The unholy marriage of religion and government
During this past presidential election, I saw, beyond any doubt, how the right has managed to marry their cause to religion, and how they continually played that angle for the past couple of years. Churches and religious organizations told their members, in no uncertain terms, that they should vote for so-and-so because they’re Republican, and they’re going to stand up for “what’s right”.
It didn’t, and it doesn’t, seem to matter that’s what’s being put forth as “what’s right” isn’t necessarily what the Bible says is right. No, as long as you can marry a candidate to the church, you can rally the troops and call for jihad against the infidel that dares to go against your cause. It doesn’t even matter if that choice candidate of yours is far from being a real Christian. As long as they secure the endorsement of the right, church members are bullied into voting for them.
This is due, in part, to the two-party system that dominates US politics. When your choice for a candidate boils down to A or B, it’s incumbent upon A and B to polarize you and make your choice easier. Moderates are not what this two-party system wants. It wants frothing leftists or rightists that can be counted on for full support. Other countries where governance is shared among multiple parties tend to be more centrist, more moderate. Election winners have to build coalitions, otherwise they get nothing done. Here in the US, extreme views seem to be par for the course, and are encouraged from pulpits everywhere, particularly in the Bible Belt states.
Another reason for this governmental fallacy is the desire to bring religious views to bear upon political/public policy, when in fact the two should be kept completely separate. Sure, be a Christian in your private life. Go to church, pray to God, read your Bible, but don’t make the mistake of wanting others to do the same. Don’t force people to believe what you believe. Don’t legislate your beliefs. Civic matters should be kept completely separate from religious matters. That’s the principle of separation of church and state at work.
For example, as a Christian, I believe homosexuality is wrong, but no more wrong than any of the other sins outlined quite clearly in 1 Corinthians 6:9,10. As a citizen of the US, I think there should be equal rights for homosexuals and they should be allowed to marry one another if they so choose. That’s because I choose to keep my beliefs to myself, and I realize that from a civic point of view, everyone is entitled to the same rights as citizens of the same country. One of the most important principles of our Christian faith is that of free will, which says everyone is entitled to choose whether to serve God or not. Unfortunately, others don’t feel the same way, and want to legislate their religion, not realizing that is one very slippery slope toward persecution and injustice on a grand scale.
Those of you who think all this has somehow gone away just because Obama won the election are in for a surprise. The past couple of years has been a warm-up exercise. There is some nasty stuff afoot, stuff that will do away with some of our most basic religious freedoms. Misguided churches are gearing up everywhere in order to polarize their members and begin what I would call a campaign of religious oppression against anyone that does not agree with they way they see life and government.
One of the things that this misguided religious right plans to get passed is a Sunday Law, under the guise of a “National Day of Rest”. This is not a new concept, but this time, its execution will be enforced more severely. The concept has been bubbling up in discussions lately, and unfortunately, no solid proof (other than opinion from groups and organizations) has emerged that something is in the works, but I, along with others, believe there are things going on that are laying the groundwork for it. You can choose to believe me or not on this one, and if I’m wrong, I’ll eat my crow, but I don’t think I am — time will tell for sure.
In the past, Blue Laws were passed to force people to worship on Sundays, and thankfully, they were repealed. Now, a whole groundswell of support is building up from Protestants and Catholics alike. What will make this attack on our collective religious freedoms more effective is they’re working together, thanks to the decades-old ecumenical movement, which I wish did not exist. Various reasons will be offered in its support, such as the economy, the environment, our societal morals, lifestyle choices, etc.
This is a small sample of sources I dug up this afternoon:
- Pope and Christian Coalition met to discuss the Sunday Law and other topics
- Some Democrats are calling for a National Day of Rest
- Christian Coalition proposes National Day of Rest
- Catholic church urges National Day of Rest (this is something that Pope John Paul said numerous times, and his successor wants to see it come to fruition)
This small sample of articles is by no means representative. I invite you to search for the terms “Sunday Law” and “National Day of Rest” on your search engine of choice and see what comes up. Or, you could do nothing but wait and see. I don’t think you’ll have to wait for long.
