Happy New Year for 2010!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope all of you out partying have a great and safe time. We are celebrating at home; kids are in bed, and that’s a celebration for us any time! But I remember the days… My favourite New Year was 2000, watching the fireworks and lit up floats under the Harbour Bridge in Sydney. This has been a great year for us – started off pretty shaky, but ended very well; things just kept getting better. We’d be a great advert for prosperity doctrine if we believed in it; rather, we are just grateful to God for helping us through some challenging times and enabling us to come out the other side in a way we are very happy with. May God bless all of you, wherever you are, throughout 2010. He is with us.

Staying Free In Christ

I’m glad you have your validation and freedom in Christ. That’s how its supposed to be. It would be good to understand the core elements that allow this and see how they can be transposed to other forms of gathering.

– Muppet to MJ on a previous thread

Some people find a freedom in Christ initially that is later overtaken by some form of religious behaviour set. Yet we’d all agree from scripture that we should have freedom in Christ.

What does this mean in a practical way? What are the things that we already do to help others engage with their freedom in Christ, as well as ourselves, and how do we see these things expressed in different kinds of gatherings? Different gatherings would include blogs or online communities like this one, organised church bodies, home groups or just plain fellowship with other Christians that you see reasonably often.

*************
RavingPente

The Grinch Is Getting Fatter at Hillsong

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

—————————————————-

Did Jesus make us fat and greedy?

December 25, 2009

Elizabeth Farrelly

Christianity, some say, caused the crash. Not traditional Christianity, in which next-life success depends on this-life frugality, but the new so-called prosperity gospel, whose spirituality comes wrapped in worldly expectations like prunes in bacon. Devils, you might say, on apocalyptic horseback. Prosperity churches offer credit facilities for the offertory, require tithing as an investment strategy (promising huge returns) and see usury not as sin but as sacrament.

“We love the money in Jesus Christ’s name!” shouts Pastor Fernando Garay from his pulpit in Charlottesville, Virginia, promising a $10,000 return on a $100 offering. “The rich,” he explains to his mostly Latino congregation, “are closer to God.”

But it’s not just America. At Hillsong Church, not more than five minutes from where I live and a conspicuous presence on the Block , pastor Brian Houston whips his audience into a ”giving” frenzy while religiously pointing out the credit facilities in the foyer. In Garay’s words, “Jesus loved money, too!”

So in view of the over-consumption monster now blocking humanity’s path – with its three snarling heads of climate crisis, financial crisis and obesity crisis, all with their big googly eyes right on us – it is worth asking: how much does Jesus have to answer for?

Consider the manger. We’ve always taken this straw-filled washtub to signify the infant’s outsider status, his fringe cred, his underdog appeal. But perhaps – manger being, after all, the verb ”to eat”, as in munch – it is really about consumption. Like the wafer thing, you know: eat the body, drink the blood … it has to make you wonder.

It’s inconceivable that democracy or capitalism would have arisen without the risen Christ. The entire doctrine of a new world order born out of divine love and sacrifice; Catholicism’s spawning of the individual conscience that was Protestantism, which brought the self-knowledge of the Enlightenment, the self-betterment of capitalism and the self-affirmation of democracy; followed by the gradual erosion of morality by abundance and the relentless, locust-like munching of the world’s resources. Whammo, before you know it we’re eyeballing the three-headed monster.

Of course, retrospect makes history look inevitable, and can suggest causality where none exists. But it is striking, as we wonder how much Christmas cheer we can stuff in before doing workout penance, that if we wanted to do something special for Christmas lunch, we’d skip it. We’d fast.

Not me, of course. I don’t fast. I figure if God wanted us to fast he’d have put a vacuum-cleaner option on the tummy button. He’d have made it easy, even fun. And although there’s a long tradition of Christian fasting, much of it is more like super-strict veganism. The so-called Daniel Fast even markets its own cookbook, giving a whole new meaning to the term ”fast food”.

