Stushie’s Stuff

I’m going to an African-American church this Sunday afternoon to preach at a special service. Black prayer week begins on Sunday and this year the African American community is focusing on AIDS and its impact on their people. I’ve been invited as one of the preachers to give a message about how poorly the Church responded to AIDS sufferers in the 1980s & 1990s, and how that negatively impacted the credibility of the Church across the world.

Podcast version here

Too many pastors and churches were too quick to pass judgment on HIV sufferers and AIDS victims. Instead of acting with compassion to those who were dying, we showed hostility and hatred which sadly is still evident in some congregations. We were too quick to say that God was punishing the gay community instead of using it as an opportunity to show the love and grace of Christ. We were too willing to create outcasts and lepers among those who were already on the margins of society.

Bible Verse of the DayJoshua 7:25    Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today.” 

The trouble that we created with our self-righteousness is hard to overcome. Instead of asking AIDS sufferers and victims to seek the Lord’s forgiveness, we have to seek their pardon of our foolishness. If the Church wants to regain credibility in the world, it will have to act humbly and show contrition to those we hurt and damaged. If we cast aside this opportunity to seek the grace of God in those we treated ungraciously, then the Church will never be healed of the brokenness that we caused. One day the AIDS virus may be effectively cured, but will the Church still be the last victim of this disease?

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, forgive our arrogant and foolish ways when we become self-righteous and hypocritical. Enable us to see the trouble that we have caused to other people, other groups, and other communities across the world. Help us to seek their forgiveness and teach us lessons of humility, contrition, and grace. In Your Holy Name, we humbly pray. Amen.

Conservative Leader says that Food Security should rank alongside Energy Policy and National Security.

THE UN World Food Programme (WFP) is to hold an emergency meeting in Rome today, as rising food prices across the world threaten to create a new constituency of millions of city-dwellers who are unable to afford basic foodstuffs.

The Organization for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD) has warned that food prices could rise by between one fifth and one half over the next ten years.

The sudden leap in the worldwide price of grain and other basic foodstuffs could mean that millions of hitherto relatively affluent people in cities would not be able to afford food, Greg Barrow, a London-based spokesman for the WFP, said on Tuesday.

He said the key factors behind the price-shift were: • demand for meat from India and China, as their economies grow. Feeding livestock diverts grain stocks from markets; • high oil prices, which have pushed up the costs of oil-based fertilizers and the cost of transport; • arable land that has been switched to bio-fuel production, and so is lost for food supplies;

• weather extremes caused by global warming, which have damaged farming in the developed countries that supplied the global market.

Read the rest of Bill Bowder’s article here…

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam – and a controversial and radical modernization of the religion.

The country’s powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad. As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.

But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernize, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.

Read the rest of the story here…

How a Scottish teenager touched the hearts of her people with her resolute faith, and enabled them to overcome their persecutors during the Killing Times of the 17^th century.

1 Corinthians 1:27     But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

Podcast version here 

Margaret Wilson was eighteen years old when she gave her Christian testimony. She and her younger sister Agnes used to visit an old lady, Margaret McLachlan, in the village of Wigtown, Scotland. They enjoyed her stories and shared prayers together, and all three loved the Lord completely. They lived in troubled times, but their friendship and faith that they shared was personal and beautiful.

One day, however, the elder Margaret was arrested by the King’s dragoons and charged with being a dissident. She was ordered to swear her loyalty to the King and his prayer book, but the old lady refused, knowing that it would cost her freedom. Her trial was quick and her sentence was cruel. She was to be chained to a post and drowned by the incoming tide of the Solway Firth on the banks of the town. During the arrest, someone informed the authorities about the two Wilson girls and they were also arrested, judged, and sentenced to death.

Gilbert Wilson, the father of the two teenagers, was frantic. He practically sold everything that he owned and borrowed from friends and family. He rode to Edinburgh to buy his daughters’ pardon. He managed to raise one hundred pounds, which was the equivalent of a lifetime of earnings in his day. Sadly, Gilbert could only buy back one of his daughters, so he chose the youngest, Agnes, who was only thirteen years old.

On the morning of 11 May, 1685, the two Margarets were chained to their posts. As the tide came in, faster than a running horse, Margaret McLachlan quickly succumbed to the mighty force of the waves. Young Margaret Wilson had been chained nearer to the shore, from where her friends and family begged the young maiden to recant of the National Covenant by swearing loyalty to the king. Even her own mother frantically pleaded with Margaret to give up her faith in order to save her young life.

The town officer tried to intervene and held young Margaret’s head above the closing waters. He asked her to pray for the king, to which she answered: “God save him, if he will, for it is his salvation I desire.”

Her relatives clamored for mercy, but the officer asked Margaret once again to renounce the Covenanters.

