Spiritual Warfare

Hey what's up people. First let me start by saying that Baron Davis is a baller.

Ok now that we have that out of the way...last night they showed the first DVD of the Truth Project at Metro Life (my church) and it was sweet. I'd already seen it, but it was wonderful to be hear, yet again, about the importance of truth. One of the things that is stressed is the idea of what the Truth Project calls the "cosmic battle" the great fight between Truth and Lies, and everything that that entails.

After the 45 minute presentation, we broke down into small groups, and one of the guys in my small group said something very profound. Joey asked the question, "do we live our lives as if we're actually in a 'cosmic battle.'" At the risk of misrepresenting what he said, the man said something to the degree of, "In America, with all our blessings and comforts, it's hard to imagine ourselves in any sort of spiritual battle, or even a cosmic battle. It's hard to pray 'give us our daily bread' when there's a roast in the oven. In some third world countries, when they say 'give us our daily bread' it's b/c they need something to eat! That might be why it's so much easier to see themselves in a battle."

It reminded me of a part of Randy Alcorn's book Safely Home where Ben asks "why aren't there demons in America?" and Li answers "There are. In America demons have much nicer voices."

My question is a weird one: do you guys think there's more demons/spiritual warfare in Third World countries, or do you think in America we're simply blinded by our comforts/blessings/entertainment?

christian music

So I hate to beat a dead horse, but I just now saw two comments made by Janelle and Melinda in the music section that I wanted to respond to...I couldn't commented on the actual music blog but then they probably never would have read it. So basically a for real post is coming Sunday I just thought I'd make this little response

1) Melinda said something about how I need to be "careful" about supporting people who "water down the gospel" because sometimes "it becomes nothing" or something to that degree. I agree I should be careful, Mindy, but in this case I don't think it applies. Switchfoot/Relient K/Hawk Nelson aren't watering down the Gospel that they're presenting because they, for the most part, aren't presenting the Gospel. That's the whole point. They're presenting Christian IDEAS and Christian THEMES but they aren't "presenting the Gospel" in that way. The only way they could be "watering" down what they're saying is by watering down the themes (creationism, anti-postmodernism, repentence, forgiveness, commitment, courage to just to name a few of the themes I can think of.)

2) Janelle, any band that is on a Christian label and writes themes w/, at the very least, moral overtones is considered a Christian band. Everyone from Chevelle (back in the day) to Project 86 to P.O.D. to Relient K to Hawk Nelson to Kutless to dc talk.

favorite athlete

Hey what's up. So for the past couple of posts we've had some, as Marty McFly would say, "heavy" discussions. Good points have been made, interesting points have been made, drinks have been recommended, all and all it's been sweet. But this post is sort of a "relief" from that, more entertaining then Spiritual.

If you don't like sports, sorry.

The question is; who is your favorite athlete in any sport, and why? You are not allowed to name more then one athlete!! One athlete only. (answers that don't count: he/she is good looking. Any of us could say Anna Kournikova. Also, "just because" is an unforgivable response.)

I'm going to start the festivities. My favorite athlete is Allen Iverson.

Many people love to make fun of me for having Iverson as my favorite athlete (Mr. Ecelbarger and Josh come to mind) and he certainly has his faults, both in his character and in his game. However, the following points, in my mind, overcome his defeciencies (sp?)

1) He's fearless

Probably the thing that is most respected about Iverson is his fearlessness and his pain tolerance. It's my first point b/c it is this part of him that makes him so much fun to watch. Iverson uses his quickness to attack people a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier.

2) He never quits.

Probably the thing that I most respect about Iverson. No basketball player takes harder hits, or as often. No one gets knocked down more. But after every hit, if it's physically possible, Iverson gets right back up. Not only does he get back up, but he continues to attack, continues to open himself up to getting hit again. And then he gets up again. He simply never quits.

3) He has a flair for the game.

Probably the thing that Josh hates about him, but I love players who have a flair for the game (Jason Kidd, Chad Johnson, Stephon Marbury, Gilbert Arenas etc.)

4) He overcame a lot of odds

His past has been well-documented, but the points is 5 of his friends/family members have been murdered, two before his eyes when he was under 16. He spent a controversial time in prison, his sister nearly died b/c their public housing wasn't supposed to be lived in etc. It's amazing that he's gotten to the points he has.

