Journeys Along The Way

Something that I have been thinking about lately are the gray areas of life.  What I mean are the areas that the Bible takes stances for or against, but then we, in our human knowledge, begin to wonder where that line ends.

Below are some of these areas and if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to share.  I want to challenge my thoughts and beliefs to grow closer to a Biblical understanding on these topics.

1) Abortion: Christians are typically anti-abortion, however my question is this – what about incest and rape?  Is abortion okay in those instances or is it not okay?  Why or why not? (Another question presented by a friend: What if the life of the mother is in danger if the child is born or the life of the child is in danger if the mother gives birth?)

2) Violence: One of the more controversial topics since not all Christians agree on what exactly the Biblical stance is, but here we go anyway.  For pacifists – How can we read in the New Testament “love your enemies” yet look in the Old Testament and see that God caused the Flood (a violent act since it ended the life of many) and read about the killing God commanded?  For non-pacifists – How can you “love your enemy” and “love your neighbor” yet still kill them?  How do we rationalize, in either point of view, mercy killing and assisted suicide?

3) Political Patriotism – I’m writing this post on Memorial Day, not a day typically set up for a Biblical understanding to life, it’s more about America and America’s military, and that’s exactly why I brought it up.  We in America get consumed by the pro-America holidays (Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, and the biggest one Independence Day), but how are we, as Christains, suppose to respond to those days?  I know I enjoy watching the fireworks (I more enjoy lighting them and then watching them) on July 4, but should we participate at all?  How should our allegiance to the Biblical Kingdom interact with the kingdoms of this world?

4) Easter – Okay, now for some more controversy.  Easter is one of the two most important holidays for the Christain religion, but some the fun Easter activities for kids are not in the Bible (Ex: Easter Egg Hunts, the whole Easter bunny thing, etc.).  I love the Biblical Easter, but how do we look at Easter and not see all the non-Biblical Easter stuff that comes with it?

5) Austin Powers vs. Pearl Harbor - The Bible is pretty clear to stay away from sinning and for a lot of people sex (and all of it’s not so wonderful baggage) is where that gets a little weary.  For that group, sex is something to stay away from, but what about violence?  We try to avoid movies and games with sex in them, but what about movies and games that have a lot of violence in them?  We can play Halo in multi-player and kill each other, but aren’t we, in a way, taking out some kind of aggression toward one another?  What about art like the statue of David and the Sistine Chapel in Italy… how are those different than the nudity in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? (This point was also brought up by a friend, but it made me start to think about it as well.)

These are the topics that I have questions about and would love to engage in conversation about.  What are your thoughts?

One of the longer debates in regard to the internality of the Christian church, is the idea of the TULIP from Calvinism. I am not certain if in the past year of increasing my knowledge on the subject that I have shared my thoughts and opinions, so I wanted to take the chance and do just that.

Calvinism, to me, makes sense. It is no longer an idea for the books, but an idea based on The Book. It is not always easy to see where points from TULIP come from, but once it is understood, it makes sense. Now below, are the five major TULIP points and where I stand.

T: Total Depravity – Thanks to the fall of man in the book Genesis, we as humans, are epically screwed on our own and the only thing that can save us God. – Okay, I agree with that. Thanks to Eve and Adam sin entered into the Garden of Eden screwing up not only them, but all of creation in the process until the second coming of Christ. Grant you, one of the biggest objections to this point is Christ. My thought is this: God, a sinless entity in and around the universe, sent His Son to earth. All of creation gets the sins of the generations beforehand through the father. How can Christ be “totally screwed” if His Father was without sin?

U: Unconditional Election – The idea that God decided before time who was part of the “elect” and who was not. – This one was oddly enough the first of the five that made sense to me.

L: Limited Atonement – Christ died only for the elect. – The struggle on this one was John 3:16, where it says it was for the whole world that Christ died. Now I thought about it a little bit more and realized that yes, it was in fact the whole world that Christ died for (that is the overall love of God) but it was more specifically for the elect that He died for (taking away their sins over taking away the sins every last persons). When I realized that this condition to the TULIP made sense to me.

I: Irresistible Grace – The Holy Spirit’s work of bringing sinners to salvation. – I originally thought this was mean: I saw it as making people follow God even if they were not wanting to. After further research into understanding this condition, I started to view it as God regenerating the heart to where people would accept Him. Not a forcing of salvation, but a regeneration of the heart to lead to salvation.

P: Perseverance of the Saints – If you are born-again, you will continue to trust in God forever. – My thought is that we can go through periods of life where we don’t desire God as much as we should. I am not saying that we completely lose the salvation we are gifted with, but we can grow further from God. If you are a part of the elect, then you cannot fully lose the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life.

After reading that, where do you think I stand? I am actually not certain where that is, but would love to hear somebody’s thoughts.

Working on a post about Calvinsim. This is going to be fun to write and to read.