Are American Families In Trouble?

September 28, 2002 @ 1:57 pm by Pressed

The evidence is quite clear that there is a breakdown of families in our society today. There are more children growing up in a painful and warped environment today than there ever has been before.

• One million children a year see their parents divorce. (Heritage Foundation)

• America’s divorce rate is now more than double that in 1960.

• 35% of our nation’s children live apart from their biological fathers. (U.S. Census)

• In the last 40 years, pregnancies out-of-wedlock have increased 600%. (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services)

• In less than 40 years cohabitation by unmarried couples has increased almost 1,000%. (U.S. Census Bureau)

• 32% of all births in 1995 were out-of-wedlock. (Leading Cultural Indicators, Bill Bennett)

• Most people now live together before they marry for the first time.

• Currently more marriages are terminated by divorce than by the death of a spouse.

• Less than 40% of married people claim to be very happy. (National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago)

• 50% of children who do not live with their fathers have, in fact, never stepped foot in their father’s home. (Leading Cultural Indicators, Bill Bennett)

More statistics at http://sbc.net/default.asp

• Overall, 33% of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34% incidence among non-born again adults.

• During the period during which they were single, one out of every three adults (33%) has lived with someone of the opposite gender, other than family members or relatives.

Co-habitation is much more common among men (39% have done so) than among women (28%).

Almost half (44%) of those under age 35 have co-habited, compared to one-third (33%) of those in the 35 to 49 age bracket, one-quarter (24%) of those in their fifties and sixties, and just 1% of adults who are in their seventies or older.

One-quarter (25%) of born again Christians have co-habited. Among self-identified Christian who do not hold beliefs that classify them as “born again,” 37% have co-habited. Forty-two percent of adults who associate with a faith other than Christianity have co-habited, and 51% of atheists have co-habited.
Catholics are more likely than are Protestants to have cohabited (36% to 30%, respectively).

Surprisingly, the Christian denomination whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists. Nationally, 29% of all Baptist adults have been divorced. The only Christian group to surpass that level are those associated with non-denominational Protestant churches: 34% of those adults have undergone a divorce. Of the nation’s major Christian groups, Catholics and Lutherans have the lowest percentage of divorced individuals (21%). People who attend mainline Protestant churches, overall, experience divorce on par with the national average (25%).

From Barna Research Online http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PageCategory.asp#TOP

Pressed

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Baha’i

September 19, 2002 @ 1:51 pm by Pressed

As a Christian I believe in the second coming of Christ. This is the same idea the Muslims had when they were waiting for “the Bab” to return. In the year 1844 someone from Iran proclaimed that he was it. His name was ‘Ali-Muhammed, but he took on the title of “the Bab,” which means ‘”door” in Arabic. His message was that god had sent him to prepare the people for the coming of a new age and there would be another messanger that would come after him. Thousands of people fell for this except for the government who had him executed six years later.

After the Bab had been executed another guy named Baha’u'llah came around claiming that he was the next Messanger that the Bab had foretold. He was not popular either and they sent him into exile where he wrote a lot. Baha’is (followers of Baha’i) use the writings that Baha’u'llah did as their scripture now. After his death his son and grandson became the main leaders of the faith.

So what do they believe?

Baha’is is the belief that god is breaking down barriers between races, classes, religions, and nations. They stand for world peace and they want all people to be treated as being part of a “global family.”

They believe that World peace is possible. So is one international language. They believe that all religion is in harmony with logic and science, and everyone should be educated. Each person can independently search for truth. They also hold that women are fully equal to men, you shouldn’t be prejudiced, and there should be one world government.

Of course the main teaching of Baha’i is unity, there is “one religion and one humanity. They would claim that god is beyond our ability to understand so he sends us messangers to teach us about himself. All of the different messangers in the world from all the different religions are all here to teach us about the same god. The way you grow spiritually is to listen to god’s messanagers, pray, and trust god.

What’s the main attraction to this religion?

People like the idea that we are all one big family especially women and minorities. And as we all live in this one big family we all serve the same god because all religions come from the same source and have the same purpose-helping humanity progress.

They do believe in one god, and they do believe in all the prophets in the bible, but they also believe in islam, buddhism, and all the other religions and their prophets as well. They believe that you can get to god through many different teachings, which means they disagree with Jesus when he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except by me.”

The Baha’is believe that once you die you simply continue to get closer to god. Heaven and hell are not really actual places but simply they are spiritual conditions. Heaven is close to God and hell is further away from god. You can experience heaven and hell while you are still alive. They don’t have weekly services nor do they have official priests or clergy. The only thing they get together for is special occasions such as marriage or death. Groups get together every nineteen days for devotions, counseling, and fellowship, and they fast from March 2nd to March 20th every year.

Baha’is are in more contries than any other religion in the world except Christianity, but their geographic center is in India. There are 5 million Baha’is worldwide, 130,000 right here in the U.S.A.