Anyways so there you have it. I'm interested in you people's opinion. By the way it can be any athlete past or present.

Election Part 3

I was going to put together a fairly long response to Joe Martino's poignant question regarding whether or not God ordained the Va Tech killings, so Jake suggested I simply write it as a post. I am Jake's brother Joey, hopefully I won't chase away Jake's massive readership.

So, did God ordain the murder of 32 people, or was it a matter of him simply allowing a sinner the choice to do so, or not, and he chose to kill? I think that scripture is very clear about two things: 1) Nothing occurs that was not ordained by God, and 2) God holds us accountable for our choices.

As for point one, numerous Scriptures indicate that God has ordained every aspect of our lives. Ps 139:16 refers to the days of our lives being written in the book of God before they happen, Job 14:5 says man's "days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." Acts 17:28 indicates that we live and move only through God. Prov 16:9 says "A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Prov 20:24 says a man's steps are ordered by the Lord. Does this include evil? Certainly Scripture is very clear that God has caused evil things to happen. The most evil event in history, the crucifixion of Christ, was ordained by God (Acts 4:27, Acts 2:23). God repeatedly hardened the heart of Pharoah, and Paul says God "has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills" (Romans 9:18). Prov 16:4 says that God made everything for a purpose "even the wicked for the day of trouble." I could go on. The point is that the bible does not try to explain evil in a way that it is somehow outside of his control. Joseph told his brothers that they intended their actions for evil, but God used them for good. Another case of God ordaining evil. His plan for Israel was set into motion by evil events. Etc, etc.

Obviously this is a hard concept to deal with. At first blush, it makes God seem to be evil himself. After all, he ordains it, right? This is why we have to maintain, at the same time believing scripture that God ordains evil, that God never does evil, and God is never to be blamed for evil. The blame for the crucifixion of Christ was placed squarely on the shoulders of those who crucified him, not God (Luke 22:22, Matt 26:24, Mark 14:21, Acts 2:23 etc). Time and again scripture makes it clear that the responsibility for evil belongs to those directly doing the evil things, not on God bringing them about through secondary causes. Again, God ultimately is working all things for the good of those who are called.

So, does this mean that God ordained for 32 people to be killed by the gun of a heartless murderer? Yes. Somehow he is using this event, which was meant for evil by the man accountable for the killings, for his excellent purposes. Is this an easy position to take? Hardly. But I believe it is the biblical position.

Partial-birth abortion ban

By the way, this isn't to interrupt what's shaping up to be a sweet conversation in the comments of the election post, but two things have happened that I feel like talking about:

1) Virginia Tech shootings

As a nation we discussed 24/7 for two weeks the comments made by Don Imus and the fallout that followed. Talks about whether he should be fired, whether hip hop artists should be allowed to say what they say, is there a double standard, why are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson's opinion matter, who can say what? The Virginia Tech shootings put it all in perspective don't they? We have a problem. White, black, yellow, red, orange, blue or purple, everyone has a problem. It's called sin. And until people are willing, by the grace of God, to address their problem as sin, to "call it what it is", we will continue to fall. We will continue to be selfish, proud, arrogant, uncaring, greedy and petty. We will continue to put ourselves above others. We will continue to make racists, sexists comments, and then blame hip hop music. We will continue to be judgemental and hypocritcal. And we will continue to murder in cold blood 33 college students, 33 daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. God help us.

2) The ban on partial-birth abortion.

In case you missed it, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on partial-birth abortion (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266724,00.html) What cracks me up is the Democratic presidential candidates response to it.
“I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said. “As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient.” Hillary called it "disturbing" and John Edwards said it is a "stark reminder that Democrats can't afford to lose in 2008." Obama's statement was the most hilarious of them all. He obviously doesn't care at all about the particulars of the ruling and simply wants everyone to think it is about abortion in general. What the court ruled was that this particular method of abortion is not protected by a "women's right to choose." This method is to partially remove the baby (or fetus, if you'd rather) from the mother's womb and then crushing to cutting it's skull (just to make sure it doesn't survive out of the womb.) The Supreme Court simply ruled that it's gruesome, inhuman and never medically neccessary.

