The Wide Awake Weekly

2011-06-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

2007-01-31T18:29:00.000-08:00

To live peacefully with Muslims and Jews, Christians must put aside the notion that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, a Lipscomb University theologian told an interfaith gathering at the university.

"We are not going to get very far in our relationship with Jews or Muslims if we do not let go of this idea," Lipscomb professor Lee Camp said at Tuesday's conference.

I will tell you this...

2007-01-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

I will not prefer the thinking of "things of man and not of God."
I will not love the unbeliever temporarily but hate them eternally.
I will not bend to the notion that existing and living are not so seperate.

I will not embrace convenience as a proxy for the Truth.
I will not be faux-existing with anyone.

2007-01-31T18:25:00.000-08:00

You can hear some of Christian Music's most fulfilling and organic music here - courtesy of the band MAXON!

2007-01-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

Let Them Eat Cake

Rejecting the Bread of Life and Relativist Thought in Modern Christianity

I politely asked a friend of mine once to please not call himself a Christian. This surreal moment in my life and faith came after he told me he thought it to be a real possibility that Jesus never existed; a concoction of the early Church meant to embody and embolden their philosophy. He said, however, that as a literary figure Jesus didn't stand for anything he expressly disagreed with so he still felt comfortable calling himself a Christian. God's love, you see, is big enough to save everyone - picking a certain mode, be it Islam to Hedonism, was just humanity expressing the sheer range of God's image.
When I suggested that Jesus, the hero of four paperback novels written prit near 2000 years ago, had said that He was the only way to the Father - the way, the truth and the life - when I suggested that this put a strain on his "Christianity" he responded that, yes, some portions of the Bible deserved some skimming...

2007-01-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

Some time later I went to a place to conduct services, and met with fearful opposition. A man of great influence did all he could to break up the meeting. He lived close to the chuch, but refused to let any of his family attend. He even went so far as to have dance at his home to entice the young people from the services. The saints prayed earnestly, but could get no faith for his salvation. The meeting closed, and in less than a week later that man was in eternity. When on his deathbed he called for me to pray for him. I lifted up my voice to God, but my words would seem to fall back upon my heart with a thud, and the last words he was heard to utter were, "I am lost, I am lost!" I was asked to take the funeral service, and as I went to the mansion the oldest son met me at the door, and asked to pray that he might never live the life his father had lived. I have seen many sad homes, but the bereavement of this was greater than can be described. The house was filled with ungodly friends, who were trying to comfort the family. I asked God to give me a judgement-day message, and I preached damnation and eternal hellfire just as I thought the rich man in hell wanted Lazarus to preach to his five brethren.

Fry 'em

2005-09-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

ALLOWING THE TUMBLERS TO FALL INTO PLACE
Weary as I am of the death penalty, even more weary of Christians who support it am I still.

~~Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There, my burdened soul found liberty. At Calvary.

For one reason or another this has been the summer of the death penalty for me. It was brought to the foreground by the occurrence of Vermont’s first capital punishment case since 1954 (Vermont itself does not allow the death penalty, but the killer, Donald Fell, fled across state lines, thus making it a federal case) and as a predictable result the topic has sprung up in almost every conceivable conversational instance. Secular, Christian, rich and poor etc. With gathering momentum I felt myself becoming even more vocal about my opposition to it. I’ve been against the death penalty for prit near all of my college and post-college years but with the high temperature of the discussions of this summer I’ve found within myself the drive to assert my negativity towards it with greater force and argumentative stamina.

And as this egg was hatching I’ve come to realize that the greatest source of incubation was caused by my being appalled by the religious right’s zeal for capital punishment and the withering methods they employ to convince you (and further convince themselves) of the righteousness and justice of the "infallible death penalty".

~~First of all I will allow that for every heated discussion about the death penalty I had this summer I had twice as many half-hearted hemming and hawing type arguments. You know what I mean:

“Well I’ve gone back and forth on it a lot and both sides have very valid arguments and I guess I’m just not comfortable committing to either side.”

This rationale slays me. It’s not Coke or Pepsi. This is life or death and it requires our immediate thought, prayer and inner resolution.

~~It's hard to blame the world's disillusionment with our faith when we're so inconsistent in our assertions of that faith.

For instance: My fellow Believer and supporter of life, President Bush. I am appalled when he can talk about building a "culture of life" in this country, and in the case of Terri Shaivo that we "should err on the side of life". But with a convicted murderer- fry the bastard.

I’m sure you all have a conservative Christian in your life who stated that Schaivo, unequivocally, was still viable life and that frozen embryos are worthy of impassioned defense. And I would agree whole-heartedly; but my head aches, again, when someone on death row is no longer seen as viable or worthy of impassioned defense…and most galling: not worthy of continued attempts of salvation on his/her soul.

Let me tell you what I hear when I am on the receiving end of a fellow Believer expounding the virtues of capital punishment:

~~There is not a person on this planet that hasn't broken one of the 10 commandments but there is a certain commandment that comes at a greater premium...and despite our claims of ultimate grace and salvation...Jesus was unable to die for the violations of that commandment, namely “Thou shall not murder” (KJV) And now in a grievous and irreversible redundancy the sinner must atone for the sin as well.

We will snuff out his life and soul, without any further shot at redemption, and we will call it justice.
Yes, Jesus unjustly suffered the death penalty. But that was all in His great plan. See? The redemption of humanity hinged on the death penalty.

Plus, God never removed from humanity the “rule of law”. That is to say, we are left to govern ourselves and since the death penalty is federal law we are inclined to obey it as an institution.

~~If you are going to assert that the death penalty is allowable because of the "rule of law" then please do not take exception, or be indignant, towards abortion or same-sex marriage. These, too, are human legal institutions. Do not view the blood of unborn children on the hands of the pro-choice movement as any more crimson than the blood on the hands of those who support capital punishment.

At the end of the day, no matter how you package it, capital punishment is complete and final revenge carried out by a race of people incapable of complete and final justice. "Revenge is mine" says the Lord (an oft quoted scripture, that’s frequency of use has dampened its pungency of truth) and knowing all too well my own faults, I wouldn't wish to determine such final justice on another human being or be in support of such finality.

In conclusion I will say that I agree with punishment for those who commit crimes and even harshly. But rather than killing a murderer I am far more keen on killing his chances of going to the grave with the prospect of hell. Satan has so soaked Donald Fell with sin that he was driven to commit those murders. And I am not of the camp that wants to let the evil one claim a soul so easily.

If I were killed I would find no greater revenge -both poetic and spiritual- than to meet my killer in the Kingdom and greet him as a brother.

What torment for satan...

The Church, collectively, needs to be far more militant in its preaching of grace and entirely less militant in its love affair with revenge. And in so doing we can look to our role model and author and perfector of our faith, Jesus; whom, even in his final painful moments on the cross, was able to save the soul of the man who was dying on the cross next to Him.

Using every last second, and every last breath (of both men) to mute the drum beat of sin...and beat the clock...to invite our now deceased brother to join us in the Kingdom.