mbjones

Some high-profile religious leaders continued to motivate their people to hate and fear "the other" - the religiously other, the racially other, the politically other, the sexually other, the economically other. They plotted ways to discredit and even kill those with whom they disagreed, all in the name of God. Meanwhile, many low-profile religious workers quietly but courageously defied the leadership of the purveyors of hate and fear. Where their counterparts called for high-profile violence, these humble workers called for reconciliation and quietly embedded the virtues of love, joy, and peace in their neighborhoods. Where their counterparts used sacred texts to maintain division and prejudice, they used the same texts to form peacemaking communities and instruments of peace. Where their counterparts got rich broadcasting religion to siphon money from the desperate and poor, they impoverished themselves by giving to those in need. While their counterparts made it easier for skeptics to be atheists, they made it harder, because God seemed to become real in their humble acts of service, sacrifice, and love.

The most important news story of 2009? Sin abounded in all its forms - personal and social, sexual and financial, racial and religious, private and public. But grace abounded all the more. That, thank God, is good news for everyone.

One reason why health care reform of some type really isn't an option. Crazy how far of an outlier the US is as far as $$ goes.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Something to keep in mind with the latest "scare" going around. Fear and racial profiling should never be a response.

The first thing anyone flying needs to know is that there are no hard and fast rules put into place at this time, and what you read or hear about at one airport may not be the case at another. The Transportation Security Administration wrote in a press release that "These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere."

To all those flying soon, you might want to be aware of these new and unpredictable regulations, especially if you are US bound from elsewhere in the world...

With Christ, God has injected himself into history. With the birth of Christ, God’s reign is now inaugurated in human time. On this night, as we Christians have done every year for twenty centuries, we recall that God’s reign is now in this world and that Christ has inaugurated the fullness of time. His birth attests that God is now marching with us in history, that we do not go alone, and that our aspiration for peace, for justice, for the reign of divine law, for something holy, is far from earth’s realities. We can hope for it, not because we humans are able to construct that realm of happiness which God’s holy words proclaim, but because the builder of a reign of justice, of love, and of peace is already in the midst of us. (December 25, 1977)

We call for further reflection on these matters within the Christian Church, and request the Lausanne movement to be willing to make a very clear statement rejecting the excesses of prosperity teaching as incompatible with evangelical biblical Christianity.

1. We affirm the miraculous grace and power of God, and welcome the growth of churches and ministries that demonstrate them and that lead people to exercise expectant faith in the living God and his supernatural power. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

However, we reject as unbiblical the notion that God's miraculous power can be treated as automatic, or at the disposal of human techniques, or manipulated by human words, actions or rituals.

2. We affirm that there is a biblical vision of human prospering, and that the Bible includes material welfare (both health and wealth) within its teaching about the blessing of God.  This needs further study and explanation across the whole Bible in both Testaments.  We must not dichotomize the material and the spiritual in unbiblical dualism.

However, we reject the unbiblical notion that spiritual welfare can be measured in terms of material welfare, or that wealth is always a sign of God's blessing  (since it can be obtained by oppression, deceit or corruption), or that poverty or illness or early death, is always a sign of God's curse, or lack of faith, or human curses  (since the Bible explicitly denies that it is always so)

3. We affirm the biblical teaching on the importance of hard work, and the positive use of all the resources that God has given us—abilities, gifts, the earth, education, wisdom, skills, wealth, etc.  And to the extent that some Prosperity teaching encourages these things, it can have a positive effect on people's lives. We do not believe in an unbiblical ascetism that rejects such things, or an unbiblical fatalism that sees poverty as a fate that cannot be fought against.

However, we reject as dangerously contradictory to the sovereign grace of God, the notion that success in life is entirely due to our own striving, wrestling, negotiation, or cleverness.  We reject those elements of Prosperity Teaching that are virtually identical to 'positive thinking' and other kinds of 'self-help' techniques.

We are also grieved to observe that Prosperity Teaching has stressed individual wealth and success, without the need for community accountability, and has thus actually damaged a traditional feature of African society, which was commitment to care within the extended family and wider social community.

4. We recognize that Prosperity Teaching flourishes in contexts of terrible poverty, and that for many people, it presents their only hope, in the face of constant frustration, the failure of politicians and NGOs, etc., for a better future, or even for a more bearable present.  We are angry that such poverty persists and we affirm the Bible's view that it also angers God and that it is not his will that people should live in abject poverty. We acknowledge and confess that in many situations the Church has lost its prophetic voice in the public arena.

However, we do not believe that Prosperity Teaching provides a helpful or biblical response to the poverty of the people among whom it flourishes. And we observe that much of this teaching has come from North American sources where people are not materially poor in the same way.

1. It vastly enriches those who preach it, but leaves multitudes no better off than before, with the added burden of disappointed hopes.
   
2. While emphasizing various alleged spiritual or demonic causes of poverty, it gives little or no attention to those causes that are economic and political, including injustice, exploitation, unfair international trade practices, etc. 
   
3. It thus tends to victimize the poor by making them feel that their poverty is their own fault (which the Bible does not do), while failing to address and denounce those whose greed inflicts poverty on others  (which the Bible does repeatedly).
   
4. Some prosperity teaching is not really about helping the poor at all, and provides no sustainable answer to the real causes of poverty.

5. We accept that some prosperity teachers sincerely seek to use the Bible in explaining and promoting their teachings.

However, we are distressed that much use of the Bible is seriously distorted, selective, and manipulative.  We call for a more careful exegesis of texts,  and a more holistic biblical hermeneutic, and we denounce the way that many texts are twisted out of context and used in ways that contradict some very plain Bible teaching.

