It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.(Gal. 5:1)
My religious background is a patchwork of various Christian denominations, each slightly different, yet all claiming the same major doctrinal tenets. I attended a Presbyterian church from the age of birth to somewhere around the middle of my grade school years. The next church for our family was a Congregational church where we stayed through the remainder my grade school years and into my freshman year of high school. At age 14 we switched again to a Nazarene church which I attended with my family until, at age 20, I decided to attend a Church of God (out of Anderson, IN) where there were more young people near my age. Somewhere during this denominational journey I made a decision to become a Christian and accept Jesus as savior, although I did so more out of a compulsion to avoid the fiery pit of hell than a clear understanding of what I was really getting into.
In 1985 I was married and began a journey through a few more versions of the Christian church, again with the same basic doctrine (belief in the Trinity, that Christ died for our sins and was raised, etc.) but variations on minor points and practices. Our new family stayed in the Church of God, the denominational affiliation of our college, and we were active in the local congregation for several more years. Upon moving to Texas in 1990, I began attending a Nazarene church again for a short time, then on to a Baptist church where we stayed until moving again around 3 years later. Our next move took us into the crazy world of the Charismatic believers. The freedom from ritual along with the contemporary music drew us in to this church home until we again moved. Since that time in 1993 we have moved several more times, but stayed in non-denominational, charismatic churches.
I tell you all of this denominational history to give you a limited idea of my background in the Christian faith and so you can understand why, to some degree, I have questioned so much of the teaching I have heard. I guess in some ways it has been beneficial to my spiritual development to have such a varied background, since this has allowed me the freedom to search out truths for myself. I know many people that have spent most of their years in one particular denomination and as a result have trouble with questioning their denominational training. They feel almost as though it is sinful to consider that what they have been taught may not be the full truth. Feelings of guilt overcome them if they question the fullness of their experience and start to wonder if maybe God has something more for them. This indoctrination leads to a type of enslavement that Charismatics would label as Legalism or Religiousness. I believe that this type of 'religion' and following ritual, rules and traditions for the sake of conformity is what Christ came to set His people free from.
As of late however, I have seen another form of enslavement that some non-denominational, inter-denominational or charismatic believers seem to be falling in to. It is an enslavement to their supposed new found freedom from legalism or a religious spirit. While it is true that as a believer in Christ, we are free from the strict legalism of the old covenant and the practice of dead rituals, it is also true that we can easily become captivated by our obsession with trying to appear non-religious. We must remember that to follow Christ in a non-religious manner is to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, not to be preoccupied with engagement in worldly activities that will signal to others that we are free. This type of pseudo-freedom actually has another name... bondage. We can be deceived so easily by our flesh into thinking that we should participate in things that will offend the religious legalists to show them what freedom looks like. This is not freedom!
Christ Jesus died on the cross for us so that we may truly be free to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in every area of our lives. True freedom will allow us to make decisions and involve ourselves in activities that bring glory to Him without purposely offending our brothers and sisters that may have differing doctrinal beliefs. We must remember that while all things are permissible, not all things are beneficial. We are reminded in the New Testament that we are to be considerate of those that may be caused to stumble because of our exercise of freedom. While we will not allow ourselves to be resubmitted to the bondage the Holy Spirit has led us out of, we must also take seriously our responsibility to the body of Christ and to avoid pride and arrogance which will lead us into bondage of another sort. I urge you all (as I remind my self) to examine yourself daily and to follow in humble submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the only true way to the freedom God has for each of us.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Bail Out? Maybe that's exactly what we should do...
The talk everywhere you turn for the past several months has been about government bail-outs and the need for economic stimulus. I have heard many of the arguments for, and to a lesser degree, the arguments against these actions. I know many are confused on what needs to be done, torn between giving ailing businesses and industry sectors help and leaving the market place to itself to correct the problems over time. For most of our politicians I think the question boils down to how much should the government be involved and what kind of return will they get when elections roll around again. The question I would like to ask is 'what caused these problems and when did it become the governments job to interfere in the marketplace?'.
If you dig past the surface of 'smoke and mirrors' that the politicians in congress are throwing up you find that most of the problems we have faced go back decades into the past. A great deal of government interference (as opposed to involvement as some suggest) began with the policies of FDR and his Big Government approach to solving economic issues. Many scholars now point to his administration's policies as a key factor in extending the economic depression by up to seven years. This is where the modern big government liberalism started. President Johnson put us into the welfare crisis that we have today by allowing people to live off the success of others instead of working to achieve something for themselves. Nixon gave us the out-of-control, over regulating EPA to assuage the environmentalist radicals that demanded federal intervention in the pollution problems we faced. I could go on about many more federal agencies (such as the NHTSA, OSHA, etc.) and regulations that interfere with our daily lives and override the idea our founding fathers had of each state's right to regulate themselves.