Summoning all of her energy and faith, this wee lassie of no nobility, prosperity or esteem, calmly replied: “I will not, I am one of Christ’s children, let me go.” Soon after, the waves overwhelmed her and she drowned.

God chooses foolish things to shame the wise and weak vessels to shame the strong. Both Margarets are known to the Scottish people as the Solway Martyrs. And even today, when their stories of injustice and cruelty are told, we are in awe of their courage, devotion, and faith. Margaret Wilson may have been a young and carefree teenager, but she will be forever known in history as a remarkable and faithful servant of Christ.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, throughout the centuries You have called upon people to witness to Your words and ways. Sometimes people, young and old, have sacrificed everything in order to be faithful to You. In this day and age, Lord, we have trouble in making the same commitment and we forget the true cost of the faith that we place in You.

Challenge and change our lives today, so that we may effectively witness to Your Power. Keep us from being fearful and insecure. Help us to be faithful and sincere. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

There’s a new report from the Pew Research Council that is showing a decline in the numbers of people who are Protestant Christians. Protestantism, which has shaped American identity for generations, may soon become a minority faith. In the 1980s, 65 percent of Americans called themselves Protestants; today that number is down to 51 percent. Only 43 percent of those aged 18-29 say they are Protestant.

Podcast version here  

The reasons for the decline are many and it means that local congregations have to work harder to grow in faith, commitment, and size. Protestants, especially Presbyterians, can no longer take it for granted that their voices are being heard. In fact most of the figures show us that we are consistently being ignored. Whatever theological tussles and scriptural squabbles we have in our denomination may seem important to us. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we’re outdated, unimportant, and insignificant.

It seems like we have been hit with a mortal blow. For some people, this will just make them want to give up. Instead of making faith a lifetime commitment, people are choosing to make church going a life-style choice. Rather than give of their time, talents, and resources to Christ’s mission, people want to spend time, effort, and money on themselves. It’s hard to overcome this sort of spiritual ambivalence. It seems to be, according to these statistics, far easier to let go of the Church and give up believing in Jesus.

Personally, I think the Church has been dealing with the here and now too much, forgetting about the future and hereafter. More pastors are into preaching prosperity rather than salvation. More congregations are looking for life style enhancements instead of life changing conversions. We are meant to be the Church in the world, but sadly we’ve let the world come into, and take over the Church.

 Bible Verse of the DayJoshua 7: 5b   They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.  

When the Israelites were defeated at Ai, their hearts melted with fear. They no longer had the strength or commitment to go on fighting their enemies. They lost their faith and confidence in God, and even Joshua was depressed by the defeat. It was a turning point for the people. They could go quietly into the night and be lost forever, or they could turn back to God and look for His guidance. They had to revive their faith and fulfill their destiny, or they could retreat across the Jordan and return to the desert.

As I see it, we have a straight forward choice before us: revive and survive, or deny and die. I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to give up. There’s too much at stake, and there are too many souls that still need to be saved.

 Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, You command us to go out into the world to make disciples of all people, bringing them into Your Kingdom. Call upon us today to reach out to our families and friends, our neighbors and colleagues in loving and faithful ways that will attract them to You. In Your Holy Name, we live and pray. Amen.

Hillary hit a new low today with a scurrillous attack against Obama wearing turban. This will lose her Texas and Ohio for certain….

…and she will only have herself to blame….

The Darul-Uloom Deoband in India, considered the most influential school for Islamic law in Asia, on Monday denounced terrorism as being against the teachings of Islam and said it was likely to impose a fatwa against it during a conference of clerics from India and abroad, media reports said.

The head of the powerful seminary, Maulana Marghoobur Rahman, said terrorism was completely wrong and thoughtless, and contradicted Islam’s concept of peace, the NDTV network reported, quoting from his address to 10,000 clerics from religious schools – known as madrassas – and foreign delegates.

Speaking at the institution, some 150 kilometers north of New Delhi, Rahman also criticized the Indian government, saying that policing of madrassas and students was unjustified and went against the secular character of the country. Meanwhile, scholars said the conference was likely to decide on a fatwa against terrorism and adopt a declaration denouncing terrorism.

Read the rest of the report here…

As I drove home late last night, I listened to a news report on the car radio. It was all about some legal aliens in California who were complaining that the process to become naturalized citizens was too slow. About a million of them had applied last year and they fully expected to get their citizenship in time for this year’s Presidential elections. Because of the sudden increase in the number of applicants, the bureaucracy was swamped. In order to cope with this, about three thousand new jobs with the INS has had to be created. And the price for the process has now been increased from $475 per person to $650.

Podcast version here

Applicants were told that it would take about a year before they would be contacted, so now they are protesting about the time involved, as well as the costs to become a citizen. They also feel as though they are being victimized because they will not get to vote in November. They are demanding that things be changed in their favor.