Of course, the next logical questions is; "since when do cells have skulls?"

Election (part 2)

Well here's part 2 of the post about election. Well actually I guess this is part 1 as far as election goes since we've established that the last past had little to nothing to do with election (the U of tulip) but instead had more to do with the T of tulip, total depravity.

The second part probably isn't going to be very theological at all, but more personal. One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with election is that it demotivates people from preaching the Gospel. After all, if God has elected someone then that person will be saved. Whether or not I preach the Gospel to them has no effect on the fact that they are called by God.

The obvious answer to that is that, hello, GOD TOLD US TO PREACH! Evangelizing shouldn't be about whether people get saved anyway, it should be about obeying the command of God. So, really, why do we even think about election in this aspect?

The reality is, however, that we do. I know I do all the time. So my question is, what do you guys do when you don't feel like evangelizing (whether it's b/c you lack motivation, you're being lazy, fear of man anything.) Any answer will help since evangelizing isn't my strong suit.

Election and Serving (part 1)

Yo, this is a good link. http://www.joemartino.name/ if that doesn't work just go to the comments on my post about clicks and go click on the name of the last comment left. Then read his post (it should be the second one listed) called "Saved to do Good Works." The question I'll be asking has to do with that post.

The key part of his post (which was about election and service) were the popular "election" scriptures in Ephesians. "8 for it is by grace that you are saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves but a gift from God - 9 not by works so that no one can boast. (and then his (mr martino's) key verse, if you will) 10 for are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works."

His point was, so far as I can tell, that the church, or at least Reformed church's who believe in the doctrine of Election, are very strong on verses 8 and 9 and are constantly preaching about those two verses and count them as very important. But those same churches tend to forget about verse 10 and everything that goes along with it (caring for the poor, loving your neighbor, anything to help out socially.) His question was why are we, as the Bride of Christ, so "afriad" if that's even the right word, to help out AIDS victims, to give to the poor, to serve non-Christians etc.

Although I agree with him that many church's don't do enough in the area of serving the poor and the needy, my disagreement with him (and feel free to defend yourself if you find this blog again Mr. Martino) is that it has something to do with Election. Election can and often does serve as an excuse for people to not preach the Gospel (if God elected them, they'll be saved, I don't need to preach.) That will be part 2, by the way. I don't know how someone can ignore God's commands to "love one another" to "Serve the poor" to "do good works" or anything else and use the doctrine of election as an excuse. If someone lacks love for someone for the simple reason that they're not saved, then they are sinning but does it really have anything to do with election?

Anyways, that's not even really my question. My questions is the following: (this of course is assuming that you accept the premise that the church is not active enough in social issues the involve serving other Christians and non-Christians alike)

Is the government so out of control with their welfare programs, their distribution of wealth, their "helping the needy" programs that are clear in Scripture to be the job of the church b/c the church has, as a whole, failed at it? Or is the Church not as socially active as it should be b/c the government has, in effect, taken it's job (in this one area) away from it? Whose fault is it?

Joey should have a sweet opinion about it cause we touched on this subject in class last night, but obviously I want everyone's opinion. (even Melinda's :-)

Clicks and groups

So, fam, I have a new question. Many people within Deluge (our youth group for you people who stumble across this) including Jeremy, say that "clicks" and "groups" are a problem. Many people say they hate them and the groups only hang with each other etc. etc. But no one really tries to change it very much. The same people who say they hate groups and whatnot are themselves mostly staying within a "click" or "group."

Recent history of the youth group "clicks" aside, how serious of a problem is this? How much of it is simply people being friends and having some friends that are closer then others? How much of it is people actually being exclusive and WANTING to have a "click" and how much of it is that people are just more likely to hang out with their close friends then others?

Jesse and Doug, even though you aren't here, you've certainly I'm sure seen this dynamic happen within a youth group (and in Jesse's case you know most of the Deluge crowd even if you haven't been here recently) so you're input is appreciated.

state of (some) Christian music part 2

I was definitely rushed last post, so here is part 2. If you didn't read part 1, make sure you scroll down and read it first.