If you look into the current crisis in mortgage lending the problem is not corporate C.E.O.'s with large salaries and 'golden parachutes'. Have some of these people been overpaid and given outrageous severance deals over the years? Yes. Is it the business of anyone other than the board of directors and shareholders to change this? No. The real problem that hit the mortgage industry so hard was a meddling government that required loans to be made to people that were bad credit risks and could not afford the homes they were purchasing.
The same is true of the ailing American auto industry. The people that know how to make and sell automobiles work for Ford, GM and Chrysler.... they do not hold seats in the Senate, House or any other post in the government. The C.A.F.E. standards that have been applied to the automakers along with the outrageous burden of the overpaid employees of 'Big Labor' have combined to cripple our domestic manufacturers ability to compete. If rising fuel prices cause the public to demand vehicles with better mileage, then competition will drive the manufacturers to meet that need without government interference. The market dictates who succeeds and who fails based upon a sellers ability to meet the buyers wants and desires.
This is where the problem for most politicians and radical liberals originates. They see themselves as better educated and wiser than the public. They spend all of their time talking about freedom of choice (aren't these the 'pro-choice' people?) yet they want to eliminate our freedom of choice in so many areas. They want you to drive the car that they approve of (in spite of their continuance to drive large SUV's and fuel inefficient sedans) instead of the car you would like to buy. They want our children to attend public schools and have a government mandated curriculum, and appropriate indoctrination, instead of allowing us to make a choice of where our dollars and our children attend school. These individuals who have proven that they cannot manage anything (how's the future of Social Security looking, or the federal budget deficit) want to take control of our financial institutions, the auto industry, health care, the petroleum producers, regulate the thermostats in our homes and now even dictate whether television broadcasts are analog or digital (and use our money to provide converters for those that cannot afford to miss Oprah or The View).
I for one think that it is time for a massive, all inclusive bail-out. The federal government needs to bail-out of the free market, the affairs of the free states, and our supposedly free lives. Our nations founders did not risk their lives, the lives of their families, their fortunes and all that they had to be ruled by a government that sought to control their money, education, purchasing decisions and tax them into oblivion. God help us to start the return to reason in government and restore our freedoms to their intended state.
If you dig past the surface of 'smoke and mirrors' that the politicians in congress are throwing up you find that most of the problems we have faced go back decades into the past. A great deal of government interference (as opposed to involvement as some suggest) began with the policies of FDR and his Big Government approach to solving economic issues. Many scholars now point to his administration's policies as a key factor in extending the economic depression by up to seven years. This is where the modern big government liberalism started. President Johnson put us into the welfare crisis that we have today by allowing people to live off the success of others instead of working to achieve something for themselves. Nixon gave us the out-of-control, over regulating EPA to assuage the environmentalist radicals that demanded federal intervention in the pollution problems we faced. I could go on about many more federal agencies (such as the NHTSA, OSHA, etc.) and regulations that interfere with our daily lives and override the idea our founding fathers had of each state's right to regulate themselves.
If you look into the current crisis in mortgage lending the problem is not corporate C.E.O.'s with large salaries and 'golden parachutes'. Have some of these people been overpaid and given outrageous severance deals over the years? Yes. Is it the business of anyone other than the board of directors and shareholders to change this? No. The real problem that hit the mortgage industry so hard was a meddling government that required loans to be made to people that were bad credit risks and could not afford the homes they were purchasing.
The same is true of the ailing American auto industry. The people that know how to make and sell automobiles work for Ford, GM and Chrysler.... they do not hold seats in the Senate, House or any other post in the government. The C.A.F.E. standards that have been applied to the automakers along with the outrageous burden of the overpaid employees of 'Big Labor' have combined to cripple our domestic manufacturers ability to compete. If rising fuel prices cause the public to demand vehicles with better mileage, then competition will drive the manufacturers to meet that need without government interference. The market dictates who succeeds and who fails based upon a sellers ability to meet the buyers wants and desires.
This is where the problem for most politicians and radical liberals originates. They see themselves as better educated and wiser than the public. They spend all of their time talking about freedom of choice (aren't these the 'pro-choice' people?) yet they want to eliminate our freedom of choice in so many areas. They want you to drive the car that they approve of (in spite of their continuance to drive large SUV's and fuel inefficient sedans) instead of the car you would like to buy. They want our children to attend public schools and have a government mandated curriculum, and appropriate indoctrination, instead of allowing us to make a choice of where our dollars and our children attend school. These individuals who have proven that they cannot manage anything (how's the future of Social Security looking, or the federal budget deficit) want to take control of our financial institutions, the auto industry, health care, the petroleum producers, regulate the thermostats in our homes and now even dictate whether television broadcasts are analog or digital (and use our money to provide converters for those that cannot afford to miss Oprah or The View).
I for one think that it is time for a massive, all inclusive bail-out. The federal government needs to bail-out of the free market, the affairs of the free states, and our supposedly free lives. Our nations founders did not risk their lives, the lives of their families, their fortunes and all that they had to be ruled by a government that sought to control their money, education, purchasing decisions and tax them into oblivion. God help us to start the return to reason in government and restore our freedoms to their intended state.
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