Where are we going?

February 28, 2003 @ 4:29 pm by Pressed

Art, Literature and Philosophy tend to work hand in hand. While this communion was clearer in centuries before the advent of television, film, and radio, we still see this marriage today. Contemporary mass media is presented as an objective information source, but it finds it’s true desire is to serve up a new art and an audio/video literature. Art’s purpose and perspective has changed over the course of time with the ebb and flow of truth’s source. Initially, art’s desire was to present reality (Realism) both in history and present day. This reality was fixed in the understanding that we could know truth both historically and presently. The renaissance shook the foundations of truth and questioned all that can be questioned. Descartes, one of the central figures in the renaissance, considered his primary goal in life to question everything that could be questioned. People began to question what is really true and how we could attain knowledge. During this renaissance period the source of truth shifted from the church and God to science and reason. Once this source was tapped dry and seen as unable to hold unfallibly true, the Romantics searched for truth in intuition. They quickly learned that without a God or at least a basic metaphysical understanding, we have nothing on which to trust our intuition. Quickly truth became less of something to be sought, and more of something to be created. Art had previously desired to present some form of truth, but now sought to present perception. The realism of the renaissance died out and the mysticism of the Romantics was ushered into art. As mystic/romantic ideas dwindled, impressionism became the art form. Impressionism sought to present the artist’s impression of reality. The artist was not bound by what is real or true, but only what he/she perceived to be real or true. Again, the foundation of truth was shook by Kant’s and Hegel’s questioning of even perception. They asked if we could even have a right perception of reality. Sliding once again down the slippery slope of finding an anthropocentric truth, symbolism arose. Symbolism “combined the Romantic preoccupation with emotion with an emphasis on sensory perception” (Grasping For The Wind, Whitehead). Symbolism was focused on experience and perception. Drugs, alcohol and sex became useful tools to understanding. Why? Because reality was not found outside one’s self, but inside one’s self. We find similar tendencies of Impressionism to be true today. TV, radio, and film (today’s art and literature) is not focused as much upon truth in reality, but truth inside. We focus more one what we see to be true. We have seen a much quicker changing of the tides in our twentieth century. The 50’s focus on the good and the true had a sense of realism. The 60’s and 70’s ushered in a mystic/romantic grasp for truth. 80’s and 90’s more bland desire to find truth in one’s self (if it’s true for you…). We find humor and truth in that which we experience. My question is this: will we/have we seen a change toward symbolism where we forsake even trying to describe reality, but simply live for the experience of today? Do you think American culture will cease trying to seek truth, morality, and realism and simply “feel”? I have to say, it seems to be the trend of postmodernism to do such a thing. Such advertising slogans in media as “feed your crave”, and “it just feels good” have been pervasive. But I am interested in what you think. Please post any comments…
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The Process Has Begun

February 25, 2003 @ 4:26 pm by Pressed

I have spent all day working on our youth room at Church. It’s OUT with the old and IN with the new time! Our Wednesday night program used to be called ‘The Rock’ many moons ago, but that died and its emphasis diminished quickly. We got rid of the rock about a year ago and everything was up in limbo for awhile. But now once again we start a major program and like all things each time you do something again it just gets bigger and better. This time the Wednesday night program will be called R.P.M. standing for ‘Revolutionary Praise Movement’. And of course with a name like R.P.M. there has to be a road/car theme. To decorate the room we had 48 road signs made and we covered each wall with them. Along with all the road signs is a huge car hood that we put in the middle of the stage with the logo for R.P.M. and scripture verse on it. I got some more lights that shine on the hood itself to emphasize the logo and a new neon clock with a car on it, and we even got a big ole traffic light to hang up. One of the side walls will have a big picture of a road going off into the distance painted on it.

Outside in the hallway we never put anything. The walls have remained bare for years, until now. I have taken several youth pictures from different trips and events, blown them up, and framed them in order to hang them in the hallway. I got most of this done today, but we will continue to add to it as we go along.

