Tagged: islam

Humility Post 6

Submitting to the will of Almighty God while living in America is nearly nonsensical.

“Submit,” God says.

“Never!” we answer. “We broke free from all yokes forever when we left England!”

“Submit,” God says.

“No, thank you, Massa. No, thank you, Uncle Tom,” we answer. “We’ve ended slavery.”

Are you still thinking clearly? Or has lizard brain taken over? Because I submit to you here that my study and heavy attempt at Christian humility has recently opened my mind to the value of submission. You might say it has “freed my mind“.

The crux of humility is recognizing that we’re already and always enslaved. It’s not a question of how to escape submission. The real question is, “To whom should we submit?” Think about it like this. Is there ever a time when you’re not an example? Do you see that no matter how you behave, even if you become a recluse in a cave, you’re an example? Like gravity, it is inescapable. Christian humility, demanded by the triune God, bases itself on the fact that you’re enslaved to sin. This is especially relevant to Americans, of which I am one.

You see, I thought I was free. I believed I had freedom. I thought the rest of the planet was in darkness and America was the light of hope to show the way. I thought that science had displaced God. I thought human slavery was over.

Now, it turns out slavery might have just moved to the underground. Now, it turns out science is an inadequate worldview, not just a method of studying life. Now, it turns out the majority world doesn’t really consider America in its decision making rubric and no matter who wins the election, everyone knows she’s a ridiculous example of a person and in no way worthy of emulation.

Moreover, Americans, so-called educated Americans, love living outside of submission to God. That’s because God doesn’t exist, they say. And yet the unifying principle behind the strongest, most terrifying street-gang in the world is a god-based religion called Islam. My trouble with using this fact like some suggest as merely evidence that we need to remove God entirely from life because *clearly* the concept of God is too dangerous, my problem is that I can’t get a read on what’s happening in Europe. Is Islam over-running Europe? By what standard should I (we) measure the facts? Can we concede that Islam is over-running Europe if/when one formerly western country adopts Sharia-law in the coming decades? Stopping the spread of Islam seems to require more than asserting “God doesn’t exist.” Maybe it can be stopped by asking, “Which god is God?”

The reality of current events seems to contradict the idea that American Individualism is worthy of our submission.

“Submit,” says God.

“I don’t know,” we answer. “I think we still have more to lose.”

“Submit,” says God.

On Freedom

Ever since working at the strip club, I’ve been really struggling with the idea of freedom. For countless reasons related to the nature of the adult industry I began employment there assuming that it exemplified freedom. As a concrete example of this supposed freedom I’ll share with you the following conversation I had with various other men after I became a manager.

“Wait, say that again, you cut out.”

“Sorry. Okay. I was saying that as a manager you’re the one who auditions the strippers. I had never considered that that would be a part of the job.”

“So how do you audition them?”

“Well, they just get up on stage and do their thing and then you tell them yes or no.”

“That doesn’t sound bad.”

“It’s actually just bizarre. The way the whole society is so litigation happy actually affects the way I have to turn them down. I can’t just say “no”. I have to give a reason.”

“A reason?”

“Yeah. Like I have to say, ‘No, because you’re too soft in the middle, not attractive in the face’ or some other true but horrible thing.”

“You’re telling me besides getting to be around naked women all day, you get to tell people the truth? I have to work with people I don’t like and am pretty much unable to tell them the truth all day long if I want to keep my job.”

“Ha. I never thought of it like that. But yeah, I guess it’s nice to not have to lie.”

The question you must ask yourself, the question I had to ask myself after time, is, “Who is more free?” Was it me as the truth-telling strip club manager or my buddies in their seemingly deceit-requiring jobs?

Fast forward to now. I’m finishing up my second semester at an Evangelical Christian seminary that is being funded by the marvelous privilege known as the post 9/11 GI Bill. Over the last seven months I have read enough and experienced enough to pronounce  to you here that the Christian claims and beliefs are more real than even the feel of these keys on my fingers. I proclaim this reality with the understanding that it is precisely through honestly admitting the facts of life as being real (that I’m typing this into the internet, or that H- really is in another city with her grandparents because her school has a ridiculously long two-week spring break, or that I feel longing for H-) that allows me to give assent to there being an actual transcendent, though personal, God of the time-space universe.