But two people who are probably not agonising over whether it’s turkey, prawns or takeaway Maccas this year are hunger strikers Pete Spencer and Daniel Lau. Neither has eaten for a month, but that is where the similarity ends. For where Lau, an economics doctoral student from Wollongong, is one of thousands who fasted globally for climate action throughout the Copenhagen conference, Pete Spencer, a 61-year-old grazier from the Monaro, is still fasting to bring one small piece of climate action to an end.

Each has a case.

Lau is not, he says, a spiritual person. For years he worked at a steel plant which was frantically pumping out carbon dioxide but when, during his PhD, he examined climate science and just how little mitigation would truly cost, he could no longer remain passive.

Spencer, by contrast, has spent more than a month chained to a platform several metres above one of the highest pieces of private property in Australia, fasting against land-clearing laws that, he says, make his farm unviable. He is not your standard sceptic, but he feels the Kyoto brunt has been unduly borne by country, and perhaps he is right (though there are other compelling reasons for constraining land clearing).

Each man says his cause is to die for, and for Spencer that is on the cards, since he will soon reach the point of permanent damage. Not that he is likely to achieve his aim, worthy as may be, since with so profoundly anti-democratic a tool as the hunger strike the Thatcher argument holds. Yield to one and pretty soon you’ll have half the population threatening to hold its breath, or else.

In any case, 1200 people die of hunger every hour, although not here. And as food becomes the new oil, many more may soon be starving for climate change, although perhaps not us. We seem to have managed climate change, like the crash, rather well; we pollute, they die.

Which makes Copenhagen’s Christmas box to the world especially dismal. Say what you like about consciousness raising and business stepping in where governments quail, Copenhagen spent billions and polluted wildly in order to change precisely nothing.

It also brought us the pre-emptive arrest, with a thousand eco-protesters arrested for crimes they might commit while the oil and coal men, wielding the new Christianity’s entitlement to planetary plunder, spun that denialista hysteria like a shroud.

So me, I’m hoping the Jews are right and that the messiah is still en route.

I also hope he’s not born here, or Nicola Roxon’s new maternity laws may force him from the manger and into the staphylococcal embrace of a NSW hospital where the Mother of God will risk the attentions of some rogue obstetrician to whom her midwife will have been statutorily shackled – and who, tacitly protected by the profession, will remove her pudenda without permission or leave her to deliver the holy infant in a toilet, and send her the bill.

Funny old world. Merry Christmas.

sda

Did Jesus make us fat and greedy?

December 25, 2009

Comments 35

Christianity, some say, caused the crash. Not traditional Christianity, in which next-life success depends on this-life frugality, but the new so-called prosperity gospel, whose spirituality comes wrapped in worldly expectations like prunes in bacon. Devils, you might say, on apocalyptic horseback. Prosperity churches offer credit facilities for the offertory, require tithing as an investment strategy (promising huge returns) and see usury not as sin but as sacrament.

“We love the money in Jesus Christ’s name!” shouts Pastor Fernando Garay from his pulpit in Charlottesville, Virginia, promising a $10,000 return on a $100 offering. “The rich,” he explains to his mostly Latino congregation, “are closer to God.”

But it’s not just America. At Hillsong Church, not more than five minutes from where I live and a conspicuous presence on the Block , pastor Brian Houston whips his audience into a ”giving” frenzy while religiously pointing out the credit facilities in the foyer. In Garay’s words, “Jesus loved money, too!”

So in view of the over-consumption monster now blocking humanity’s path – with its three snarling heads of climate crisis, financial crisis and obesity crisis, all with their big googly eyes right on us – it is worth asking: how much does Jesus have to answer for?

Consider the manger. We’ve always taken this straw-filled washtub to signify the infant’s outsider status, his fringe cred, his underdog appeal. But perhaps – manger being, after all, the verb ”to eat”, as in munch – it is really about consumption. Like the wafer thing, you know: eat the body, drink the blood … it has to make you wonder.