A few months ago, a certain number of closed-door meetings were held between high-ranking members of Protestant and Catholic churches when the Pope visited the US. No one can say what went on during those meetings, but given that both sides of the table want to see a “National Day of Rest”, it’s not impractical to assume that it was one of the items discussed there.
I for one was shocked when I heard President Bush exclaim that he “saw God in [the Pope's] eyes”. Wasn’t he supposed to be Protestant? Has he forgotten that countless people died, by sword, torture, or burning, in order to win the right to worship God apart from the Catholic Church? That’s not something you forget, unless you have a different agenda.
Some may say we shouldn’t worry about Bush, because he’s a lame-duck president. To that, I say this so-called “lame duck” is signing bill after bill while he still can, while he’s still in office. Also, let’s not forget all the stuff he did during his two terms in office. Will he try to sign some sort of National Day of Rest legislation into law before he leaves the White House on 1/20/09? I don’t know, but it is possible. Even if Bush doesn’t sign such legislation, that’s not to say it won’t happen. We have a good combination of economic, societal and religious factors that are creating a situation where a Sunday Law can pass, especially one couched in such nice terms as a “National Day of Rest”…
What bothers me in all this is that somehow forcing people to worship on Sunday is supposed to make everything better. Why? How? It’s ridiculous when you think about it.
Never mind that the Bible, when you study it, says quite clearly that Sabbath is the proper day of worship. Never mind that the Bible talks about religious tolerance. Never mind that other religions worship on the Sabbath or on Friday. Never mind that forcing people to worship the way you want them to worship never works out. Never mind that God doesn’t force people to believe in Him, but He gives them free will to choose what to do with their lives. Never mind that the US is a country whose very foundations were built on the precepts of religious freedom. No, somehow legislating a day or worship will make everything better. And of course, Sunday is picked because it is the day when most people in this part of the world go to church (or would go to church, if they did go to church) even though it is not the Biblical day of worship.
In effect, when that law gets passed, and it will get passed in the near future, because the Bible prophesies that it will get passed, what will have happened is that government will have effectively entered into an unholy marriage with religion. It means a return to the days of religious persecution that have haunted our collective histories as countries of this world. Sure, the National Day of Rest sounds good, but make no mistake about it, it is, at its core, as evil as the Inquisition. It is the start of religion once more dictating how governments will behave. It is the start of the end times.
Don’t believe me? Read up on Bible prophecy and make up your own mind. I recommend the following resources:
The Bible for your iPhone or iPod Touch
I’ve been reading my Bible more lately, and in a lot more places, thanks to the Bible iPhone App, a very useful (and free) app put together by the folks at YouVersion.com. I downloaded the app right about the time the App Store launched, and have been using it ever since.
It’s gone through multiple updates, and has gotten better with time: more versions, more options, more languages, and lately, even downloadable, offline editions of the Bible. I’m grateful this app exists and is being maintained, because the need is obviously there, particularly for me. I use my iPod Touch a lot, and it’s so nice to be able to get in bed and night and read my Bible before I go to sleep.
The helpful folks at YouVersion have even put together a nifty video tutorial to demonstrate the app:
While some people voice the complaint that not enough downloadable editions of the Bible exist for this app, making it necessary to connect to the Internet when you want to read the Bible, you should keep in mind that only public domain Bible editions can be distributed freely. Licensing agreements must be respected for the more popular and modern editions, and this makes it necessary to read them directly from the YouVersion website, through the app, instead of being able to download them to your iPhone or iPod Touch.
For example, I like the NIV (New International Version) and the NJB (New Jerusalem Bible). The NIV is only available online, and the NJB isn’t even available at YouVersion. DoubleDay and the Catholic Church, the publishers for the NJB, have only licensed the NJB to one website, at least for the present time. A few years ago, I wanted to use the NJB for my podcasts — to read chapters from it so people interested in hearing the Bible could download them — but I got turned down (they were nice about it though).
This is a long way of saying you shouldn’t blame YouVersion or the app if there aren’t more offline editions of the Bible. They’re doing what they can. I read the NIV when I can get online with my iPod, and the KJV (King James Version) when I can’t. It works out just fine in the end.