On the other hand, an acquaintance of mine (possibly many of you) won’t convert because he says modern science has confirmed through quantum entanglement that the laptop isn’t there. We’re not here. The conversation isn’t happening. Words are the scissors that cut through the oneness (nothingness) that is God, he says.

Who is more free? This acquaintance of mine or me?

As I began to reengage Christianity aggressively a little over a year ago, I had the question, “What are we even talking about? What would it mean for me to be a Christian or live a Christian life?” Here’s an example and then I’ll stop for today.

I served as a pilot in the Air Force for eight years. (Hence my Captain-ness.) During that service, I actively took part in combat operations in Iraq (Babylon). I took part in these operations in Iraq because that’s where you sent me. What should I think of this? Should I take pride in my service as most of you think I should? Or maybe I should give in to the remorse I feel over the fact that it is now without a doubt that the men over there who are plotting to attack the West daily, are doing so not because they are freely choosing to, but because I kidnapped or killed one of their buddies or brothers (or at this point dads, really).

And where is God in my war-fighting past? Since I did in fact serve and since part of orthodox Christian doctrine believes God is sovereign, does that mean God wanted me to serve and continue the bloodshed?

Here’s where I come down on freedom. Instead of believing that I have no choice in the matter (which is what those of you who think that modern science tests and approves worldviews categorically believe), I am going to admit that I choose what to believe. Further, I submit that my choice, the option I have chosen, demonstrates the nature of freedom itself. My choice is Christianity. My choice is to repent, to turn, from my inadequate beliefs and their resultant actions. My choice is to submit to the will of God as revealed in the sixty-six books of the Bible. My choice is to relentlessly insist that you–the reader–are a special being created in God’s image and likeness and crowned with glory and honor. My choice is to keep God in all my thoughts as I forge through the journey ahead. My choice is share my life, highs and lows, with you peacefully and truthfully because I want you to consider precisely what it means to exercise freedom and whether it’s true that Christianity, through the resurrection of the god-man Jesus Christ, is the only worldview that offers mankind the ability to be free.

In the end, it seems God won’t allow me to stop fighting for your freedom. From now on, however, I won’t force you to submit at gunpoint. You’ll have to choose to accept freedom as the gift that it is. For your sake and for mine, choose wisely.

Are Christians Conspiracy Theorists? No, We’re Conspiracy Empiricists.

I feel sheepish. I think I learned “sheepish” from Joseph Heller in Catch-22. Anyway, through an unexpected coordination of similar lessons in my Koine Greek class and my Christian Apologetics class, I was introduced to text criticism last week.

Text criticism is the term for analyzing all things written and copied by hand prior to the invention of the printing press–such as the New Testament. Have you ever heard or thought about this? It’s kind of fascinating if you take the time to dig into it a bit. The reason I feel sheepish after learning about text criticism is because I’m a sucker who fell for the theory that the recently discovered hidden gospels/epistles had something to contribute to (possibly were even able to refute) orthodox Christianity’s claims that God created the universe, Adam and Eve sinned, and Jesus Christ died on the cross and on the third day rose from the grave thereby offering forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life to all comers.

Long story short, I have a friend at work that is a conspiracy theorist. I know, I know. Many of you think Christians are simply conspiracy theorists. But that’s not true. Here’s why. This man is in his 50s, is divorced, and he believes the Illuminati are running the world. He believes that they wrote the Bible and are interested in having the Christians and Muslims kill each other off, after which the Illuminati, themselves, will finally begin overt rule. He shows me websites and proudly reads off lists of unremarkable names as if he’s reading scripture from a pulpit. The other day after a song came on the radio, he began espousing how there is some psychological training facility in England which is funded by the Rockefellers (an Illuminati family) that trains bands to wage psychological warfare on America, bands like the Beatles. I pointed out to him that the wikipedia entry had a paragraph that began, “Conspiracy theorists believe…” about the facility. It had no effect. The reason I bring him up is to illustrate specifically what a conspiracy theorist is. He’s the definition of a conspiracy theorist. They are people who believe profoundly fascinating, yet ultimately baseless theories founded upon theoretical evidence, not empirical evidence.

