Abusive Churches

I encountered this book many years ago. In the last post, we mentioned that you can really get hurt in the least expected place, in church. Often, abuse happens from the top leaders of a church.

BTW, sometimes, also, in well meaning environments, the one that gets abused is the pastor itself, and the pastor's wife feels this more than we can ever appreciate. Just be aware of that, that they do get abused too.

In Enroth's book, as I recall in reading it, one will find characteristics of churches that abuse. One example I can think of is when a member leaves. In the circle I was in, shunning either explicitly or implied happens. That is, the withdrawing of friendship or good will. Some church groups consider it a personal insult to them, that you are leaving them for another church. The puzzling thing is that when one leaves a church and transfers to even the same denomination, I have seen shunning still happens! This is just an example of an abuse in the social direction.

Enroth mentions cult like behavior in some churches. IMHO, some cultic churches are masking inside mainstream evangelical denominations. In other words, they are really cultic in behavior and belief but they go undetected simply because they belong to a mainstream denomination. In my observation, local churches can be cultic even though they reject cultic beliefs. Sure they may affirm the Trinity , affirm the Scripture, affirm all the nice points and appear even orthodox, but in the social aspect, they really are operating as a cult. One example is the way they handle dissent.

How a translation can screw you up.

John 10:10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I
came that they may have and enjoy
life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it [a]overflows).

Amplified Bible

Compare with...

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more
abundantly.

NKJV

Discuss...

You can get hurt in church, that is true

The irony is that, the very vehicle of healing for repentant sinners is the very instrument of stumbling too. That is right, as much as the church provides the blessings of having a family, a place you can belong and be treated as part of a larger whole, it too is a place where injuries are inflicted. Sometimes, there is so much fun in church fellowship and you get a drop of heaven, but wait till a crisis happens, it can be hell too. Take the story below as a case study. We can cite a lot more.

Think of the hospital. We bring our sick there to get cured. Sometimes, the cure does not happen, instead the situation gets even worst. Like, the time I heard a surgeon left a scissor in one of his patients after the operation. He was doing a procedure to fix something but instead, he left a new problem. For months it was tucked in the patient's abdomen, left accidentally by the surgeon, it was only revealed by x-ray the bizarre truth, the patient was carrying a foreign object. The real problem was fixed but a new and different one needs fixing too.

So what do you do when bad things happen to you, in church. Well, what should the patient do in that story? Where does he go but to a hospital again, no matter what. Perhaps he might go to a different hospital and get fixed by a different surgeon, but no one denies, he has to go back to 'a hospital'. Going to the fire station won't fix his problem.

Church, even though it does not purposely try to disappoint us, will disappoint us. That is the nature of being a sinner and saint in a grand scale. It happens, because it ain't The Messiah.

See: The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church, by R. Rosenbladt

An Un-Testimony - How a girl became happy not to be in church

[HT: C. Michael Patton]

Below is the un-testimony of a girl who be came an un-believer. You might say from being a Church-ian to being Un-Churched. It is a sad story worthy of our tears. This is the story of a girl who struggled with lesbian attraction. Her church background would have been irrelevant. I think this is what happens when people are hounded by the Law but no Gospel. How do you think we should respond to her? She could be listening, what would you say to her?

“I realized at an early age that something was very wrong with the Baptist church I went to. It was pretty bad when a eight year old child can tell a place is corrupt.

My first of many churches was in north Alabama, a very horrid and dim place where half the population cannot read or write. At the early age of four I was taught that homosexuality was wrong, and if you were you would go straight to hell. In fact, you would go straight to hell for lots of things it seemed.

If you read anything by Darwin, you were doomed.

If you talked back to your husband, then I hope you enjoy fire.

If you think about sex you are a dirty whore and you will go to hell.

The place was really more like a cult then anything. The people were brainwashed into believing that everything they did was evil.

Luckily we moved from there, not long after we found out that a small religious faction that had developed in the town was over throwing the pastor because his daughter was a lesbian.

We moved to Montgomery when I was ten, which was when the big topic of the 10 commandments being in the capitol building was being disputed, and I think that was the real start of my fall from faith. Not from the big deal that society was making out of religion, but from the new church that I had become a part of making such a huge deal.. I remember my preacher saying loudly at the top of his lungs one Sunday morning as I sat in the pew hanging on his every word, that the only reason that the people were protesting was because they were dirty, filthy atheist homosexuals. I thought to myself “Why would they care though? It’s not hurting anyone if it is or is not in there.”