There's two more things I want to address. The first is the issue of, as Jesse put it, the "worship-artists", people like Chris Tomlin, Paul Baloche etc. That has led to everyone and their sister putting out "worship" albums, some, like Michael W. Smith, Newsboys, Phillips Craig and Dean etc. w/ great success. "The distinctions between contemporary Christian artists like Chapman, and worship leaders like Redman are becoming more and more blurred" as Jesse put it. Whether this is a good things is probably not for me to decide. I personally love to listen to Tomlin's stuff I think some of his songs (How Great Is Our God, Indescribable and Enough to name 3) is some of the best worship songs around these days.

My problem, again, is that there's seems to be no end to people "stealing" (a word I'm using simply because it's the easiest word to use) other people's worship songs. I'm not talking about taking a song, as SonicFlood did, like "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" which was written by someone who does not have a record deal and was never released as a single on the radio, then when, to my knowledge, 4 people have released "Everlasting God" as a single in the last couple months (Tomlin, Brenton Brown and Phillips Craig and Dean and Lincoln Brewster.)

The second issue is one Janelle raised. "For secular music, they can say whatever they want whenever they want however they want. But for the Christian musicians, most themes are off limits, and therefore they may be stifled creativity wise." This brings me to a fundamental disagreement me and Joey have. My favorite bands are those who have "Christian themes" but don't have explicitly Christian lyrics (Relient K, Switchfoot, The Fray etc.) He thinks they're spineless sell-outs and the only reason he listens to them is because they're so much better musically then most other Christian bands. I think Janelle's right when she said "the answer is simple, in my opinion. The hesitancy is to write a song that "says the same thing as all the other songs." You turn on Generic Christian Radio Station, and really, what's the difference between You Know My Name by Brandon Heath, You Alone are God by Echoing Angels, I Will Lift my Eyes by Bebo Norman, Give it Away "all of my dreams all of my whatever I give them to you" by Aaron Shust Shine by Salvador or anything by Jeremy Camp?

I think there's four basic camps in Christian music today.

1) Explicitly Christian lyrics that are creative and original (Jack Needam, tobymac, Kutless, Steven Curtis Chapman Casting Crowns etc.)

2) Explicitly Christian lyrics that "same the same thing as all the other songs." (Echoing Angels, Jeremy Camp, Mark Shultz, Brandon Heath, Chris Rice etc.)

3) Christian themed lyrics that are not neccesarily explicitly Christian (Relient K, Hawk Nelson, Switchfoot, thebeautifulrepublic etc.)

4) People who steal songs (Phillips Craig and Dean, Selah, Geoff Moore random bands whenever they feel like it)

Now, of those four, how would you list which order you would want to listen to? I list it
1
3
2
4

Obviously, assuming the skill of the musicians and the catchiness of the melodies are similar, the ideal song would have explicitly Christian lyrics that preach the Gospel to a world in dire need of it. But I would WAAAAAY rather listen to Christian themed lyrics and even "same old same old" lyrics then....THE EXACT SAME SONG!!!!!! Every problem with unoriginal lyrics (no creativity, I've heard it all before etc.) is magnified BECAUSE I HAVE HEARD THE SONG BEFORE!!! If I want to listen to Bless the Broken Road, I'll listen to Rascal Flatts. They do it way better anyway. Find or write some original words, slap a melody on it, and record that. Don't steal someone else's song.



Thank you, thank you, you're far too kind.

state of (some) Christian music

So I'm here today (wow this is pretty much a speech not a blog :-) to talk about the State of Christian music. I don't even know why I'm doing this since you (my fam) are the only ones to read this and I've already pretty much told you what I think about it. So I guess this is mostly addressed to Jesse and Doug (and any stranger to accidentally finds their way here.)

Imagine this hypothetical situation. You're listening to Generic Secular Hits Station and the pretty boy-sounding DJ comes on w/ the announcement "Hey what's up your boy (name) here, good news, Simple Plan's new single has been released worldwide, so here we go, for the first time, Simple Plan!" and the music comes on..........and it's Move Along (a no. 1 hit by All-American Rejects, a pop-punk band just like Simple Plan, that was popular like 6 months ago.)

Or, you're listening to Country Music Station, and the annoying, overdone country accent comes on "Howdy, laydeez AND gentlement, it's Scooter hur weeth THE latest from the le-gen-DARY Garth Brooks, back from REtiremint, with his lates' song." You get excited, lean forward...and "Live Like You Were Dyin'" comes on.

