Category: faith

Larry Kilgore running for U.S Senate now?

Larry Kilgore, as you may recall, ran for Texas Governor in the 2006 Republican primary.
As we should all know by now, Gov. Rick Perry won that race as well as the final race in November.
Now Kilgore hopes to win a seat in the U.S. Senate and has announced his plans to run against John Cornyn next year.
On his campaign website, Kilgore compares those who allow abortion to continue with the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in Germany:

50 million babies have been murdered through US endorsed abortion. They need the protection that God’s law provides. Some Christian leaders in the US Empire are willing to compromise on child murder; just like many of the Nazi German pastors compromised on murder of the Jewish people. The Deutsche Christen (“German Christians”) became the voice of Nazi ideology within the Evangelical Church, even advocating the removal of the Old Testament from the Bible. While some Confessing Christians moved toward open resistance against the regime, more moderate Protestants (inside and outside the Confessing Church) made what they saw as necessary compromises. As the Nazi dictatorship tightened its hold, the Confessing Church itself became paralyzed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few church leaders who stood in courageous opposition to the Fuehrer and his policies. Will you stand up in opposition to the US government and her policies?

Kilgore is also big on turning the U.S. into a theocracy and is also running on these issues:

  • Eliminate TX budget for Prisons. $2B
  • Eliminate TX budget for health & human services. $25.5B (2 Corinthians 9:6-14, 1 Timothy 5:3-16)
  • Eliminate TX budget for government indoctrination of children. (public education). $23B
  • Texans should become independent then stop paying US taxes. $123B
  • Texas should secede because the US has sealed its doom.
  • Immediate return of Texas National Guard troops from US conscription.

More interesting viewpoints from Kilgore:

What do you think of democracy?
Democracy and Terrorism: Two Faces Of The Same Evil.

Do our citizens who never learned to support themselves, just get put somewhere away from us until they die of exposure, starvation, illness, or the like?
If Christians refuse to help the poor, widows and orphans, than we do not deserve freedom. If a lazy man does not work, he should not eat. It is not the government’s job to feed and clothe people.

Does the story of the woman caught in adultery, forgiven and released (John 8:3-11) negate the death penalty?
If God forgave the New Testament adulterer just as He forgave Old Testament adulterers, in neither instance revoking His law. God has all authority to forgive the criminal and disregard temporal punishment. Contrariwise, Men must obey God and cannot ignore punishment.

Do we empty our prisons, and let the inmates fend for themselves at the citizen’s expense?
When the prisoners are freed, a judge will have to determine what Biblical punishment is appropriate. I hope that Christians will sensibly welcome these people into their churches, businesses & homes.

While it’s not publicized on his campaign website, it’s been suggested by one local blogger that Kilgore would institute the death penalty for homosexuals. That’s good – because we all know that sin is way worse than all the others.

reaching

Brother Nick Harris stepped in and filled in for Brian this week at encounter. Bro. Nick is Brian’s father-in-law and pastors Ovilla Road Baptist Church, which encounter is a mission church of.
He gave a great message on God reaching towards us, us reaching back in faith and in turn reaching out to others.
Be sure and check out the podcast online – if for nothing else, his story about his sleeping pills at the beginning.

church in a thrift store

Thomas is always a great source of finds and info on the web, especially for relevant/emergent church news.
In his latest he gives a brief look at Andrew Jones’ latest post about an alternative worship service at his local Salvation Army thrift store (Thomas and Andrew are both Salvationists):

But it got me thinking what i would do if i hosted an emerging church alt. worship event at a thrift shop. It could be a blast! I would totally use FOUND OBJECTS from the store itself. Teaching would be from the Bibles already on the shelf and any illustrations would be taken from books on the shelf. Costuming would be encouraged and perhaps an award (voucher) given to those with the thriftiest and yet funkiest outfit. Drinks would be poured out of found jars and jugs into found cups and mugs from the shelves. Children might want to play some found games. Everything is found in the shop. Nothing is imported in. An offering could be taken {in an old hat, of course) for Salvation Army and a blog post with all the details of the service uploaded to a blog so that others might catch the vision to start one up in their local Salvation Army charity store. Maybe its a really lame idea. But it might be trying.