As I grew older I began to learn new things about myself that worried me: I liked girls. I had always grown up learning that if I did like girls, I would go to hell and god wouldn’t love me anymore because I was an abomination. I struggled with the issue for a year before coming out to my best friend. She said she did not agree, but swore to never tell anyone. I felt better finally letting someone know that I am a lesbian. That Wednesday I went to church like I always had since I was eleven, and I walked over to the preacher who was a friend of mine and said “Hello.” and he would not speak to me. He looked through me like I was not even there.

I walked over to my best friend and sat down beside her, still hurt. To my surprise she got up, and everyone in my youth group followed her. I left, and went home crying. The next Sunday the preacher told us about the evils of homosexuality, and how no matter what you did you were no longer a child of god, but of Satan. My mother, being sympathetic looked over to me and offered to take me home. I shook my head refusing and stayed through the whole service. At the end I was close to tears, but I was filled with a new understanding. Something that I had never knew was in me before. Something that the people of the church could not see because they were blinded by their stupid convictions.

God failed. Not God himself, because he does not exist; he was just an idea started by some people who needed hope for something. But the idea of God failed. In the start God was made to give people hope and a reason to live a good life of humility and purity. But soon, those same people changed it. They turned it into something ugly and hateful, damning whatever they did not like, or fixing the words to make whatever they wanted it to say.

I went home and cried for three hours that day, and my mother thought I was sad because of what had happened at church. But I wasn’t. I was crying tears of joy, For the first time in my life I felt free. I felt like I was my own person, I felt free of burden or depression.

It has been four years since that day, and I can happily say that I have not stepped foot in a church since.

This is my fall from god I suppose, there is nothing remarkable about it. And there is nothing heart breaking about it. But it feels good to get it out in the open.”

“I realized at an early age that something was very wrong with the Baptist church I went to. It was pretty bad when a eight year old child can tell a place is corrupt.

My first of many churches was in north Alabama, a very horrid and dim place where half the population cannot read or write. At the early age of four I was taught that homosexuality was wrong, and if you were you would go straight to hell. In fact, you would go straight to hell for lots of things it seemed.

If you read anything by Darwin, you were doomed.

If you talked back to your husband, then I hope you enjoy fire.

If you think about sex you are a dirty whore and you will go to hell.

The place was really more like a cult then anything. The people were brainwashed into believing that everything they did was evil.

Luckily we moved from there, not long after we found out that a small religious faction that had developed in the town was over throwing the pastor because his daughter was a lesbian.

We moved to Montgomery when I was ten, which was when the big topic of the 10 commandments being in the capitol building was being disputed, and I think that was the real start of my fall from faith. Not from the big deal that society was making out of religion, but from the new church that I had become a part of making such a huge deal.. I remember my preacher saying loudly at the top of his lungs one Sunday morning as I sat in the pew hanging on his every word, that the only reason that the people were protesting was because they were dirty, filthy atheist homosexuals. I thought to myself “Why would they care though? It’s not hurting anyone if it is or is not in there.”

As I grew older I began to learn new things about myself that worried me: I liked girls. I had always grown up learning that if I did like girls, I would go to hell and god wouldn’t love me anymore because I was an abomination. I struggled with the issue for a year before coming out to my best friend. She said she did not agree, but swore to never tell anyone. I felt better finally letting someone know that I am a lesbian. That Wednesday I went to church like I always had since I was eleven, and I walked over to the preacher who was a friend of mine and said “Hello.” and he would not speak to me. He looked through me like I was not even there.

I walked over to my best friend and sat down beside her, still hurt. To my surprise she got up, and everyone in my youth group followed her. I left, and went home crying. The next Sunday the preacher told us about the evils of homosexuality, and how no matter what you did you were no longer a child of god, but of Satan. My mother, being sympathetic looked over to me and offered to take me home. I shook my head refusing and stayed through the whole service. At the end I was close to tears, but I was filled with a new understanding. Something that I had never knew was in me before. Something that the people of the church could not see because they were blinded by their stupid convictions.

God failed. Not God himself, because he does not exist; he was just an idea started by some people who needed hope for something. But the idea of God failed. In the start God was made to give people hope and a reason to live a good life of humility and purity. But soon, those same people changed it. They turned it into something ugly and hateful, damning whatever they did not like, or fixing the words to make whatever they wanted it to say.