So what is the big deal? If the gods from all of these different religions are the same god, then why are the messages from all of the prophets contradictory? That means that the world has a god that tricks people, contradicts himself, lies, and every other thing you can possibley imagine, and if that is the kind of god we have then how can we trust him, and why should we? The idea of all of the different religions serving the same god is ludicrous.

Research and some Information came from: “Why so many God’s” by K. Etue.

Pressed

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Not Funny!

September 14, 2002 @ 1:47 pm by Pressed

I have had a frightening and traumatizing experience tonight. I was pulling the covers and sheets off my bed to rotate the mattress, because my mattress is really cheap and worthless and hurts my back! Anyway I noticed a fuzz ball on my bed so I reached down and picked it up and held it between my fingers for a little bit and then I tossed it on the floor to get it out of the way for the time being. As soon as the fuzz ball hit the floor it took off running! It just so happened that I was holding a spider. BLAAAHHhuhhh uhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh bhlllllhhhaaaaa pptttttttt. Moral of the story? Take a close look at your fuzz ball before you go picking it up.

Pressed
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A History Lesson “The Person of Christ”

September 13, 2002 @ 2:03 am by Pressed

I think it is important to understand why we should look back at the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ. The doctrines that we believe today did not come easy, but stood up under heavy debate and heretical teaching. There have been so many other ideas and philosophies on the differences in doctrinal beliefs and it is important to look back and understand how our present belief has stood the test of time. But this means looking at tradition.

Tradition is a big part in understanding our historical theology and yet it is a word that people are afraid of. All that the church has believed, taught, and understood in the past, whether it was right or wrong, it has given us a greater understanding of why we believe certain things. Tradition is not where we go to be told what the Bible means. We should never look at tradition and completely reject it, nor should we look at it with full acceptance either. We need to know where it came from and what we agree with.

It would be an arrogant statement for us to say that we do not need history or an understanding of theology. Some of our beliefs that were formed out of the tradition of the early church have stood the test of time, have stood up against many false teachings and have continued to be sufficient time and time again.
Throughout history there have been many different understandings of the person of Christ. There are heretics who stood up against the church with their own ideas of the doctrine. We need these teachings to articulate the truth of scripture in ways that are helpful and clear. As we look back through history we are able to see the development of the doctrine of Christ through many battles and misunderstandings.

Some of the earliest heretical teachings begin with the rejection of His humanity as seen in the ideas of Gnosticism. Jesus is actually an ion sent from the demiurge. Under this idea Jesus appeared to be a man and appeared to suffer but he didn’t. This became the foundational objection of the humanity of Christ, the idea that he simply appeared to be human but wasn’t really. The idea to appear is called Docetism.

Another early heretical view of the person of Christ was ebionitism. Under this view Christ was not born of a virgin, but in fact he was born fully human. It was not until his baptism that be became the Christ, but he still remained fully human. The whole purpose of Christ was to be an example for us, to show us how to obey the law and become better men like he was. The emphasis was on fulfilling the law, because if you fulfilled the law as Christ did you would become the Christ. Ebionitism denies the deity of Christ.

The School of Alexandria became another leading contender in the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ. In A.D. 200 Clement of Alexandria taught that Gods eternal word was the truth, but in it the truth was often hidden. In order to discover the truth Clement claimed that you had to interpret the scriptures allegorically. After Clement, Origen took over in the school and further developed the ideas of Clement. Origen actually coined the word “homoousious” which becomes one of the biggest issues in major controversies for the next two centuries. In the School of Alexandria they emphasized the divinity of Christ and not his humanity.

The School of Antioch arose to challenge Alexandria’s insistence on allegorical exegesis. They dismissed the allegorical interpretations and focused on the historical and grammatical meaning behind the scripture. The put their main emphasis on the humanity of Christ.

Out of Alexandria came a priest name Arius who held that Jesus was a creation of the father. “There was a time when the Son was not” claimed Arius and his followers. To them Jesus may have been the first being to be created but he was still only a creature and he was not eternal. Athanasius, Bishop Alexander’s aide, believed that by denying Christ’s deity, Arianism threatened the core of Christian faith. He claimed that the gap between sinful man and a holy God could only be bridged by God. The only way that Christ could have bridged the gap is if he is fully God and fully man. This became a major conflict as Alexander had Arius removed from his post and Arius sought and won support from other bishops.

This particular controversy led to the formation of the council of Nicea (325) in which they decided to write a creed that all should ascribe to. The creed affirmed that Jesus was “from the same substance” as the father, God from God, by using the world “homoousius” and Arius preferred the word “homoiousius”, meaning of similar substance. All but three bishops signed this creed at the council and those who did not were banished.

This council was important because it set the precedent for the other ecumenical councils that would follow it. In spite of the power struggle and political battles in the years following the council, the creed of Nicea, with its clear assertion of the deity of Christ, remains fundamental to the Church to this day.
In his attempt to further combat Arianism the Bishop of Laodicia, Apollinarius, developed another heretical position. He claimed that Christ had a human body and human soul but lacked a rational human mind and instead had only a divine mind denying that Christ was fully human.