It’s inconceivable that democracy or capitalism would have arisen without the risen Christ. The entire doctrine of a new world order born out of divine love and sacrifice; Catholicism’s spawning of the individual conscience that was Protestantism, which brought the self-knowledge of the Enlightenment, the self-betterment of capitalism and the self-affirmation of democracy; followed by the gradual erosion of morality by abundance and the relentless, locust-like munching of the world’s resources. Whammo, before you know it we’re eyeballing the three-headed monster.

Of course, retrospect makes history look inevitable, and can suggest causality where none exists. But it is striking, as we wonder how much Christmas cheer we can stuff in before doing workout penance, that if we wanted to do something special for Christmas lunch, we’d skip it. We’d fast.

Not me, of course. I don’t fast. I figure if God wanted us to fast he’d have put a vacuum-cleaner option on the tummy button. He’d have made it easy, even fun. And although there’s a long tradition of Christian fasting, much of it is more like super-strict veganism. The so-called Daniel Fast even markets its own cookbook, giving a whole new meaning to the term ”fast food”.

But two people who are probably not agonising over whether it’s turkey, prawns or takeaway Maccas this year are hunger strikers Pete Spencer and Daniel Lau. Neither has eaten for a month, but that is where the similarity ends. For where Lau, an economics doctoral student from Wollongong, is one of thousands who fasted globally for climate action throughout the Copenhagen conference, Pete Spencer, a 61-year-old grazier from the Monaro, is still fasting to bring one small piece of climate action to an end.

Each has a case.

Lau is not, he says, a spiritual person. For years he worked at a steel plant which was frantically pumping out carbon dioxide but when, during his PhD, he examined climate science and just how little mitigation would truly cost, he could no longer remain passive.

Spencer, by contrast, has spent more than a month chained to a platform several metres above one of the highest pieces of private property in Australia, fasting against land-clearing laws that, he says, make his farm unviable. He is not your standard sceptic, but he feels the Kyoto brunt has been unduly borne by country, and perhaps he is right (though there are other compelling reasons for constraining land clearing).

Each man says his cause is to die for, and for Spencer that is on the cards, since he will soon reach the point of permanent damage. Not that he is likely to achieve his aim, worthy as may be, since with so profoundly anti-democratic a tool as the hunger strike the Thatcher argument holds. Yield to one and pretty soon you’ll have half the population threatening to hold its breath, or else.

In any case, 1200 people die of hunger every hour, although not here. And as food becomes the new oil, many more may soon be starving for climate change, although perhaps not us. We seem to have managed climate change, like the crash, rather well; we pollute, they die.

Which makes Copenhagen’s Christmas box to the world especially dismal. Say what you like about consciousness raising and business stepping in where governments quail, Copenhagen spent billions and polluted wildly in order to change precisely nothing.

It also brought us the pre-emptive arrest, with a thousand eco-protesters arrested for crimes they might commit while the oil and coal men, wielding the new Christianity’s entitlement to planetary plunder, spun that denialista hysteria like a shroud.

So me, I’m hoping the Jews are right and that the messiah is still en route.

I also hope he’s not born here, or Nicola Roxon’s new maternity laws may force him from the manger and into the staphylococcal embrace of a NSW hospital where the Mother of God will risk the attentions of some rogue obstetrician to whom her midwife will have been statutorily shackled – and who, tacitly protected by the profession, will remove her pudenda without permission or leave her to deliver the holy infant in a toilet, and send her the bill.

Funny old world. Merry Christmas.

Looking for that just right Christmas present?

What about the Looking good for Jesus mini kit?

The Lookin’ Good For Jesus Mini kit features a mirrored Jesus statuette, vanilla nectar lip balm, Easter-Lily hand & body cream (with sparkle!) and a folding mirror compact.

According to the product site, looking good for Jesus will “take the edge of sinning.”

Here are the instructions for use from the back of the package!

Then of course theres the bubble bath….

Follow in his footsteps. Take the plunge with a soak in everlasting Citrus and Juniper suds that make you feel like you’re walking on water.

But what about the little girl who needs somewhere to keep her widows mite? Well there’s something for her as well…

But how do you carry it all around so you know that no matter the occasion you can always look your Sunday going to church best? Of course…the King of Kings king sized Looking good for Jesus tote bag!