I went home and cried for three hours that day, and my mother thought I was sad because of what had happened at church. But I wasn’t. I was crying tears of joy, For the first time in my life I felt free. I felt like I was my own person, I felt free of burden or depression.

It has been four years since that day, and I can happily say that I have not stepped foot in a church since.

This is my fall from god I suppose, there is nothing remarkable about it. And there is nothing heart breaking about it. But it feels good to get it out in the open.”

Low Fat, Low Salt, Low on Ethics of Caring...

[HT: The Missus]

www.spirituality.ucla.edu is a web site I will be setting my eyes on. It is part of UCLA and they conduct research on the spirituality of college students in USA.

The missus alerted me to one of their current research findings on the spiritual life of college students, mainly entering freshmen. You can read the details here. This study surveyed 112,232 entering first-year students from 236 diverse colleges and universities. It hopes to track the spiritual development of these students as they go through courses.

I like to draw their findings on students who identified themselves to be Lutheran. Here is what the reports says...

Lutherans also receive below average scores on four
measures: Religious Skepticism, Religious Struggle,
Spiritual Quest, and Ethic of Caring (their average
scores on these last two measures are the lowest of
all groups).

* Low on Religious Skepticism - this means they are less skeptical about the truthfulness of religion or less skeptical about their faith. Well done.
* Low on Religious Struggle - this means they rank low when it comes to, say crisis of faith, they are stable. Well done.
* Low on Spiritual Quest - This means they are not searching anymore, perhaps they found the answer, they are settled. Well done.
* Low on Ethic of Caring - This means they careless. They should get an F - i.e. Fail on this one.

The Ethic of Caring stands for the commitment to values such as helping others in difficulty, reducing pain and suffering in the world, and making the world a better place.

You know there is another way of reading the good results of the first 3 categories. Perhaps they scored low there because in the first place, they have been indifferent.

When I read the last comment of that quote, I am reminded of a t-shirt print ..."Low on Sanctification". If that means I do not use good works to gain merit, I am happy to wear such a t-shirt. But if it means, what this score means, I will hide it under my jacket and not parade it to the world. It will be one of those left in the closet.

To whom much is given, much is required.

A Confession, not a Denomination

Find more videos like this on The Wittenberg Trail

1 John 4:15
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God

A Christian without a confession is like a ship in the ocean, without rudder and without sail. To be a Christian is to confess the Gospel. To believe is to confess, to confess is to believe.

Don't use love

We can not use love to find out if we are a Christian. A couple of years ago, I read internet cousellors counselling anxious Christians to use their love for Jesus to assure them that they are Christians.

Well, we do not love Jesus the way we should.

John 14:15“If you love Me, keep My commandments.

The equivalent statement to this is -- if you do not keep the commandments of Jesus, then you do not love Jesus. In logic this is called the contra-position and equivalent way of saying the first.

We know how to evaluate that. Honestly, am I keeping the commandments of Jesus? No. Then I do not really love Jesus. I might have some emotional affection for him, but I do not really love him the way I know I should. So by this way we are toast. We can not use love.

Here is what Apology of Augsburg IV, says...

112] And yet we must not think on that account [love]that by confidence in this
love or on account of this love we receive the remission of sins and
reconciliation, just as we do not receive the remission of sins because of other
works that follow. But the remission of sins is received by faith alone, and,
indeed, by faith properly so called, because the promise cannot be received
except by faith. 113] But faith, properly so called, is that which assents to
the promise [is when my heart, and the Holy Ghost in the heart, says: The
promise of God is true and certain]. Of 114] this faith Scripture speaks. And
because it receives the remission of sins, and reconciles us to God, by this
faith we are [like Abraham] accounted righteous for Christ's sake before we love
and do the works of the Law, although love necessarily follows

(I like my Tappert translation better than this, but this is the best available in the internet).

Why I like (Korean) Tele-Novelas Better

This is from SuperChick, a Christian artist/singer.

Now compare this with the one from SpamaLot, which we saw last Valentine's Day.


The message is the same, no? SuperChick's version is the Christianized version of SpamaLot's, yeah? Well, both give good advice.

Now can you see why most of the time, I enjoy so much watching Korean cutsie romantic love stories, than these? Let me know if you are into tele-novelas too and I can give you some philosophical analysis/critique of themes and lessons in life found in them. If you have not seen any, I can recommend some that will surely give you warm fuzzies and a good cry too. They are addictive.