________________________

As wonderful as it is to finally be able to decorate our room and make it look like an actual ‘teenage domain’ that really isn’t the main change. It is going to be a big change for everyone and I am sure it will be exciting and fun to have the room all decked out and cool, but the main thing changing is the way we actually do Wednesday night services. I am adding several elements that I hope will develop more spiritual growth and maturity in our students. The room change and new name is not designed to remove the focus from God, but to create a greater focus on God. The whole theme and idea all comes down to one point, one purpose, and one movement. “To be radically changed by God (Revolutionary) in order that our praise and devotion to God would be true worship (Praise). The goal? To do what we can in order that the whole world would be changed and would bring praise to the Father in heaven (Movement).”

I am excited about the new changes and hope that the efforts of the adult leaders and the students would ultimately bring glory to God in all things. I hope to have some pictures of what the room looks like up soon, so stay tuned!

Pressed

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A Day Gone Mad

February 24, 2003 @ 4:24 pm by Pressed

Well I have had a day full of smashing cars, police sirens, flashing lights, gun fire, screaming kids, and tow trucks. Just another crazy day in the life of a seminary student I suppose. On my weekly hour and fifteen minute Monday commute to the city I knew right away that my day would be strange when I got on the highway. As I was driving I noticed an awful lot of snow in patches on the road so I decided I needed to slow down. As I slowed down and moved to the other lane, this girl came blazing past me. I thought to myself, “self. I wouldn’t want to be in her car because I bet she has an accide…” and suddenly there she is spinning, spinning, spinning, *crash* As I am driving through flying snow, dirt, and car pieces I reached for my phone and called the highway patrol for her and several people stopped to help. Good thing I slowed down or that would have been me with the airbag in my face.

Unfortunately that is just the beginning of my odd day. I had to make a couple hospital visits in the city before I met a friend for lunch. After I left the hospital I made it over to the parking lot of the Baptist Association building in St. Louis a little early and decided to read while I was waiting for my friend. It was getting a little warm in the car so I decided to get out and put my heavy coat in the back seat. When I got out of my car I heard a couple of young guys screaming and saw them running into the side door of the Jewish Deli across the street. I thought that was a little strange, but didn’t think nothing more about it until I sat back down in the car and heard this loud *boom*. By the time I looked up all I saw was this car in the middle of the road with the front in smashed in and this poor lady with two very young kids climbing out. There were no other cars. Within minutes the area was surrounded with 5 or 6 police cars, news trucks, and camera men. This was very strange indeed and I had no clue what was going on. After the tow truck towed the car out of the way I decided to walk over to the deli where I was going to meet my friend anyway and see if I could find out what all this mess was about. Apparently these two guys were being chased and shot at by some people in an SUV and I am guessing that as they ran into the deli the SUV caused the accident with this car and drove off. This of course is what witnesses were saying in the deli, but I am going to watch the news tonight to see if I can find out more about it. Never a dull moment…

Pressed - but thankfully not crushed.

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Christians are Hypocrites… *smirk* DUH!

February 14, 2003 @ 4:11 pm by Pressed

This is in reply to a comment made on my post entitled “All In A Days Blog” that really got me thinking.

The Church is full of people who either A. Are Christian but don’t act like it or B. are not Christian at all but try to act like it and this produces a problem for C. the people who really are Christian and try to act like it.

Most people have this ridiculous expectation that they place on Christians of today in order to justify not being one. People will claim that Christians are fundamentalists and they are arrogant and they are not tolerant and they push their beliefs on others and they don’t accept all people and they don’t love and they don’t live up to what I think they should so they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites and should be ignored.

In our society and in the minds of those people who are against it a Christian has to be perfect in order to reach the world and to not be a hypocrite. *NEWSFLASH* There is no Christian in the world except for Jesus who has or will exist who is not a hypocrite. Every single person who can honestly claim to be a born again believer will at some point or another be a hypocrite. Why? Because we all sin. Every last one of us sins because we are not perfect, and because we are not perfect we therefore do not live up to the expectations that the world places on us which gives the world leverage to pass Christianity off as nothing more than a crutch for those to weak to embrace real life. They scream “hypocrite!” simply for the fact that they don’t want to believe Christianity because it goes against the way they want to live and so they will find any way possible to reject it and what better way to do that than to claim that they do not practice what they preach. Hypocrites!