Image used courtesy of YouVersion.
A look at what might happen in the coming months
I want to point you to a video. It’s a speech that David Gates (a Christian missionary) made at an American college a few months ago, BEFORE the current economic crisis and the monstrous bailout plan. At that time, we didn’t know what we know now, and yet he was right on target about what was going to happen right here in the United States.
How is that possible? It’s possible because he relied not only on Bible prophecy, but on statements made by the Federal Reserve Chairman more than 30 years ago, and on studies published by certain institutions in Europe a couple of years ago. All of these different sources predicted an economic collapse, right here in the US, and the European studies even predicted the month (they named September 2008 specifically).
I’d love to find out the exact sources (the speech made by the FRC sometime in the 70s, and the studies published in Europe), so if you can find them, please let me know. The important thing to keep in mind is that his speech PRE-DATES the current crisis by a few months, so he couldn’t have faked it. It really happened as he said it would, and I only saw the video for the first time tonight.
In the video, he also makes other statements about what might happen in the near future, but he doesn’t put any time frames on those, because they are based on Bible prophecy and no dates are given in the Bible, as you might expect. We could have a few more months or a few more years before things get really bad. I don’t know. But I think I owe it to you, and you owe it to yourselves, to see this video in its entirety and to make up your own minds about it. At least you’ll have the information that many others won’t have.
:arrow: This is the video: David Gates – The Coming Crisis. It can be found at revelatia.ro, on this page. It’s a Romanian website, but the video is in English, with Romanian subtitles. I’m mirroring the video on my site, just in case, and you can get it here. The original video (English only) is on Google Video.
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Please, take an hour or so out of your lives and watch this video. If you’d like to find out more about David Gates, here’s his website.
Religion is nothing. Faith is everything.
That sounds like a strong statement to make, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I have the Bible to back me up on this. Here’s a search for the word “religion” in the NIV. And here’s a search for the word “faith“, also in the NIV. There are 6 instances where the word “religion” is mentioned, and 422 instances where the word “faith” is mentioned.
Let’s look at those six verses where religion is talked about:
- Jeremiah 6:1 The verse itself is not relevant, but the chapter heading is. It says “False Religion Worthless”.
- Acts 12:19 “Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” Here Festus, the Roman ruler over the region, discusses Paul’s case with King Agrippa. Paul, if you remember, was about to be killed by the Jews because he strayed away from the religion, when the Roman soldiers intervened. Paul was then put in prison for his safety, to await a hearing by Festus and later King Agrippa.
- Acts 26:5 “They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.” Here Paul defends himself before King Agrippa.
- 1 Timothy 5:4 “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.”
- James 1:26 “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”
- James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Religion is not something that God cares about. If it were, we’d see a lot more verses about it in the Bible. Religion is a man-made concept, introduced as a differentiator, or, if you prefer, a discriminator. Certainly, if you look at history, you’ll see how the term has been used through the ages, and it seems it’s always used to polarize, differentiate or discriminate. Organized religion always seems bent on influencing or controlling governments in one way or another.
Instead, we see that “faith” is something God cares about. “Church” is another concept that is important, but it is only introduced in the New Testament and mentioned 112 times. Most of all, God cares about “people“. There are 2221 instances of that word found in the Bible.
Why am I writing this post? James 1:27 is a verse that stuck to me when I read it. There it is, spelled out in black and white. The only religion that God accepts is to look after orphans and widows, and to keep from being polluted by the world.
Any time some religion or other claims to have some exclusive benefit over another, or worse, claims that they’re in the right and others aren’t, beware! That’s not Biblical, that’s not Godly, and it’s certainly not something you should be involved in, unless you want to get further away from God.
Want to do the right thing? Care about your faith, and care about people. That’s what’s important. That’s what’s Godly. That’s also what’s right, thank God!