What about Christianity? The recent archaeological discoveries of non-canonical “hidden” gospels/epistles seem to suggest/confirm the theories that orthodox Christianity is the product of plotting conspirators manipulating the historical record in order to advance their agendas.

Books such as the “gospel of Thomas” capture so much History Channel attention that even Christians themselves need be given some clear guidance about these books and their claims.

Specifically, there is a theory that argues that the church fathers adopted the New Testament canon for their own secret (or apparently not so secret) reasons. The trouble with this theory is that none of these recently discovered hidden gospels were even brought to the church father’s attention for consideration. Put inversely, the church fathers (early Christian leaders) did not consider the “gospel of Thomas” for inclusion in the 27 book New Testament Canon. We know this because we have empirical evidence of the their decisions, which books they did consider and reject, and their reasoning that led to their decisions.

Therefore, it is academically irresponsible and I’d go so far as to say unthinkable to discard the New Testament and its 5300 plus fragments/copies that are nearly perfect matches of each other on the basis of a few fragments of other writings. Does that make sense? It’s simple math. If you have 5300 pieces of evidence for one conspiracy, and 20 pieces of evidence for a competing conspiracy, and no evidence (leaving only a theory) of a conspiracy to ensure these numbers vary so greatly, then in order to favor the 20 pieces of evidence over the 5300 pieces, you must believe in a conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy based on empirical fact. Because the fact is there are no empirical facts that support the theory that early Christians, beginning with the apostles, manipulated the truth. Instead, there is only a plethora of empirical data that supports that early Christians, beginning with the eye-witnesses to Jesus Christ’s resurrection, believed a conspiracy–that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God.

So you have to decide. Do you want to believe/create theories about life on planet earth as conspiracy theorists do, or do you want to examine the empirical facts of recorded human history as conspiracy empiricists–Christians–do?

If you want any empirical books about my claims, comment below or email me.

Wanted: Unbeliever Desiring Salvation

So…yeah…about life. I have an assignment involving interviewing a non-believer (non-christian, heathen, pagan, atheist, nihilist, child of wrath etc.) about their worldview. I have a few local friends in mind, but I can’t get an episode of The Dog Whisperer out of my head. Rather than the normal format of Caesar showing up to people’s homes containing a problem-dog squatter, the episode was about Caesar going to breeders to pick out dogs upon which he would demonstrate the universality of his training method. Long story short, he surprised audiences when he picked the most docile puppies. His choices were surprising because audiences believed that the greatest evidence of his method would be the greatest turn-around in dog behavior. But Caesar, being the Dog Whisperer, knew the score and saw the opportunity to teach a greater lesson, I think.

So here, I would like to use Caesar’s thinking for this paper. Are you considering Christianity and repentance? Maybe you’ve feel like repenting but aren’t convinced how Christianity’s truth claims hold up in the intellectual world? Let me know. Email me at pete.deakon@gmail.com and we’ll see about letting God transform your life.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

The fact that it ultimately isn’t surprising is what proves that we all would have predicted it. I just can’t stop thinking about Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigrants. The idea of freedom of religion as one of the greatest achievements mankind has ever bestowed upon itself was so ingrained in me as a child that I cannot help but wonder how the country that guarantees this freedom is now fascinated by a possible presidential candidate who brings into the legal realm religion. And do not get me started on the fact that other candidates are rebuking him via their–I’m sure–personal social meeja accounts. Ooo, scary.

