Friday, November 10, 2006

A couple of articles

Here's a couple of articles I enjoyed about the Democratic victory in the House and the Senate:

From the National Review

and

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1382

Although the liberal Europeans are rejoicing it seems, Americans were just fed up with the scandals and such of the GOP. I do pray America begins to realize that this war on terror takes a backbone. Too much liberalism and Islam will have a lot of victories... (note, they won't ever have the final victory though)

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

From here
Meanwhile, in Leawood, Kans., a suburb near the Missouri border, a 42-year-old evangelical pastor named Adam Hamilton was preaching an entirely different message. He was helping his 14,000 members parse the parables in Matthew 13—the wheat and the weeds, the good fish and bad. "Our task is not to go around judging people—Jesus didn't do that," he tells NEWSWEEK.
...
The religious right has "gone too far," says Hamilton. "They've lost their focus on the spirit of Jesus and have separated the world into black and white, when the world is much more gray." He adds: "I can't see Jesus standing with signs at an anti-gay rally. It's hard to picture that."

Its really interesting how divorced this "Jesus" about which modern evangelicals speak all the time is from the Biblical Jesus. The parables about the wheat and the tares and the gospel net bringing in all kinds of fish are about the church. We don't know who is elected and who is not, so hence we aren't to go around making every effort to root out the tares from the church. Of course if people show themselves to be reprobate, we declare that as such, but that's a finer grained issue.

The God of the Bible loves justice and righteousness. Unfortunately for a lot of people, He is not a fluffy teddy bear that overlooks sin. The cross of Jesus Christ shows us exactly what God thinks of sin, and in it the justice of God and the mercy of God are both shown forth in shining brilliance. This doesn't mean we overlook sin or just get over it. This pastor suggests that Jesus wouldn't be standing with anti-gay rally signs, yet this Jesus took a whip of sorts and drove the money changers out of the temple. This Jesus told the Pharisees that they were NOT His sheep and that's why they didn't believe. Jesus and John the Baptist who went before Christ called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers." He told the people who demanded a sign that an "evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign."

Christ was merciful and compassionate, no doubt, to those who came to him in repentance. Those who were truly sorry for their wicked ways. He isn't so compassionate with those who stubbornly persist in their sin. I'm not sure Christ would be seen at a rally holding a sign either, but He definitely would be calling them to repentance. This image of Jesus just accepting people in their wicked lifestyle without calling them to repent and believe is just ludicrous.

I wish people would read their Bible more before they give quotes on TV. At least make a half-hearted attempt to understand Christ's words before spouting off about what Jesus would do. This is just the same wicked agenda that the humanists proclaim clothed in religious terminology. These are wolves in sheep's clothing.