No need to worry about Christmas presents now – all sorted.

Merry Christmas

Greg the Explorer

Just for Bull

A Star Wars Storm Trooper Icon for Bull to hang in his study!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Avatar – an attack on good old fashioned greed, capatalism and Christianity!

Mike Frost says this on his Facebook page:

I’ve just seen Avatar and am left wondering: if the Na’vi can be equated with American Indians facing the onslaught of 19th Century US expansion, why can’t they equally be seen as the Afghanis dealing with 21st Century American military might? That makes Sully’s defection and the films conclusion much more disturbing.

One of his commenter’s then links to the following article about Avatar reviews by Christians.  Apparently the movie is from the bowels of hell itself;f if you believe some.

If you read reviews on Christian sites you would think AVATAR a horrible attack on every warm-blooded American. James Cameron is out to convince your children to abandon the ways of Christianity and accept Gaia type spiritualism.

Right or wrong, why are they so threatened? And as film reviewer, shouldn’t a person look at the film, and not how it relates to their own mythologies?

To be fair, there are a couple of Christian reviews of AVATAR that aren’t entirely focused on what goes against their worldview. Those were the exception, most vehemently attack the film for what they see as it’s message.

AVATAR, if you haven’t heard, is James Cameron’s return to blockbuster film making. It’s been heralded by some as a game-changer, likely to re-invent the movies. That might be a bit much, but it will expand opportunities for stories to be told in new ways.

What’s the beef some Christians seem to have with AVATAR?

Christian Hamaker writes one of the least offensive reviews on Crosswalk.com in which he calls AVATAR a film “familiar in the worst way.”

“In describing the military assault on Pandora, Cameron cribs terminology from the ongoing war on terrorism and puts it in the mouths of the film’s villains, who proclaim a “shock and awe campaign” of “pre-emptive action,” as they “fight terror with terror.” Cameron’s sympathies, and the movie’s, clearly are with the Na’vi—and against the military and corporate men.” Hamaker writes.

It’s a familiar theme in the criticism I found, that AVATAR is anti-capitalist. It seems a lot of Christians have a beef with that. Funny, no serious scholar would describe the Jesus figure as a capitalist. It’s an ugly side of Christianity in America, it’s merging with corporatism into what can only be described as Christo-corparatism, if not outright Christo-fascism.

The theme is much more obvious at movieguide.org, where two different reviews slam the film.

In “Capitalism, Christianity, and AVATAR“ David Outten rips into the movie, degrading it as attack on capitalism and comparing it to Michael Moore’s documentary. Huh?

“The problem with life on earth is not Capitalism it is the wickedness of human nature. The cure for this is not found in hugging a tree. The cure is to repent of sin and accept that Jesus Christ paid the price for your forgiveness AND TRANSFORMATION. You can become a new person driven by the Spirit of God to be kind, considerate, honest and loving” Outten writes. Is this a movie review, or a sermon?

“You can hug all the trees you want and nothing will do more to help the planet earth than a revival. What God wants for mankind is absolutely glorious.” Outten rants on, just before laying into Global Warming proponents.

Another abhorrently idiotic review came from the other article at movieguide.org in a piece called “AVATAR – Get rid of human beings now!”

In the overview comes this gem, “sexual content includes allusions of sex between partially clad aliens and hints of bestiality with animals and sentient aliens establishing physical and mental connections that are like a spiritual, almost sexual “high”; some upper female nudity on aliens, 10-foot-tall humanoid creatures nearly naked throughout the movie, with partially nude breasts and partial upper nudity, very thin alien clothing, upper and human male nudity; brief alcohol use; smoking and implied drug references; and, greed and exploitation rebuked, and movie promotes an anti-human, reverse racist ideology.”

Greed and exploitation rebuked? Is this nutbar serious? It’s evil to rebuke greed and exploitation? The entire review is loaded with comparable crap.