Defining faith
Hebrews 11:1 has one of the best definitions of faith in the Bible. Of all the English Bible translations (and I’ve looked at that verse in all 22 of them), the NIV (New International Version) says it best:
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” [reference]
Not even my favorite translation, the NJB (New Jerusalem Bible) comes close to capturing the heart of that definition. (You can read the NJB version here.) It’s surprising how many translators missed the boat when it came to the meaning of this verse, and the meaning of this very important idea. Who knows, given that these translations were written at different times in history, perhaps the language used in them made more sense to their contemporaries than it does to me or you.
We English speakers are very fortunate. We have over twenty translations of the Bible that we can look through and compare verses in order to arrive at the best understanding of a certain passage or concept. And online tools like the Bible Gateway make it incredibly easy to do this.
Other people are not so fortunate. If you look at other languages, you’ll see they have only a few translations, and some only one. They’re left at the mercy of that single translator or group of translators when it comes to understanding the Bible. As well intentioned as that one person or persons might have been, it is impossible to translate every verse correctly in a single translation, particularly when that translation draws upon not the original, but a secondary source.
And yet faith, this powerful, but hard-to-define concept, which I can only find clearly explained in a single version of the Bible (out of over 20) is so hard to find in action in English-speaking countries — the very countries that have the incredible benefit of so many translations and so much learning to illuminate the meaning of the Bible to them.
Should you go to a country where the translations are scarce or even non-existent, you’ll find that faith is abundant there. You see it on the faces of simple people and in their behavior. They understand it implicitly and put it into practice. Back here, it’s not fashionable to have faith or to talk about it — unless one is a politician and is stumping for public office, in which case we all know (or should know) that they’re lying.
Why is that? How can we so readily throw away the privilege of so much understanding and not apply it in our lives? I’m reminded of the following verse from Luke 12:48:
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
That’s a sobering thought.
Psalm 90: putting things in context
The thing that I find amazing about this psalm is its subtitle: “A prayer of Moses the man of God”. That’s what it says in my KJV Bible. If you’d like to follow along, you can read the NASB (New American Standard Bible) version here.
If this psalm was indeed written by Moses, then it was put down on papyrus at a very interesting time of his life. Given the tone of the psalm, it was composed before Moses set out to free the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt. It may have even been written while he was still a prince of Egypt and had just discovered his true origin, or — the more likely possibility — while he was living a quiet life of dedication to the Lord in the deserts of Midian.
The psalm as a whole doesn’t necessarily stand apart from others — it is a prayer to God for the deliverance of Israel. There are numerous psalms like it. But the possibility that this one is written by Moses makes it interesting. And the tone in general is more subdued, more wise, less whiny than in other psalms.
Verse 10 in particular draws my attention: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten [70]; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years [80], yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Isn’t that true? Even nowadays, our life expectancy is generally around 70 years. Some people live to 80, and much fewer live to 90, but mostly through the help of modern medicine, not “by reason of strength”. At the time he wrote this, Moses didn’t know it, but his life was to be especially long. He lived to the ripe old age of 120 years (40 years more than he’d predicted), and his strength and vision were unabated to the moment of his death. That’s amazing!
If you’d like to read Moses’ life story, the Bible (book of Exodus) is your best bet. But if you want a good summary, you can find it here. That’s where you’ll find out that Moses’ life was divided into three periods of 40 years. He spent the first forty in Egypt, his second forty in Midian, and the last forty years leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.
Given this information, I think you can understand his reluctance to be their savior when asked by God. He still thought he was on the brink of death — after all, he was 80 years old when God asked him to go back to Egypt, and according to his own calculations, he didn’t have much more to live.
Finally, does God answer prayers? Yes. This psalm is a great example of how God answers them. It is usually not when we want Him to answer, and not how we want Him to answer, but He comes through, and miracles occur. The impossible becomes possible. Moses kept praying for Israel’s deliverance, all the while not realizing he was going to become their deliverer, and at an age when he thought he was going to be in the grave.
Furthermore, God performed so many miracles for Israel during their exit from Egypt, and their time in the desert, and while re-establishing them in their original lands, that no one, in their wildest imagination, could have predicted how much God was going to bless them.