I think that’s a great idea. I don’t know that we could get our church to fit inside a local thrift store, but the more I think about it, I don’t even know if we have a local thrift store that’s open regularly. I think Daniel’s Den is only open a few hours a week. Could be an interesting ministry/outreach to the community in Waxahachie for encounter. Hmmmm.
And in addition, Thomas shares this great image…

Looks like even more of the Sermon on the Mount is popping up in other places.
There are seven different posters in the series. There’s a link to download PDF’s of them all on the Electric Angel website but it doesn’t appear to be working right now. Doh.
But they also have pics showing more of their design work on Flickr.

Thomas meets Rob Bell


Thomas was able to meet Rob Bell this weekend during Bell’s Peacemaker tour of the UK.

Rob Bell was amazing. To get up in front of 500 people and speak for 90mins… and keep there attention… without digging out powerpoint or even some music… tremendous!
Audience participation was welcomed when Rob talked on non-violence – he focussed on the action Jesus spoke of in the beatitudes (Matthew). He spoke of the subversive, counter-revolutionary ideas Jesus had to help the downtrodden and humiliated.

It’s interesting that Bell spoke on non-violence and the B-attitudes. After reading about Gandhi’s fascination with the Sermon on the Mount we started talking about the B-attitudes in Matthew 5 and I think we’ll continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount during our Wednesday morning What-a-Breakfast at What-a-Burger in Red Oak.
We had some great discussion this last week just on the B-attitudes.
According to Thomas, Bell spoke of a two ways we tend to respond to violence – either retaliation or as a total pacifist.
But Jesus spoke of a third response:

The Third Way has two guiding principles that are founded in tremendous courage and creativity:
1) Do not cooperate with anything humiliating
2) Hold out any possibility that the aggressor may wish to change his/her mind.

Encouraging creative thought in the church

SBC blogger (that’s Southern Baptist not Southwestern Bell) Wade Burleson suggests there may be a connection between mathematics and the Gospel.

It is interesting to note that in both the study of mathematics and gospel doctrine one learns precise systems of thought with established, constant truths that never change (at least from my conservative theological viewpoint).

Burleson takes a look at the academic life of Albert Einstein and how he flourished when he was encouraged to think creatively.

‘What kind of environment is needed for great thinkers and theologians to arise out of the Southern Baptist Convention who possess the creative genius to lead us into new and even more effective methodologies of gospel ministry?’

From Einstein’s life Burleson offers five pointers:

  1. Young evangelical pastors and leaders need an atmosphere where they are free to think and flourish in each his own, individual, and creative way as God has gifted him.
  2. Demands to submit to authoritarian control through mental assent to force-fed facts or truths, and demands for blind allegience to established systems of denominational structure will thwart any sense of creativity and possibly restrict new and more effective means for accomplishing even greater Christian ministry.
  3. The discovery and advancement of more effective methodologies in missions ministry comes from hands on experience of Southern Baptists who are actually doing missions rather than Southern Baptists who are hearing about missions.
  4. If young evangelical pastors and leaders ever get a taste of the freedom to do ministry as they visualize it needs to be done, but feel attacked or threatened by older mentors, they will eventually renounce their allegiance for, and membership in, the Southern Baptist Convention.
  5. The threat to the Southern Baptist Convention does not come from more freedom given to her members, but rather, the tightening of parameters and the authoritarian control that stifles creativity in missions and ministry.

I think God is a very creative God and encourages us to be creative as well. When people are restricted and not allowed to be creativity you lose passion and joy. But when people can be creative with their work, their ministry, their outreach and are given a chance to think outside the box, it’s amazing to watch them flourish.
I’m thankful myself that I have a place where I can be creative. I have a place where I’m allowed to stretch myself and be all that I can be and not tied down to tradition or “this is how we’ve always done it.”
And I love watching other people find their place as well.

The Sermon on the Mount

According to John Dear, a Jesuit priest and peace activist, Mahatma Gandhi read from the Sermon on the Mount twice a day for the last 40 years of his life.
“He considered these texts the greatest writings on nonviolence in the history of the world. Since he wanted to become a person of nonviolence, he treated these teachings as a basic primer, as the catechism of nonviolence.”
I wonder how many times most Christians have read Matthew 5-7.
Hat tip to DMN for the info