Sunday, October 09, 2005
It has been a long time since I just posted on this blog, not posting other people's information, but my ramblings.
Well, time to ramble.
This has been a summer/fall of disaster, one right after another. Katrina, Rita, the earthquake in Pakistan, Hurricane Stan, which seemed like a flash in the pan, and if you had looked the other way, you would have missed it, but which caused a landslide in Guatemala that may have killed 1400 people. In a year that started off with the tsunami, contained a number of man-made disasters as usual in our greed for power and control, and continues to be a year for heartbreak, one begins to wonder.
When one hears of the Archbishop of Canterbury sanctioning an edition of the New Testament which whitewashes the sanctions against homosexuality and sex without marriage, includes the gnostic Gospel of Thomas and leaves out the book of Revelations, one begins to wonder.
When one hears of church after church with declining membership and a leadership that has no real belief in the divinity of Jesus embrace a non-Biblical "inclusiveness" that waters down the Gospel and allows them justification for their lifestyles, even as it blows their organizations to kingdom come, one wonders.
When one comes across wiccan rituals being passed off as female eucharistic rites on the home pages of major "Christian" denominations as a legitimate way to celebrate, one wonders.
When one hears about rituals that are truly pagan in the sense that they worship the earth goddess being practiced in seminaries, one wonders.
When someone posted a pagan prayer to the four directions (very similar to those used to consecrate the location that a wiccan ceremony takes place, and similar to some Native American non-Christian prayers that do the same) on an archdiocesan website (and it is to the honor of the archbishop that once he found out that what was going on, it was removed, but with much grumbling by the person who had put it up who couldn't see what the problem was), one wonders.
And then, with churches not living up to be witnesses of Christ and his truth, and society no longer taking their authority seriously (and why should they? In too many churches, the Christian message is no longer the real thing worth taking seriously, but too often has turned into a feel good club that no one would like to die for) and experimenting with many ways of alternative lifestyles that frequently lead people down the road to nihilism and despair, and self has been vaulted to the center of being to the point where even reproduction is not worthwhile,
one begins to wonder.
I think about various prophecies, and warnings, and calls to live righteously.
But the book of Revelation gives the response of the world to the call of God at the end of the age:
One wonders.
Well, time to ramble.
This has been a summer/fall of disaster, one right after another. Katrina, Rita, the earthquake in Pakistan, Hurricane Stan, which seemed like a flash in the pan, and if you had looked the other way, you would have missed it, but which caused a landslide in Guatemala that may have killed 1400 people. In a year that started off with the tsunami, contained a number of man-made disasters as usual in our greed for power and control, and continues to be a year for heartbreak, one begins to wonder.
When one hears of the Archbishop of Canterbury sanctioning an edition of the New Testament which whitewashes the sanctions against homosexuality and sex without marriage, includes the gnostic Gospel of Thomas and leaves out the book of Revelations, one begins to wonder.
When one hears of church after church with declining membership and a leadership that has no real belief in the divinity of Jesus embrace a non-Biblical "inclusiveness" that waters down the Gospel and allows them justification for their lifestyles, even as it blows their organizations to kingdom come, one wonders.
When one comes across wiccan rituals being passed off as female eucharistic rites on the home pages of major "Christian" denominations as a legitimate way to celebrate, one wonders.
When one hears about rituals that are truly pagan in the sense that they worship the earth goddess being practiced in seminaries, one wonders.
When someone posted a pagan prayer to the four directions (very similar to those used to consecrate the location that a wiccan ceremony takes place, and similar to some Native American non-Christian prayers that do the same) on an archdiocesan website (and it is to the honor of the archbishop that once he found out that what was going on, it was removed, but with much grumbling by the person who had put it up who couldn't see what the problem was), one wonders.
And then, with churches not living up to be witnesses of Christ and his truth, and society no longer taking their authority seriously (and why should they? In too many churches, the Christian message is no longer the real thing worth taking seriously, but too often has turned into a feel good club that no one would like to die for) and experimenting with many ways of alternative lifestyles that frequently lead people down the road to nihilism and despair, and self has been vaulted to the center of being to the point where even reproduction is not worthwhile,
one begins to wonder.
I think about various prophecies, and warnings, and calls to live righteously.
But the book of Revelation gives the response of the world to the call of God at the end of the age:
The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot either see or hear or walk; nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.
One wonders.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