If every single Christian in the world began to practice humility, compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, and meekness it wouldn’t solve the problem because we would all still be hypocrites and people who do not whish to accept Christianity would still find ways to condemn us. The fact that we do sin does not give us an excuse not to peruse humility compassion and sacrifice and all of those things that we should become and don’t get me wrong I am not knocking anyone who has this attitude, but I am saying that we are IN THE PROCESS of sanctification. This means that it is an on going change, something that occurs over time and something that will not be complete until the return of Christ which means I cannot be perfect until I am resurrected with my savior. If perfection is a requirement that people place on being a Christian then that is a requirement that no one will complete while they still live on this earth.

My point? Yes you can influence people by the way you live, but that doesn’t change people. Yes you can witness to someone by being humble and kind and compassionate and all of the things that God has commanded us to be, but that doesn’t change people. Bottom line, people don’t save people, God does. It’s God’s word, presence, and power that changes people and it is God who saves them, we are simply ambassadors, we simply carry the message, but we don’t do the changing. We have an obligation to God to live holy and to love people, but we will never be perfect enough to fill those obligations to the fullest, which means people are always going to find problems with Christians. But that is ok because it isn’t the Christian who is in control, nor is it the Christian who is the one who saves people, we simply present the message regardless of what people say and do about it. It isn’t our job to change the world, it’s our job to tell the world about Jesus.

I think that is where many Christians get confused. We focus to much on our own problems and sickness and we remove the focus from Christ. The church will always have sinners in it, the church will always have hypocrites in it, the church will always have lost people in it, which means the church will always have problems in it. You can’t expect a bunch of Christians and hypocrites and lost people and sinners to get together in a big group and not have problems. We are simply humans and cannot be completely perfect, so why should we waste so much time complaining and focusing on the obvious problems that will always be there and spend more time focusing on the message of Christ? It is good to want to change the church and it is wonderful to want to help Christians become more like Christ. It is an awesome thing to help others to become more humble and compassionate and loving. We have so many baby Christians in our churches who don’t know how to act and don’t know how to be more like Christ and it is a wonderful thing to disciple them and help them, but don’t get so caught up that you lose focus on the reason for doing it. To glorify God. It’s not about us, its not about me, it is about God. We are becoming sanctified not for the world but for God in order to glorify him more an more. Compassion and love for others and humility and kindness are not just learned behaviors that we must discipline ourselves to do but they are behaviors that stem from a loving relationship with God. The more we love God, the more we glorify God and the more and more we become like him then the more compassionate we will be and the more humble we will be and the more love we will show. It’s all about the savior and our increasing relationship with him. We love God first with all of our heart, mind, and soul and out of that then we love people. Will we still be hypocrites? Yes. But not for long… soon enough we will be with our savior, and I cannot wait for that day!

Pressed

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All in a days blog

February 11, 2003 @ 4:09 pm by Pressed

After checking out Clarity Amidst Chaos I found out that evangelical groups are among the most hated in America. Razor Mouth also had something to say about it. This is not something that I was all that surprised to hear being an evangelical Christian myself. To top it all off I am a conservative, evangelical Christian who likes our president Mr. Bush so I am probably in the group who is at the top of the list of the most hated people in America.

Well to celebrate being one of the most hated people in America it’s fine time that we take a look at the past and create a comprehensive list of people that I have somehow upset in the blogging world beginning with some of the most recent.

First on the list we have Keegan from thinkerson.com. I don’t think I really made him angry, but here is what he had to say about me and the Christian blogging world in general: “But these Christian blogs have been a fun and scary read. Fun because I get to read how they think, what concerns them, and what not. Scary because of how influential they are in our government and our media.” He mentions that my “blog is scary” and “my faith is the evil”. What is Keegan’s point of view? “Atheist is the moral and superior position for man and his survival.” Can’t say I agree with the position that an Atheist is superior or moral but his website is fun, check it out.

Next we have Ronessa from unapologetics.org. I did in fact make her a bit angry with me because of my unexplained, sarcastic comment to her post about being “ashamed of being an American.” I was a bit out of line on my comment because I didn’t explain why I said what I did I just let it rip and she responded by calling me a “Hypocrite”. It was really my bad and I apologized and explained my position, so I think we are good now.