Why Muslims Convert ---- because they want Jesus

[HT: Dave Gosse]

Article by Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship: They Want Jesus Instead

According to this piece, thousands of Muslims are converting to Christianity each year.

What is wrong with the old sins?

I am sure by now you have heard of the "new sins" proposed/suggested by a Vatican official when he was interviewed. You can read the interview here, if it has not crossed you yet.

Please do not talk to me about new sins.

I am already having trouble fulfilling these two...

Mk 12: 29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.^[e] 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'^[f] 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[g]There is no commandment greater than these."

Once we are done with these, you can go ahead and talk to me about moving up to the next level of new sins. Until we go pass these, I am not interested in hearing of new ones.


What's the matter, these two don't cover new sins?

No more Issues and Mt. Zion

The famous LC-MS ministry, Issues Etc. is no longer on the air. The program has been canceled and the ministry supporters are wondering what happened?

It was Issues Etc. in late 2004 that finally got me taking out that Book of Concord of mine off my shelves. It had been sitting there quietly since 1993. It finally made it to my desk so I could consider what it said. Thanks to the Internet.

I must say though that lately the program featured and of course critiqued movements like the Emergent Church movement and interviews done by the female Head Bishop of Episcopal Church USA. It did pass my mind the possibility of external pressure being exerted from the outside, mainly from other church bodies being pressuring LC-MS leadership. Some discussions lately could have invited that, they were pretty controversial and people from outside (specially those featured, I guess) may have not appreciated what was said.

Some listeners are of course saddened, angered and understandably disappointed towards the Synod itself.

I am not LC-MS, my church is with LC-Aus and so I have no business nosing at other people's business.

However, I do have an attitude towards Synods. No matter how lofty or un-lofty the ideals of your Synod may be, it is still composed of people and in this respect it is no different from other denominations. I just do not believe people who say otherwise, my experience with human nature says so.

The thing is, it is not in your Synod where the action is, it is in your local church. Your contact to your Synod is your local church and through your pastor. So the main concern is what does your pastor teach - is it coming from Scripture and interpreted through the Confession? If so, then work with it. If not, then go somewhere else where Word and Sacrament is delivered to you faithfully. They are out there, it just takes some work to find that faithful shepherd.

This is not the time to slip into the Elijah complex, God says he has not left us without a witness. We have to wake up, we are not in Mt. Zion yet and anyone who implies we have arrived is short changing us.

Freddie the Burping Caller and the F..ting Preacher

Apparently Freddie thinks it is the sign of being filled.

I am suspecting he is Filipino. His accent and the frequent exchanging of the sound of 'f' for a 'p' is a dead give away. This is a typical English pronounciation mistake, committed by Filipinos. Couple that with the humor like asking --- how do you reconcile burping with being filled and well, what can I say?

Yeah, how do you reconcile that?

Tradition vs Traditionalism

The WhiteHorse Inn last week discussed the above topic and a commentary is found here.

The broadcast is found here.

Here is an excerpt...

The larger point that this episode raises in my mind is the relationship between
tradition and traditionalism. Jaroslav Pelikan once said that there is a big
difference between the living tradition of the dead and the dead tradition of
the living. You see, in the living tradition of the dead, "the faith once and
for all delivered to the saints" gets passed down from generation to generation.
We are enriched and our faith is deepened by our brothers and sisters who lived
long before we arrived on the scene. We sing their songs, pray their prayers,
join our hearts and minds in the same confession, and read their works. If we
cut ourselves off from tradition, we are consigning ourselves to a life of
narrow-mindedness, imprisoned within the narrow confines of our own experience
and our own time and place. At the same time, traditionalism-the dead tradition
of the living-is a different kind of narrowness, but narrowness just the same.
"That's the way we've always done it" is a cop-out. It means that we don't
actually have to know why we believe what we believe or do what we do; we don't
have to reflect, we don't have to think. Don't ask questions that folks might
not know the answers to around here. Both the rejection of tradition and the
passive acceptance of traditionalism reflect a certain kind of laziness.
Tradition itself is neither a blessing nor a curse. Like all interpretations of
Scripture, there are good traditions and bad traditions. We have to exercise
discernment-and not just by ourselves, but with the cloud of witnesses, both
dead and alive.

I once asked my daughter who used to attend a Pentecostal church if she thought her contemporaries knew or have heard the Apostles Creed. She said "I don't think they know about that Dad, I know it, because we discussed it at home but I doubt if they even heard of it".

At the same time I have noticed folk who can recite the Small Catechism but when asked how people go to heaven, they still replied ... "you have to be a good person".