When our family decided to become American citizens, it was our way of saying “thank you” to the people and nation that had embraced us as legal immigrants. We knew that it would cost us a lot of money and we understood that it would take a great deal of time. We were just so happy to be given the privilege and special opportunity of doing this. We never took it for granted. We never demanded it as a right. And we certainly didn’t grumble about the amount of time it took.

Two years later, we stood in the local courthouse and proudly took our citizenship oaths. Friends from church were there to witness the event, and we felt very privileged to have received such an honor in our lives. It was a wonderful occasion and a remarkable threshold in our lives. It was not a decision that we have ever regretted, nor have we ever taken our liberties for granted since then.

Bible Verses of the Day

Numbers 11:4 – 6        The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost–also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”

Those protesting applicants in California must be very selfish people. They remind me of the grumbling Israelites in the wilderness. Everything was provided for them by God – their food, their survival, their deliverance – and yet the Hebrews still complained about their treatment, about how long they were traveling, and about how they longed for the good old days. God gave them everything they needed and yet they still wanted more.

The path to citizenship is worth every dollar spent and every day of waiting. It should never be an easy process and applicants should show more respect to the wonderful nation that is bestowing citizenship upon these legal aliens. Sometimes the best things in life are not free; sometimes we have to be patient before we receive them.

For us Christians, becoming a servant in the Kingdom of God is the same thing. The high cost of Christ’s sacrifice bought us an everlasting opportunity to be restored to God’s love. To get there, we need to surrender ourselves to Jesus and submit our lives to His Authority. We cannot take it for granted and we must not demand it as a right. It only comes to us when we yield our hearts, minds, and souls to Jesus, by accepting Him as our Savior, Lord, Judge, and King.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, help us to give our lives to You in ways that will honor Your mission and glorify Your Father in Heaven. Prevent us from taking You for granted and keep us from misinterpreting Your sacred words. Help us to place our hearts into Your Hands, and our souls into Your Spirit. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

There’s a new book coming out, called the “Third Jesus.” It’s written by Deepak Chopra who is this generation’s equivalent of Von Daniken. He writes a lot of best sellers about spirituality, especially of the New Age variety, and I have no doubt that this book will soon reach number one on the Times best sellers list.

It’s sad that this kind of junk theology can become so popular and soaked into the precious souls of millions of modern people. They lap up this kind of godless garbage and pore over its contents without opening up the Gospels to find the real Jesus. They would rather read the warped interpretations of a Hindu guru-author whose cosmology makes them feel special. Chopra is a bit like Oprah when it comes to the theological world – it’s all about feeling good about yourself and discovering the god within you, instead of feeling good about Christ and the God around us.

Here’s what Deepak has to say about Christ, or more precisely the Three Christ’s that we know:

First, there is the historical Jesus, the man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment. 

In other words, all that the world needs now is a Hinduistic Cosmic Christ and jettison the Christ whose church embraces and engages the world in the midst of its poverty, brokenness, and sin. For those of you who don’t know, this is classical Hindu teaching where the poor and miserable are neglected, whilst the priestly and noble classes are worshipped and exalted.

Deepak is so far off the beaten track as far as real Christianity is concerned. He’s falling into the old trap of syncretism – trying to get Christ to fit his theories instead of trying to fit his life into Christ’s ways. Deepak may be successful at selling millions of books with his meaningless mumbo-jumbo, but as far as doing the work of God’s Kingdom – well, let’s put it this way: you’ve got to be in it, to spin it.

Let me show you how today’s scripture reveals to us the One Complete Christ, and not the Three Jesus’ that Chopra is promoting.

Look at verse 6:6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.  

What does this tell us about Jesus historically? It reveals to us that Christ was a human being. He was tired and he was thirsty. He had walked for several miles, going from one town to the other. It was the sixth hour, which meant it was the middle of the day. Christ’s energy was sapped from the heat of the mid day sun. He needed to rest his weary feet. He needed to stop and relax for a while. And he desperately needed something to drink.

This is the historical Jesus. This is a man who is weary and exhausted; tired and thirsty; hungry and all alone. What Jesus needs now is a kind word and a smile, and a refreshing drink of cold water.

Now we didn’t need Deepak to tell us that – we didn’t need his convoluted book to let us know that Jesus existed and was a frail human being just like the rest of us. All we had to do was read the Gospel and, lo and behold, there He is! In fact, Jesus is so human, so much of a pathetic, weary man that He has to turn to a woman to help Him out! Just another typical guy, needing a woman to take care of Him.

But what about this Second Jesus that Deepak writes about? What about this Son of God who institutes a new religion for devout believers?

Well, let’s look at the passage again. Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for water. Jews were not supposed to ask Samaritans for anything. It was beneath their dignity. Samaritans were unclean, unwashed, unholy people who were thought of as disdainful idolaters by the orthodox Jews. Because Jesus was a Rabbi, He should never have associated Himself with this Samaritan woman. And even worse, her own people didn’t even associate with her, which must have meant that she was immoral and adulterous, shameless and sinful.