A third person who showed his disapproval of me just this week was Dave. In his first comment he basically said I was wasting my time with my blog. “This is a scary site. Wouldn’t time be better spent improving the world.” I spend plenty of time attempting to improve the world and my blog is a part of that process including many other things that I commented about. “I simply grow weary of people running about, claiming that everyone else is evil unless they entirely agree with their religious view” Hmmm, don’t remember forcing anyone to read my blog or accept my views. He did misunderstand me on a couple of issues, but he did apologize in advance for it, “I apologize if I inappropriately assumed anything incorrectly.” I can respect that and Dave I appreciate your comments.

A while back I was chastised for singling out homosexuals in my post about Capitol Punishment. I stated that I thought it was interesting that homosexuals were put to death in the Old Testament and in our modern society they are defended and protected and Kevin from The Sakamuyo Log responded in this way, “Guess I’ll go get in line for the gas chamber, then. I’m not homosexual. But, if I remember what Jesus had to say about sexual sin, the small stuff is just as bad as the big stuff & I know I’ve committed plenty of the small stuff.” Well first off I don’t think Jesus ever said that about SEXUAL SIN. In fact sexual sin is separated and placed in another class different from other sins in 1 Cor 6:18 “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that you body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” Homosexuality is a sexual sin and is condemned in the Bible, yes along with many other sins and as Christians we have every obligation to remove these things from our lives and to tell others about the evils of the acts. I still read and sometimes I even enjoy Kevin’s blog, but I don’t think he cares much for mine anymore…

My post about Atheism also brought the anger down upon me. Candice dissagree’d with me to the point of declaring my Webster’s New World Dictionary to be wrong. “Why don’t you find something that’s actually doing harm to the world to speak out about?” Well I find Atheism a threat, but not to the world itself instead to the afterlife of those it deceives. “Your dictionary is incorrect. Check the word’s roots, and you will find the real meaning of the word…” I guess my trusty dictionary is not so trusty. Thank you Webster’s for deceiving me and printing false information. That was an expensive dictionary too, I am bummed. Candice did provide a lot of websites that had information on Atheism and I did appreciate that, it’s always good to look at others opinions if for the only reason of strengthening your own.

But I would have to say that one of the most memorable and controversial posts ever written here at A.E. was the Friday Five post about Religion. The thunder and lightening came down upon my head after that post let me tell ya. After every Friday Five I would go around to other blogs who also did the Friday Five and I would post a comment or leave a link to my site to show that I read their answers to the questions and was inviting them to come read mine. This was never a problem before and no one ever said anything about it. Well when it came to the Friday Five that was about religion everyone thought I was spreading my dogma on their blogs and boy they were ticked. No one had ever said one word about me doing what I did until this particular post, funny how that works. I was simply sharing my beliefs not forcing them on anyone and I was chastised and ridiculed and put down for it. It began with Scratchmittens saying “I see you have your own weblog. Please do not use mine to spread your dogma.” and then Smitha from “Lets try this again…” chimed in and left this fun comment, “You have your beliefs and we have ours, and nobody’s better than anybody else, and nobody’s right or wrong–let’s just leave it at that.” Perfect example of relativism and tolerance. Twiggy came next with “i just don’t understand why you felt the need to go around virtually “spamming” other ppl’s blogs (including mine) as if it were some half hearted attempt to get assist the down trodden in finding the light or something.” Well needless to say I was chastised for doing something that really was not my intention. But people were angry about what I had to say about my beliefs and that is the only reason they said something about “spamming.” Had I popped off some relativistic, postmodern comment about my religion that did not convict them in anyway then they wouldn’t have had a problem with it.

Here are a couple other controversial blog entries. Due to a surfeit in abuse of other people many of the comments were deleted in these sections:
Are We Free?
Are We Free? Part 2
Evangelism: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
It’s All About Me (Humanism)
Existentialism (Secular Worldview)

Evangelical Christians may be one of the most hated groups in America but that doesn’t give us any reason to keep quiet. We are obligated to speak out against those things that God is against according to His word regardless of the surplus of objections that we receive.

“…all Christians should stand up and tell it like they see it. Let the chips fall where they will. Don’t worry if the public doesn’t even agree with your most basic assumptions. Your job is not to win. Your job is not to control this society. Your job is to say what God wants said.” - John Piper

Pressed

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