Isn’t this amazing? You sit there praying, and you wonder if your words even reach God. Have faith! They do! And He will act on your prayer, in order to bring about the best possible outcome for you. It may not be what you expect, but it will be just what you need.
Psalm 89: the other shoe drops
You start reading Psalm 89 — it’s a fairly long psalm — and you’re literally fooled by its author into thinking it’s a text praising God and His many blessings bestowed on David and the nation of Israel. There are 52 verses in the psalm, and up to verse 37, that’s all the author does: praise God until the cows come home.
Then, in verse 37, the other shoe drops. We see now why he’s been praising God so much: it was all done because he wants to take Him to task for failing to live up on His promises — or so the author would have us believe. The whole three quarters of this psalm taken up by the excessive praises are a setup — a farce — and when the author reveals the truth, we see him for what he is: an angry person who’s been lying to the reader — and to God, one might say — all along.
Even the psalm’s byline is false. It’s called a “hymn and prayer to God the faithful”. Hah! Look what the author says in verse 49: “Lord, what of those pledges of your faithful love? You made an oath to David by your constancy.” And then he goes on and on, throughout verses 37-52, reminding God that He is NOT faithful. That’s mockery, plain and simple as the nose on my face.
Because the whole first three quarters of this psalm is a farce, I’m not even going to discuss those verses. Instead, I’ll focus on the “rebukes to God” section…
In verse 47, the author writes: “for what pointless end did you create all the children of Adam?” What the man is really saying is why he’s still alive, and why Israel’s enemies exist. First, let’s remember that everyone on earth, back then, and now as well, is a child of Adam. As to why God created us, and we we live, and why things are happening to each of us that we may not understand, I answer with God’s own words: “Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant words?” (Job, 38:2).
I encourage you to read God’s entire answer there in the Book of Job, from chapter 38 to chapter 41. If you don’t understand any of it, it’s okay. That’s the point. We don’t understand God, and no matter how hard we try, we never will. When He chooses to reveal something to us, He does so of His own will, and only when we can understand it.
As for this whole blaming God thing, I understand the author’s viewpoint. We all tend to blame God when things go wrong. And when they’re right and we’re doing great, we tend to ascribe the credit for that to ourselves, not to God. Because we can do it all, right? Well, if we’re so damned smart and capable, why can’t we manage to get ourselves out of situations like the one that the author of this psalm writes about?
The author acknowledges that when God made the covenant with David, He said:
“Should his descendants desert my law, and not keep to my rulings, should they violate my statutes, and not observe my commandments, then I shall punish their offences with the rod, their guilt with the whip, but I shall never withdraw from him my faithful love, I shall not belie my constancy.” (verses 30-33)
What did he expect? That God would wag His finger at Israel and say “No, no, bad country! Don’t do that again!” Did he expect God’s punishment to equate to a slap on the wrist? God made it clear through the ages (and even when He made his covenant with Israel during the time of Moses), that He would punish Israel severely if they did not stay faithful to Him. He threatened to dissolve their country and to spread them throughout the world, and that happened repeatedly throughout history. The longest such punishment took place after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
God’s wrath is awesome. Don’t take His punishment lightly. I think that’s the lesson to be gotten from this psalm. His blessings are bountiful and go beyond measure. Our cups overflow when He pours them out, but let’s keep in mind that they will overflow as well when He pours out His punishments. He is to be feared. He is God. Don’t mess with Him, and don’t attempt to understand Him. Don’t blame Him, either, especially after He made it clear what would happen to you if you didn’t obey Him. The author of this psalm doesn’t seem to get this part, but I have a feeling that he learned his lesson at some later point of his life.
Psalm 88: the prayer of the depressed
I could be uncaring and call this psalm “the prayer of the emo kid”, but I have to recognize it for what it is: the uttering of someone in the depths of depression, someone who’s lost all hope and doesn’t see a way out.
The subtitle offers somewhat of a clue, by attributing the psalm to “the sons of Korah… Poem for Heman the native-born”. If this was indeed a psalm written for someone else, that might explain the overly dramatic stylings. At the same time, the sons of Korah are indicated as authors on many psalms. Whether they were the same people, or whether they were the descendants of a certain family, they were still closely associated with religious service, and thus should have known better than to describe God in these terms, even if it was done to humor a depressed, suffering individual.