“its New Age, pagan worldview contains extremely anti-capitalist content with a strong Marxist overtone. It promotes group-think and argues in favor of the destruction of the human race” Is how that review wraps up.”

An article on goodnewsfilmreviews.com calls AVATAR “a self-loathing racist screed.”

“The Na’vi are all played by African-American or Native American actors (CHH Pounder, Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso). The Na’vi are blue, but their society is an idealized hybrid of African and Indian tribal cultures with some white, middle-class New Age mumbo-jumbo tossed in for flavor.”

The reviewer must have slept through history class. Native American and African tribal cultures might have a great deal to know about exploitation of resources on their land.

Interestingly enough, Roger Ebert says about James Cameron and AVATAR “Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.”

Ebert gives it four stars.

I’m amazed that corporate greed and the rape and pillaging of the planet can be seen to be a good thing and a move that shines a light onto it is seen as evil by certain Christians.

What do you think

Greg the Explorer

Why December 25

I though that as we headed toward the business end of Christmas we could discuss some of the Christmas traditions and whether Christmas is really even justifiably called a Christian celebration at all. I got this article from Christianity Today

For the church’s first three centuries, Christmas wasn’t in December—or on the calendar at all.

Elesha Coffman

It’s very tough for us North Americans to imagine Mary and Joseph trudging to Bethlehem in anything but, as Christina Rosetti memorably described it, “the bleak mid-winter,” surrounded by “snow on snow on snow.” To us, Christmas and December are inseparable. But for the first three centuries of Christianity, Christmas wasn’t in December—or on the calendar anywhere.

If observed at all, the celebration of Christ’s birth was usually lumped in with Epiphany (January 6), one of the church’s earliest established feasts. Some church leaders even opposed the idea of a birth celebration. Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.

Not all of Origen’s contemporaries agreed that Christ’s birthday shouldn’t be celebrated, and some began to speculate on the date (actual records were apparently long lost). Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) favored May 20 but noted that others had argued for April 18, April 19, and May 28. Hippolytus (c.170-c.236) championed January 2. November 17, November 20, and March 25 all had backers as well. A Latin treatise written around 243 pegged March 21, because that was believed to be the date on which God created the sun. Polycarp (c.69-c.155) had followed the same line of reasoning to conclude that Christ’s birth and baptism most likely occurred on Wednesday, because the sun was created on the fourth day.

The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects a convergence of Origen’s concern about pagan gods and the church’s identification of God’s son with the celestial sun. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman “birth of the unconquered sun”), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian “Sun of Righteousness” whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.

Western Christians first celebrated Christmas on December 25 in 336, after Emperor Constantine had declared Christianity the empire’s favored religion. Eastern churches, however, held on to January 6 as the date for Christ’s birth and his baptism. Most easterners eventually adopted December 25, celebrating Christ’s birth on the earlier date and his baptism on the latter, but the Armenian church celebrates his birth on January 6. Incidentally, the Western church does celebrate Epiphany on January 6, but as the arrival date of the Magi rather than as the date of Christ’s baptism.

Another wrinkle was added in the sixteenth century when Pope Gregory devised a new calendar, which was unevenly adopted. The Eastern Orthodox and some Protestants retained the Julian calendar, which meant they celebrated Christmas 13 days later than their Gregorian counterparts. Most—but not all—of the Christian world now agrees on the Gregorian calendar and the December 25 date.

The pagan origins of the Christmas date, as well as pagan origins for many Christmas customs (gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; Yule logs and various foods from Teutonic feasts), have always fueled arguments against the holiday. “It’s just paganism wrapped with a Christian bow,” naysayers argue. But while kowtowing to worldliness must always be a concern for Christians, the church has generally viewed efforts to reshape culture—including holidays—positively. As a theologian asserted in 320, “We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.”

From Greg the Explorer

Cross-Dressing at Christmas

Surely, surely… Isn’t this crossing the line just a bit too far?

http://www.jesusdressup.com/

Do you really want to dress up Jesus, seeker sensitive style?

Merry Christmas everyone. See you in the New Year!