But tired and weary as Jesus was, He wanted to reach out to this woman spiritually. Instead of being annoyed at her, Jesus says this to her: 10 “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  

What does this mean? What is Jesus trying to reveal to her? He’s letting the woman know that He is not just a Jewish man looking for a strange woman in a strange land to help Him out. He’s beginning to minister to her, to rouse her curiosity, and to attract her soul to Him. He’s reaching out to this woman, who has been abandoned by her own community, with kindness and compassion, respect and dignity that she hasn’t known in such a long time. He’s having a conversation with her; He’s connecting to her heart and soul, not her body and beauty. He’s helping her to confront her past in order to heal her. He’s intervening in her life, in order to save her from herself.

And this is what Christ does through the church, in the world, generation after generation. His words, His ways, His work continues every single day through the life, ministry, and mission of His church on earth. Our dogma reveals to us that Jesus is the Son of God and through Him alone salvation is found. He institutionalizes and sustains the Church, in order to make the world a better place, a loving place, a compassionate place. What the world needs now is this Jesus who reaches out to the outcasts and embraces sinners, in order to bring them in from the fields of sin to the compassionate Kingdom of God.

You know recently I was upset with an American Episcopal Bishop who apologized to the Hindus in India for the 200 years of Christian mission in Indian society. “There are enough Christians in the world and we are sorry for trying to convert your people to our faith.” What a load of Universalist baloney!

I am not sorry that 200 years ago missionaries went to India to try to convince people that worshipping trees and rivers, stone idols and thousands of god and goddesses was wrong. I am not sorry that Christian missionaries stopped the sacrificial slaughter of babies to appease vengeful gods. I am not sorry that Christians sought to stop the acts of ritual suicide that took place, where widows old or young had to cast themselves onto the burning remains of their dead husbands. And I am certainly not sorry that Christian missionaries worked with and helped the millions of people who lived in the gutters of cities like Bombay and Calcutta and were treated as human filth and manure just because they were born as pariahs – outcastes – who had no chance of changing their inhumane treatment by the other Hindu classes.

Jesus is the Son of God and we are His church in the world, which is called to reach out into the world to bring His Gospel of repentance and restoration, compassion and confrontation to all people. The Historical Jesus is the same as the Institutionalized Jesus – we just have to keep reading the real Gospels, instead of the book-marketing baloney that Deepak Chopra and his New Age, Prosperity Gospel cronies keep churning out.

Finally, we come to this Third Jesus of Chopra’s book – the New Age Cosmic Christ – the One who speaks to individuals who want to have a consciousness of God, but as Chopra said on CNN the other day – not necessarily as part of a personal relationship, more of a spiritual awareness that God exists. In other words, giving us the ability to know of God, but not to be influenced, guided, or even judged by God.

When Jesus speaks to this woman at the well to engage her in a conversation and to eventually confront her sinful ways, He does so in order to affect a godly change in her life. He’s not doing it to pass the time of day or to wile away the hours in small talk, Jesus speaks directly to this woman to get her reconnected to God, to redeem her from her foolish choices, and to restore her to God’s love and favor.

Christ doesn’t talk to her to make her aware that God merely exists; He talks to her because, although God is displeased with her sin, He has not stopped loving her. This isn’t about merrily co-existing in the universe as Creator and creatures; this all about the reason why God created us in the first place – to have a loving, caring, and everlasting relationship with Him. That’s why Jesus says He has Living Water – water sustains all life on this planet – but God’s Living water in Christ sustains all eternal life in the Universe!

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  

This is the Cosmic Christ that Deepak mentions, but not a Cosmic distant, uncaring, uninterested Christ – that’s Hindu theology – this is the One, True and Living Christ – who gets thirsty on a hot day, who preaches to lost souls, who offers eternal salvation to all who come and drink with Him! There is no such thing as a Third Jesus – just as there is no such thing as a third World, another false Hindu theology – we’re all part of One World and we all are called to believe in One Christ – historical, traditional, and cosmological – all Three in One!

The rest of John Chapter 4 deals with the confrontation and conversion of this Samaritan woman. In Christ, she finds what she truly needs – the love, mercy, and forgiveness of God. She takes this message back to her own people, who have shunned her and made her an outcast. Eventually, her own people are converted as well. They say to her: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”  

In other words, they make the connection with Jesus and place their lives and souls into His saving hands.

The challenge we face today is this: are we willing to do the same?

Hillary lost it today. After showing poise and class on Thursday night, she let herself down by venting crass and poison today. Is Hillary bipolar?

Hillary looks tired and frustrated. Shame; she used to be such a clever politican…