Good night!

Bum Steer

Take my advice, I am done with it.

Just an advice to the Evangelical readers of this blog. Greetings once again.

Quickly, I wish to say that if you think the heart of debate in Evangelicalism is Calvinism or Arminianism, you are getting a bum steer. If you think you have to choose between the two and that is something you should worry about, hang it. It is a false lead. The issue is not predestination. It is the Gospel. What is it?

This word Gospel has been thrown around, first be clear as to what it is, because many people use the word in a very vague sense, like the word - love, it has been tortured a thousand times to mean no longer what it originally means. If you think this Gospel is so basic, you got it in the bag and you can move on from it, you are giving your self a bum steer.

You think you are a Protestant right? Then find out first, what did the First Protestants believe in? What did they say this Gosple happens to be? How were they able to assert JBFA in JCA and yet have Sacraments? That should signal may be you have not fully understood them and they may have been mis-represented in your mind. That should make you wonder and you should dig further how come that was so.

No Satisfaction - AP IV

I have been soaking and reading the Apology of Augsburg, IV. I so thoroughly savor reading this chapter. I come back to it over and over again. For me, the longest chapter in the Book of Concord, is so nice to read, a really fine exposition on Justification. I have read modern authors but nothing to my taste can compare to this fine exposition by Melanchton, of which I gather he got from some of Luther's writtings.

Here are a few snippets. I like my Tappert version than the one online, but it is easy just cutting and pasting from it for the sake of discussion. So here...

43] But since justification is obtained through the free promise it follows that we cannot justify ourselves. Otherwise wherefore would there be need to promise? [And why should Paul so highly extol and praise grace?] For since the promise cannot be received except by faith, the Gospel which is properly the promise of the remission of sins and of justification for Christ's sake, proclaims the righteousness of faith in Christ, which the Law does not teach. Nor is his the righteousness of the Law. 44] For the Law requires of us our works and our perfection. But the Gospel freely offers, for Christ's sake, to us, who have been vanquished by sin and death, reconciliation which is received not by works, but by faith alone. This faith brings to God not confidence in one's own merits, but only confidence in the promise, or 45] the mercy promised in Christ. This special faith, therefore, by which an individual believes that for Christ's sake his sins are remitted him, and that for Christ's sake God is reconciled and propitious, obtains remission of sins and justifies us. And because in repentance, i.e. in terrors, it comforts and encourages hearts, it regenerates us and brings the Holy Ghost that then we may be able to fulfil God's Law, namely, to love God, truly to fear God, truly to be confident that God hears prayer, and to obey God in all afflictions; it mortifies concupiscence etc. 46] Thus, because faith, which freely receives the remission of sins, sets Christ, the Mediator and Propitiator, against God's wrath, it does not present our merits or our love [which would be tossed aside like a little feather by a hurricane]. This faith is the true knowledge of Christ, and avails itself of the benefits of Christ, and regenerates hearts, and precedes the fulfilling of the Law.

Notice the following:

1. The word Gospel is thrown around in Christian circles but it has been tortured to some nebulous connotations. The Gospel is the Promise. Well we can say it is Proclamation of the Promise as well. Note that Promise-Faith go hand in hand and only at faith is justification enjoyed and possessed too. This faith uses Jesus as mediator in front of God. It presents Christ to God. It brings the merits of Christ to God. God sees his seed in the hands of faith. Holding on to Christ, God sees the apple of his eyes - Jesus and is satisfied.

2. The quote speaks of sanctification as well, but the Gospel is about the Promise of God and not about sanctification. And though sanctification follows as fruit of justification, the Gospel is not about it but rather about Promise of reconciliation. The BoC does not seem to be alergic towards sanctification, as can be seen. The thing is that it can not be measured and it can not be used to gain favor with God. But sanctification, there is, and is asserted by this chapter. It places justification as its source.

This is good news, Jesus paid it all.

Enjoy.

Stumped

"We use faith in maths, too, Lito". These were the words that came from the lips of my thesis Professor, a few days ago as we discussed philosophy of maths.

"We have no proof that our axioms in maths are true, we assume them to be TRUE, but we have not proven them to be TRUE", he added.

"Assume? You mean this is by faith too"? I retorted. "Yes", he smilingly replied, "but it is all good, it works, doesn't it"?

All the while the discipline I so love and believe to be objective is not so objective after all. It is a known fact, axioms in logic and maths are not proven to be so, we believe them to be so, not that we have evidence that they are thus and so.