He was condemned as a heretic in the ecumenical council of Constantinople in 381. This ecumenical council not only condemned Apollinarius and his teachings but it also confirmed the Necene creed and amended it by adding a final section regarding the Holy Spirit. The council of Constantinople affirms that Christ is fully human and fully divine and that the Holy Spirit is divine verifying the Churches stance on the trinity.

Nestorius was the next heritic that was condemned by the next ecumenical council of Ephesus. Nestonius had what is called the sandwich theory, he understood the idea of deity and humanity being joined together but not really relating to one another, like two pieces of bread. He wanted to keep the deity from the humanity to protect it. Nestorius himself asked the emperor Theodosius II to summon this council, which the emperor did in 431. During the council Nestorius was summoned three times but did not come. His teachings were examined and judged according to whether they were in conformity with the Nicene creed. At this point the writings of Cyril of Alexandria who began the council were declared by the fathers to be in agreement with Nicene creed and Nestorius was condemned. Once again the ecumenical council confirmed the Nicene creed and affirmed that Christ in one person.

Another heritic was Eutychus. He claimed that Christ is from two natures, but he is in only one nature. Eutychus said that Christ comes from two different natures but his deity overwhelms his humanity. The emperor Marcian called the council of Chalcedon in 451. This particular council rejected the idea that Christ is only one nature and affirmed that Christ is in fact two in nature.

Throughout history there have been many different ideas concerning the person of Christ and yet the idea of Christ being fully human and fully God has stayed virtually unchanged through each controversy and council. All of the issues that were faced in the past only help to confirm what we believe today.
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man in on person, and will be so forever. Jesus was born of a virgin, which was the means in which God used to unite full deity and full humanity in one person without the inherited sin.

Jesus had a human body, he was thirsty and hungry, he grew as any other child would grow (Luke 2:40). Jesus had a human mind reviled in the fact that Jesus increased in wisdom (Luke 2:52). Jesus had a human soul, and human emotions as well, he says “my soul is troubled (John 12:27), he also marveled and wept and showed a wide array of other human emotions. In order for Christ to be our representative obedience, to be our substitute sacrifice, to be the mediator between God and men, to fulfill God’s original purpose for man to rule over creation and to be our example and pattern in life Jesus had to be fully man.

Jesus Christ was also fully God. Scripture continually directly states Jesus as being God or fully divine, “In him all the fullness of god was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:19). It is important to realize that Jesus if also fully God because only someone who is infinite god could bear the full penalty for all the sins of all those who would believe in him. Scripture continually shows that no human being could ever save man but it takes God himself. Thus if Jesus is not fully God then we have no salvation and ultimately no Christianity.

“The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”
– Wayne Grudem “Systematic Theology.”

Pressed

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Existentialism

September 8, 2002 @ 1:55 am by Pressed

Another secular worldview that is common today is Existentialism. The history of existentialism comes from two key thinkers.

The first was, Soren Kierkegaard, who stressed the power of the individual and put the pressure on humans to create their own moral code and decide their own destiny. Though he believed in God he encouraged others to look inside themselves for their meaning and purpose in life. “Finding meaning meant living. If you’re living, you’re finding meaning. If you’re finding meaning, you’re living.”

The second was, Freidrich Nietzsche who took Kierkegaard’s ideas to the extreme level. He came to the conclusion that meaning and purpose could never be found outside of the person, which means he completely removed God from their lives. You may be familiar with the statement that Nietzsche made, “God is dead.” His belief in the death of God along with his philosophical background led him to teach that humans are left here to discover morals and a purpose without the help or support of any deity.

Basic Beliefs of the Existentialist:

- They believe in choice over destiny.

- Experience over reason.

-They emphasize the individual.

-They criticize today’s society and the goals of individuals (to have a comfortable existence) because they are merely part of the “herd.”

-They emphasize human freedom and choice.

-They don’t think that human existence can be fully explained by reason or objectivity and so an account of human existence must include passion, emotion, and the subjective.

- They focus on death and its role in human life.

-They emphasize anxiety (about death, meaning, and guilt) and its role in human life.

-They emphasize the dynamic and incomplete instead of the static and
complete.

What is it’s main attraction?
Explaining the purpose of humanity. Understanding the existence of mankind.

The Atheist Existentialists believe that there is no God at all and this is the largest group. But there are some Religious Existentialists who believe in a God but still believe that they have free will to make their own decisions.

It differs from Christianity in that we believe that God does guide us in our decisions and we are not all on our own. As humans our decisions do not give us significance it is God who does that. If we can only find the meaning of life in ourselves then most often we will conclude that life has no meaning, such is the conclusion and position of most (not all) existentialists.

Did you know that Forrest Gump is basically a guy whose life is decided by chance, and the events have no long-term purpose. Eric Roth, the screenwriter for the movie, claimed that his intention was for the movie to discuss existential ideas.

As we continue to look at different worldviews and religions be sure to try and identify these views in our pop culture today, such as in movies, music, and even other people.

Pressed

Research and some Information came from: “Why so many God’s” by K. Etue.
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