And especially, we deplore the fact that in many churches where Prosperity Teaching is dominant, the Bible is rarely preached in any careful or explanatory way, and the way of salvation, including repentance from sin and saving faith in Christ for forgiveness of sin, and the hope of eternal life, is misrepresented and substituted with material wellbeing.

6. We rejoice in the phenomenal growth of the numbers of professing Christians in many countries where churches that have adopted prosperity teachings and practice are very popular.

However, numerical growth or mega-statistics may not necessarily demonstrate the truth of the message that accompanies it, or the belief system behind it. Popularity is no proof of truth;  and people can be deceived in great numbers.

7. We are pleased to observe that many churches and leaders are critical and in some cases overtly renounce and cut the links with specific aspects of African primal or traditional religion and its practices, where these can be seen to be in conflict with the biblical revelation and worldview.

Yet it seems clear that there are many aspects of Prosperity Teaching that have their roots in that soil.  We therefore wonder if much popular Christianity is a syncretised super-structure on an underlying worldview that has not been radically transformed by the biblical gospel. We also wonder whether the popularity and attraction of Prosperity Teaching is an indication of the failure of contextualization of the Gospel in Africa.

8. We observe that many people testify to the way Prosperity Teaching has in fact impacted their lives for the better—encouraging them to have greater faith, to seek to improve their education, or working lives.  We rejoice in this.  There is great power in such testimony, and we thank God when any of his children enjoy his blessing.

However, we observe equally that many people have been duped by such teaching into false faith and false expectations, and when these are not satisfied, they 'give up on God',  or lose their faith altogether and leave the church.  This is tragic, and must be very grievous to God.

9. We accept that many prosperity teachers mostly have their roots in evangelical churches and traditions, or were brought up under the influence of evangelical parachurch ministries. 

But we deplore the clear evidence that many of them have in practice moved away from key and fundamental tenets of evangelical faith, including the authority and priority of the Bible as the Word of God, and the centrality of the cross of Christ.

10. We know that God sometimes puts leaders in positions of significant public fame and influence.

However, there are aspects of the lifestyle and behaviour of many preachers of Prosperity Teaching that we find deplorable, unethical, and frankly idolatrous (to the god of Mammon), and in some of these respects we may be called upon to identify and reject such things as the marks of false prophets, according to the standards of the Bible.  These include:

1. Flamboyant and excessive wealth and extravagant lifestyles.
   
2. Unethical and manipulative techniques.
   
3. Constant emphasis on money, as if it were a supreme good—which is mammon.
   
4. Replacing the traditional call to repentance and faith with a call to give money.
   
5. Covetousness which is idolatry.
   
6. Living and behaving in ways that are utterly inconsistent with either the example of Jesus or the pattern of discipleship that he taught.
   
7. Ignoring or contradicting the strong New Testament teaching on the dangers of wealth and the idolatrous sin of greed.
   
8. Failure to preach the word of God in a way that feeds the flock of Christ.
   
9. Failure to preach the whole gospel message of sin, repentance, faith and eternal hope.
   
10. Failure to preach the whole counsel of God, but replacing it with what people want to hear.
    
11. Replacing time for evangelism with fund raising events and appeals.

In response to a growing epidemic of prosperity teaching in Africa. I say a hearty "Amen!".

Summing this long story I want to say that I’m totally shocked about how PayPal treats its customers. Sellers are those who pay the fees and who make PayPal the business it is. I won’t be using PayPal to sell anything from now. They have grown too big to be efficient and caring for their customers. Quick to make totally disruptive decisions and to dismiss legitimate businesses without really taking a look at what it is.

They took the liberty to totally halt our business, to cause lots of lost sales and a major cash flow blow only because we got successful with one promotion, after being their customers for a long time. Right, they “regret any inconvenience this may cause”. They are “making every effort to minimize any disruption to your business”.

If you’re selling anything and use PayPal as your only payment option, I urge you to reconsider. They can cut your oxygen supply right at peak of your success, of course “for your own protection”.

My wife and I have looked at paypal as means of collecting donations on online for our soon-to-be fulltime jobs as missionaries. It's stories like this and the many others in the comments that make me steer as far away as possible. Now, looking at one of the processors suggested: FastSpring.

In less than a century, Christians have gone from opposing over-consumption at Christmas to demanding it be done in Christ’s name alone. The explanation may be in the numbers. Two thirds of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending, and 50-75 percent of most retailers’ annual profits are generated during December. This makes the weeks before Christmas the high holy days of consumerism. If Christians engaged in the Advent season as they did in generations past, by modeling moderation and self-denial or by ignoring the holiday altogether, it would likely destroy the economy. To ensure economic survival, consumers are stirred into a buying frenzy every winter with the goal of making this year’s shopping season more prosperous than the last. Santa Claus has been the mascot of this manipulation since the early twentieth century, but if more Christians have their way the season of shopping will someday be inaugurated by the appearance of Jesus Christ at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

This is a quote appropriate for the current season from Skye Jethani's excellent book Divine Commodity. Were I only able to recommend one book this year, this would be it.

Makes me not want to drink bottled water ever again.

Things that stand out to me:

* It takes 3x's the amount of water to make a bottle as it does to fill it.

* It can be distributed without meeting tap water standards.

This is a helpful graphic and certainly something to keep in mind. It does well to pinpoint our wastefulness while a significant chunk of the world lacks access to safe drinking water.