The thing that worried my ninety-five-year-old church-going mother was the changes that were taking place in her church. Much of her life she had lived by a set of rules and teaching. Those standards and teaching of old now classified as old fashion and outdated by the modern day preachers who was learning to ply their trade as prosperity and motivational gurus. The justification of sin became a necessity in the modern day church. Scriptures surgically removed from their supporting text and reinterpret to support an alien rhetoric. The thing that bothered my mother most was that two people could read the same scripture and each get a different message.
The simplicity of the Holy Scripture is made complicated for the sake of sounding profound. Salvation once an attainable goal is now just a work in progress, as the church learned to separate the sin from the person. The rules of the church as pertaining to fashion, marriage, and even worship service are changing; a new permissive and non-confrontational order is emerging. The many changes are taking place in the church, country and world are baffling to many of us who "grew up" in the church.
The Constitution adopted by a country as well as the doctrine of a religious order once was a sacred document; it defined the values of such an entity, and it was the basis of its unification. The ancient wisdom of old has always decried, "a house divided against cannot stand." The Bible once was considered the backbone of the Christian religion and it values were derived from that sacred book. When the protectors and the detractors began to chip away at the foundation of these sacred documents through the process of interpretation and reinterpretation, the foundation is weakened and what emerges is a shaped truth. Wisdom dictates that when the foundation of a structure deteriorates or is weakening the resounding collapse is inevitable.
The promise of changes in the world of religion and government was the cause of exhilaration to many. This moment of gladness created a type of blindness, the same as that which infected the village in the tale of the "Emperor's new clothes". To facilitate these changes subtle indoctrination into a new order was a necessity, one that extolled the virtues of diversity, rather than unity. Under a growing cloak of diversity protected from the light, the seeds of hatred are watered and allowed to grow. Leaders emerged who are skilled at massaging and manipulating the growing medium, producing a type of hatred akin to one never seen before. The definition of marriage, gender, civil rights and theology has regressed, and as we slip into that abyss, the same as other civilizations that preceded us, we have the audacity to proclaim proudly, "We finally got it right".
The detractors of religion have declared that Christianity is the cause of many of the problems of the world, and if Christian values were, eliminated man could live in peace. There is a grain of truth in this statement, but to find it you must shift your perspective. The root of the problems of the world is the failure of religion. Man's religion is what separates him from the beast of the field. Mankind's ideology of religion also is what separate him from God. The ability to think and adapt is not so unique to man only, it is a trait of all of God's creation, and even the seed knows the direction of the sun.
To dominate has always been the objective of any religion. Christianity, the religion of the Hebrew scripture, in the hand of it modern day projectors is failing objectively. Christianity emerged as a religion whose focus was to dominate the whole world in the name of The One God. The Devil created opposites or counterfeit religions to deter the plan of God. For everything that is of God, there is an opposite, there is night, and there is the day, there is good, and evil. When we attempt to blend or merge that which is evil with that which is good, we end up creating a polluted mess such as attempting to blend oil and water. The detractors say it is possible, yet in the mighty oceans, it is not possible without adverse effect on marine and wildlife. The great Roman society tried this approach with Christianity and Paganism; the result was the hasten downfall of the Empire.
Luke 18:8 ... Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? We should not ignore the question posed by Jesus that seems like an afterthought. When Christ return, will he find the faith that once existed or will he find something new? A sad fact is the new age messengers of God can explain away the basis of my dissent. When the discussions proceed, I often relate to sitting through a lecture where a young man presented indisputable evidence that his existence was a figment of our imagination.
Living in a deteriorating society, the desire to blend in has caused a type of blindness to infect the society's vision on a church and world level. Jesus spoke of this condition as, having eyes to see but cannot see. A common analogy was, the blind leading the blind. The promised changes that we so eagerly awaited have resulted in ethnic and religious groups pitted against each other, fueled by the rhetoric of the disenchanted. Voices are quick to mount the soapbox of perceived public opinion, grabbing up the microphones of discontent and watering the seeds of hatred, while glowing in the spotlight of self-adoration. There is the failure to understand that hatred is not appeased by its exposure, exposure causes hate to grow.
The deliberate dumbing down of Christianity and America has moved the world and even the church into a chaotic position. The believability of God is at an all time low, yet the proclamation of words of God is at an all-time high. According to the messengers, God is restoring that which we lost, yet chaos and confusion reign supreme. Christianity is accepting positions that are contrary to the teaching of the Holy Scripture. This is possible because we have entered an era where is acceptable to explain what God meant to say, the same as the Devil did in the Garden of Eden.
The world is becoming a dangerous place; our safety is dependent upon whether or not we accept the status quo. Society is beginning to demand that we hide our light. No longer accepted as a guide or light to the world, the Supreme Court has declared that living by Christian values is illegal in the United States. Asked if he agreed with one of his top advisers, Pope Francis told a conference in Dublin in the days after the deadly Orlando gay club attack that the church owes an apology to gays for having marginalized them.
To be continued...
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