeffer's joy amid persecution; and while reading, I had an
inspiration/indigestion (You decide!).
Here goes.
Anyone tight with
Jesus can say this: "It
must be really annoying for me to be so happy while you're so miserable.
Wouldn't you like to know who
makes the difference?"
Bonhoeffer
experienced the difference in Jesus as guided by the Bible.
He loved Jesus by
the book.
Anybody who says
anything different hasn't read him.
If you're one of
those clergy or wannabes who keep quoting him to herald syncretism masquerading
as ecumenism, universalism masquerading as Christology, and other
pseudo-spiritual-intellectual nonsense antithetical to over 2K years of
Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common
sense Christianity, dust off your old Bohoeffer books or read biographies by
Bethge or Metaxas. Better yet, read the red letters in the book while you
brush up on your ordination promises/pledges/vows. Or are you like the
bastardized religionists about Jesus that Bonhoeffer challenged in Germany who
didn't understand the questions of ordination or lied at ordination to get an
ecclesiastical job or changed your mind after ordination and don't have the
integrity to quit?
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Getting back to
Rand, she wrote prophetically about America and her churches without even
knowing how they've gone to anywhere but heaven: "You lack faith.
That's what undermines the morale of an organization."
I wonder if wazzhisname got it from her:
"To me, there's only one form of human depravity - the man without a
purpose."
She wrote about
the lack of romance in marriage: "The nature of their relationship had the
same quality. There was no passion in it, no desire, no actual pleasure,
not even a sense of shame. To them, the act of sex was neither joy nor
sin. It meant nothing. They had heard that men and women were
supposed to sleep together, so they did."
She wrote about
the need for romance in marriage: "Do you know your only real guilt?
With the greatest capacity for it, you've never learned to enjoy
yourself. You've always rejected your own pleasure too easily.
You've been willing to bear too much."
She wrote about
life without romance: "He would often find her reading a book. She
would put it aside, with a white ribbon to mark the pages. When he lay
exhausted, his eyes closed, still breathing in gasps, she would turn on the light,
pick up the book and continue her reading."
Her etiological
conclusion: "Its heart had rotted away long ago."
Rand: "I am
an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to
America because this was the country based on my moral premises and the only
country where one could be fully free to write...No one helped me, nor did I
think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me."
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So what's the
connection?
Maybe it has
something to do with Revelation 2:1-7.
Bonhoeffer.
Too much of
America and her churches have lost an overcoming passion for Jesus by
the book.
Rand.
Too much of
America and her churches are choosing other than heritage focused on
Him and filtered through the book.
Bonhoeffer.
Eternal security
compels existential obedience.
Rand.
Romanceless relationships yield
ruin.
Bonhoeffer.
Choose life!
Rand.
Don't shrug.
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"Jesus knows all about the others...the representatives
and preachers of the national religion,
who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are planted on
the earth, who are deeply
rooted in the culture and piety of the people and molded by
the spirit of the age...
Jesus lived in the midst of his enemies...Christians belong
not
in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of
foes...
A man takes up his position against the world in the
world...
Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is
obedient believes...
Faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience...
Come now, highest of feasts on the way to freedom eternal -
Death...
God, who dost punish sin and willingly forgive,
I have loved this people.
That I have borne its shame and burdens,
and seen its salvation - that is enough.
Seize me and hold me!
My staff is sinking;
O faithful God, prepare my grave...
This is the end, for me the beginning of life!"
DB
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Kung understood
the connection: the agenda for the church is "to discover what is
permanent...originally meant, before it was covered with the dust and debris of
two thousand years...This is not another gospel, but the same ancient gospel
rediscovered for today!"
Anyone/anything
other is...stupid.
He never shrugged.
Neither do people
who follow Jesus...like Bonhoeffer...by the book.
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Blessings and Love!
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Shatter the sound of silence!
Wake up! Look up! Stand up! Speak up! Act up for Jesus!
Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
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