Another clue is offered by the NJB. In the footnotes, it says: “With this anguished prayer, compare the complaints of Job.” When you put it that way, yes, it’s quite similar to what the Book of Job contains. Then again, we have no other information to place this psalm or Job’s writings before or after each other — although it is commonly thought that Job’s writings are the oldest in the Bible. And even if these two are intended to be similar in composition and effect, it’s still not right. God rebuked Job for his complaining, and Job admitted he was wrong in wailing so much. Why then replicate troublesome writing in this later psalm? It makes no sense.
The only good things I can say about it are found in verses 9 and 13. I’ll quote them below:
- “I call to you, Yahweh, all day, I stretch out my hands to you.”
- “But, for my part, I cry to you, Yahweh, every morning my prayer comes before you.”
That is indeed what we must do, every day, and especially when we don’t understand what’s happening to us. We must persist in our prayers and continue to hope for an answer and salvation from God. He promises He will respond, and He also promises us the ultimate salvation. It’s within our right to ask it of Him.
Psalm 87: it's all about Zion?
This is one of those psalms that can be interpreted in two ways, and only one of those ways makes it look good, biblically speaking. The psalm praises the centricity of Jerusalem with regards to all other nations. In the psalm, Jerusalem is talked about as the “city of God”, with all other cities subservient to it. One’s descent means nothing if it doesn’t originate there.
Taken literally, the psalm sounds awful. Certainly I do not share its view. Jerusalem (Zion) as a real city is not a prize, and is not where I want to originate. It’s a mess where too many churches and people and cultures live and argue and fight. Biblically speaking, it is no longer the seat of God. It stopped being the seat of God when the original temple was destroyed and the ark of the covenant lost for good. God’s shekinah is no longer there. (See Old Testament for the details on this.)
At the same time, the psalm also brings to light an ugly perversion in the dogma of some Christian churches of today, particularly the charismatic ones, which believe that restoring Jerusalem to its former glory, and rebuilding the temple, will automatically bring God’s physical presence back there. These churches waste their money on supporting this false ideology, and fuel the war and hatred that goes on in the Middle East between the Jews, Westerners and Muslims. It’s a real problem and it’s most certainly not what God would want. It has no Biblical basis. I challenge anyone to go through the Bible and show me where God gives any indication that He wants this whole ugly mess to come to the conclusion that the charismatics want to see.
On the other hand, we can treat this psalm as a prophetic one, and interpret it in the light of the prophecies of the book of Revelation, where the New Jerusalem is talked about in great detail (see Revelation chapters 21 and 22). When looked at in that light, it starts to make more sense.
From Revelation, we know the New Jerusalem will sit on the “holy mountains”, and we know that Yahweh will love His city, and that indeed “He prefers the gates of Zion” to anything else. We know the new Zion will be a glorious city, and we know it will be the supreme and the largest city on the new earth.
Furthermore, we know that “every one” will be “born there”, in the sense that they will receive eternal life (at Jesus’ second coming) as they are taken up to the New Jerusalem. The mention of God’s “register of peoples” (aka the Book of Life) in verse 6 drives home the point that this is a prophetic psalm. And the fact that the saved are all called “princes” in Revelation, and that it is said repeatedly there that they will live in the New Jerusalem, clarifies beyond any doubts the prophetic interpretation of this psalm.
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen!
This is a photo I took yesterday during Easter service at my church (CMC). Service started on a somber note, with the cross enveloped in a black canvas sheet. At the end of the sermon, the pastor took off the black sheet to reveal the white base of the cross and the many bouquets of fresh flowers that you see in the photo. Deacons then walked in with the baloons, we sang the closing hymn, and we were each given a baloon as we left the sanctuary to go downstairs for our usual Sabbath potluck. The sermon focused on the celebration of our new life in Christ, which is in stark contrast with our “dead” state before salvation, so the imagery really drove home that point.
Curious to see last year’s Easter photo? There’s a story behind that as well.