Neither of these situations would ever happen, in any genre of music. T.I. isn't going to be doing "This is Why I'm Hot" anytime soon. Norah Jones probably isn't gonna cover "Waitin' on the World to Change", I don't think Hinder is going to do "Photograph" and I'm not expecting to hear Papa Roach's version of "From Yesterday" anytime soon. So why does this happen ALL THE TIME in portions of the Christian music industry?

As far as a I know, it doesn't happen in the trendy Christian-themed-but-not-quoting-Scripture genre (Relient K, Switchfoot, 12 Stones, Hawk Nelson) or in the Christian Rock genre (Kutless, Plumb.) But it seems like everyday when listening to basic Christian pop I hear another popular artists "stealing" a popular song from a different band or artists. Selah pretty much does it whenever they want (You Raise Me Up "Josh Groban" Bless the Broken Road "Rascal Flatts) Geoff Moore took "When I Get Where I'm Goin'" when it's still a top 20 hit on country music...you see the theme?

Now to be clear, I'm not talking about covering songs that are old. A lot of artists/bands do that, or take a chorus from an old song and write different verses, or whatever. That can show a degree of creativity, or, at the least, it's a song to fill a CD that a lot of people like. That's different then taking a song that is popular now, and doing it yourself. Not only is this a cop-out (Selah didn't change any melody or chords to Bless the Broken Road, and they even had a similar piano line in all the musical interludes) but ANYONE CAN DO IT. Me, Joey, Nathan, Stephan and James Henry could get together, memorize how Brad Paisley's band did When I get Where I'm goin', change it up a little bit, and then get anyone with a decent voice (Tobin, Kyle whoever we wanted) to sing it. And in our case we could even give James Henry a sweet guitar solo and we'd have done it better then Geoff Moore. But does this mean that bands who are supposed to be good (at least good enough to get a record) should do it? Isn't the reason you're a band b/c you're willing to put in the time and effort needed to tour, and b/c either you're creative and musically gifted enough to write songs, or you know songwriters who are? Why do you have to steal it from someone else? Is there really not enough good Christian songwriters out there to the point where bands/artists have to steal from one another (or even secular groups like Rascal Flatts?)

pyro

Janelle wanted me to post about our discussion with the pyromaniacs, and I will (kind of.) And then I have a question for the fam, since obviously we're the only ones to read my blog :-).

Basically there was some dude who said that God told him to write a book, and he did, with the help of the Holy Spirit of course. He wrote an article in a magazine about it, but wrote the article anonymously (sp?.) So we still don't know who this person is, or if he really even wrote a book.

The Pyro's freaked out, of course. The post that I read was from Dan Phillips, who basically said the guy was a spineless coward who went around listening to "voices in his head." This led to some discussion among many world famous bloggers like me, Joey, Janelle and Jesse.

I'm not quite sure what Joey said, since I don't really understand him, he's way too smart. Janelle was defending some girl named April, talking about the possibility of living by prayer and being sensitive to the word of the Holy Spirit. I'm pretty sure this led to her being called an adolescent girl :-). I was saying random things about Dan Phillips belief that God only speaks when he intends for it to be put in the Bible.

And then Jesse tore them up and down, left and right it and led to the most defensive post I've ever seen from the Pyro's, who I read often.

This is my question for everyone in the fam: it seemed like at some point or another, me, Joey, Jesse and Janelle all made it clear that we were not defending the author of the original article. It showed a lack of courage and only added to the stereotype of charismatics. After the worship conference, the biggest problem (as far as I know Joey agrees with me here) that me and Joey had (although it was an awesome conference) was the Sovereign Grace seems to be being super careful with how the reformed world thinks of our usage of the gifts. For example, we no longer say that we have a "significant charismatic dimension." We say we are "committed to the the gifts as biblically defined." The quesion:

Are me and Joey right that as a movement Sovereign Grace is being "careful", for lack of a better word, with the gifts so as not to offend our Reformed friends (or any other reason), if we are, should we be being careful? And if we should, why should we?

p.s. If anyone happens to read this for some strange reason, feel free to post I'm just kind of assuming that my family will be the only ones to read it.