It Pays To Pray

EndtimesPropheticWord has observed:

Paid Intercession by professional intercessors

Dod has a new post up that makes some valid points in very few words: http://worldofdod.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/jessabelle-hires-a-paid-intercessor/

Some people may be amazed on seeing this that professional intecessors actually exist in modern times within protestant ”churches”, especially within the groups that claim to be the most Spirit-filled and ‘anointed’, and the ones that are (allegedly) most on the ball spiritually and the ones most in line with God’s will.

It got me thinking, what do you guys make of paid-for intercessors – on the payroll of companies to pray for their corporate success etc? As far as I’m aware, paid intercessors and their pimps prey mainly within Hyper-Charismatic dominionist circles. Amongst others within the New Apostolic Reformation/Latter Rain/River delusional stream, Todd Bentley and Fresh Fire Minisitries have said they hired paid “professional” intercessors to pray for their business ministry. But they’re not the only ones. The first reformation, among other things, sought to get rid of exactly this kind of stuff. The ‘new’ reformation under ‘Pope’ C Peter Wagner and the diabolical Chucky ‘Kabbalah’ Pierce and Dutch Sheets wants to bring it all back?!

Anyway, it boggles my mind that anybody who knows the Bible even a little bit would -

• a) pay for someone to pray for them

and/or

• b) be paid to pray for someone/something

It also boggles my mind that any ‘Christian’ could think a paid intercessor’s prayers would be heard by God at all, let alone that they would consider such prayers to be heard in a superior manner to any one else’s prayers warranting them being paid good money for. Or do you guys think otherwise?

http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/paid-intercession-by-professional-intercessors/

Bringing this up at lunch the other day, this insighted a lot of discussion. What are your thoughts on the above?

Wonder what God said to him as he was finally called home?

Television evangelist Oral Roberts — who once said God would “call him home” if he failed to meet a fundraising goal — has died after suffering a weekend fall. He was 91.

A posting on the Oral Roberts Ministries site Tuesday stated Roberts had been admitted to hospital on the weekend after a fall and had been suffering symptoms of pneumonia.

“Oral Roberts was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known,” his son Richard Roberts, who leads the ministry, said in a statement.

“A modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, an author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator, he was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school. His name is synonymous with miracles. And he came along when many in Christendom did not believe in God’s power and goodness.”

The website of the multi-million dollar ministry founded by Roberts quickly posted tributes on Tuesday.

“The Oral Roberts University family was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of our dear Chancellor, Oral Roberts,” Oral Roberts University President Mark Rutland said in a statement.

Granville Oral Roberts was one of the most famous and influential Christian leaders and was renowned as an evangelist, author, educator, and television personality.

When he was 17, Roberts was told he had tuberculosis, but recovered after months in bed.

Roberts established the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association in Oklahoma in 1947 and conducted healing crusades across America and around the world in a great “tent cathedral.” Each night, thousands who were sick and dying came for healing prayer.

Through the years, he conducted more than 300 healing crusades in more than 35 countries on six continents. It’s estimated that Roberts personally laid hands on more than two million people for healing prayer.

The son of a preacher started out with revival meetings in tents, but later went to the airwaves of radio and television.

The university he founded now has nearly 4,000 students and follows Roberts’ guiding principle of “educating the whole person.”

“God wants you well. God wants you prosperous. God wants you a whole person,” Roberts once said.

Roberts was no stranger to controversy.

In 1987, Roberts said during a fundraising drive for his television ministry that unless he could raise $8 million, God would “call him home.”

He ended up raising more than $9 million for the campaign.

In 1977, he claimed to have had a vision of a 900-foot Jesus who told him to build a hospital.

In 1987, he also claimed that God raised the dead through his ministry.

Roberts lost his wife Evelyn in 2005. He was also predeceased by daughter Rebecca Nash, who died in a plane crash in 1977. His eldest son, Ronald, committed suicide in 1982 after being ordered to take treatment for drugs.

He is survived by his evangelist son, Richard, and daughter, Roberta Potts, who is a lawyer.

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