If maths is the foundation of science, and the other disciplines like physics etc are building on top of it and utilizing it etc., then the whole world is founded on faith.

I am stumped. That threw me. I think I will go home and be depressed.

Heb 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Don't read that so loud, these so called objective scientists might hear you.

Have you heard of the song Ken Lee?

Merry Marty ain't so herc after all

I got this from Beggars All.

This UK Times news is predicting that Pope B16 will probably declare the Holy Heretic St. Martin Luther ain't a heretic after all. So we could be seing an example of one Pope undoing what another Pope has done.

I bet ya the popesters in Concordia land will be so happy at this it will bring tears in their eyes. O how sweet, Il Papa finally saw the light, let's all go home. Look how fair and reasonable he is. If he signs the BoC, I will reconsider my opinion of him, but until that happens...I say to the cryptos, no deal (and I spit on their gravy too).

Look, folks, you do not get extra credit for stating the obvious. In Maths, we call this - trivial.

Historians have been saying Merry Marty was not a herc all along.

Look, it is like the physicists of today who are now dwelling on theology. May be one day, they might come out and say "oh, we are convince of this - a personal God created everything".

What are we going to do when this happens? Give them a medal? The reward for an ass who stops being an ass is its own reward - freedom from being an ass.

Let it cook

The Pirate posted that he sometimes do not feel that of a Lutherite at times. I feel like that myself too. It is interesting that one of the things makes him feel being un-Lutheran is his point #2...

2. I don't look at every time God or Jesus tells someone to do something
through this lens of "You must do this absolutely perfectly from the bottom of
your soul if you want to earn your salvation." When Lutherans mention that Jesus
said to do this or that, they tend immediately add, "But you can't do this
perfectly! There's only one person who didn't commit adultery perfectly, and
that's Jesus. His righteousness is imputed to YOU!" No one in the Bible ever
speaks that way. Paul seems quite comfortable with telling the Corinthians to
love each other without reminding them over and over that they can never love
each other well enough to earn their salvation.

I highlighted the sentences that drew my attention in italics.

Honestly, I think that way of putting things is more of an American Lutheran Waltherian take on Lutheranism. Some confessing Lutherans are not quick to put it that way specially I guess the non-American ones. It is interesting too that the British John H of Confessing Evangelical replied and added this...

As others have pointed out, I think this is an LCMS issue in many ways. I don't
think the caricature you paint is anything like so prevalent in the ELCE, for
example.
I know I'm oversimplifying here, but the impression I often get of
the LCMS is that it looks like what you get if you cross confessional
Lutheranism with 1920s/30s American fundamentalism, especially as regards
creationism and inerrancy.

I am not here to nose into any synod's business, no synod is immune to any Reformation, I am aware of that now (translate: denominations all of them need Reformation). However, there is one thing that may be at the heart of this -- this is the notion of universal objective justification (UOJ). Do not get me wrong please, there is universal objective atonement (UOA), but it is not the same as UOJ.

I too grant what the Pirate has stated might be a caricature of sarcastic note, but I do not think it is baseless. Notice how quickly the statement-- His righteousness is imputed to YOU, is inserted before the Law is finished working its way. Indeed, no one in the Bible speaks that way! Absolultely, but why do some do?

This speedy ushering of the sinner to the Gospel before the Law is finished doing its job of toasting the sinner (we humans) is to me, like doing stir-fried cooking, the sinner is only half-cooked, and half convinced , so he gets half repentance and then half faith. Since he is not yet given time to be fully convinced that he is utterly in ruin, but quickly taken off the hook i.e. quickly given the declaration of righteousness, he walks away saying -- all is ok after all. It is all good!

You know, I have no doubts about UOA it is Biblical, but this is one of the reasons why I am a bit cynical now about UOJ.

Let's take a break...let's do the Papaya

Let us take a break, let us dance the Papaya!

This is becoming the national dance of Filipinos. The tune was from Urzula Dudziak, a Polish disco singer of the 70s, but I think her style is what we would call in Jazz as skat (to use Louise Armstrong's lingo).

I heard that this is becoming a dance craze in P.I. It has been said that in supermarkets while shopping, you might hear this song and shoppers and staff would suspend whatever they are doing and do the dance. We are just so so so dance crazy.

This just shows you how Filipinos can be so happy and have fun about....nothing. Well, at least you do not have to be loaded just to get some.