I wrote about this once before, but it seems timely to bring the issue back to the front. In an odd turn of events, I have had the pleasure of attending undergraduate courses in two different decades at two different colleges. Within the liberal arts departments at least, the theme of my two experiences or the ultimate goal of American universities seemed to be Holocaust prevention. Specifically, the history and social science departments spend tremendous time and energy explaining how something as horrific as the Holocaust could even occur in generally civilized society. The Stanford Prison Experiment.  The Milgram Experiment. We’re taught about these social experiments which were conducted after the war ended and even then–in a controlled setting–they had to be administratively stopped because things got so out of hand. Furthermore, to illustrate just how fully these experiments permeate our culture, a movie (not the first) was released earlier this year called, ta da, The Stanford Prison Experiment about the very same thing. The professors teach these lessons under the guise that if only we prove scientifically that people are violence-prone sheep, then people are not violence-prone sheep. To me the experiments have only proven that another holocaust is very possible.

And this whole discussion illustrates the problem with the progressive/liberal/leftist worldview that dominates academia and therefore society. (Yes, I’m lumping Trump–a republican–in the group.) Philosophically, quantum-something-or-other-ly, and really, there actually only exists the present. So if you do wrong in the present, in hopes of improving the future, then you can’t escape that you are doing wrong. But Trump wants to do wrong by banning Muslims. Only for a short time, though. Until things get better. And the President wants to do wrong by stopping the sale of guns today, not because he has any evidence that this stoppage will stop gun violence today, but because maybe it will curb it in the future. The trouble is that it is wrong to make a legal decision based on religion. The trouble is that it is wrong to disarm a nation. These things are wrong. They were wrong a couple hundred years ago, they are wrong today, and they will be wrong in the future. By wrong, I don’t mean these two notions go against trending political correctness, I mean they are wrong. Just wrong. Google it if you have to. Wrong.

The conservative, on the other hand, strives to do right today. And the conservative recognizes that one measure of righteousness is its practical, predictable consequence of more righteousness. I, as a man who loves his ability to be a Christian without being a martyr, won’t support a man running for government office who wants to use religion as a legal definition because I don’t want to be around when he changes his mind regarding which religions are good and which ones are bad. I, as a veteran (which means I’ve seen first-hand how people with guns are sheep), don’t want the government to be the only one with assault/combat weapons because I can plainly see that if the government has all the guns, then the government has all the guns! My pink body explodes when shot. And given my disdain for authority, guess who gets shot first?

Even the event of the Holocaust itself was based in liberalism/progressivism. Life will be better in the future if we do this action today. How about we try “Life will be better today and in the future if we do this act today”?

Ah, but it doesn’t matter. Many of you (obviously it’s you. I know it’s not me.) love progressives. Obama, Trump, Clinton, the whole lot of them. You and I are very similar in that we don’t care about politics and don’t have time to get involved. Where you and I differ is that you are going to vote for the lesser of two evils. You are going to cast a vote under your name that will have the effect of taking one more step towards our asking, “Who would’ve thunk it?” during whatever atrocity America (that’s you and me) is bound to commit before too long if this dream of a better future holds.

Looking for a call to action? Here it is. Don’t vote for people you don’t want to hold office. That might mean not voting. Or that might mean voting for people who won’t win. Either way, we’re at the point in history where instead of admitting, “I didn’t want to waste my vote so I picked the better of the two,” we can declare, “I didn’t vote for this fool.” Not voting is voting.

Happy New Years people.

Big Bird On Mormonism

I need to write a paper for class, but motivation wanes. Instead, I’d like to share one rather intriguing factoid about Deuteronomy and how it helps us understand what we all know: The Book of Mormon is not God’s word.

In brief, the Hittites were a culture whom archaeologists and historians claim wrote treaties according to a specific format. As the name ‘treaty’ implies, these were usually documents (we might expand the term to literature) which were developed after a fight of some sort. In any case, what we now call Deuteronomy is written in the form of one of these Hittite Vassal treaties. Besides helping us date the book of Deuteronomy, this similarity also speaks to the way Christians believe God reveals himself. Don’t miss this point. Folks long ago were milling around and if they were going to write things down (create literature) one of their options was a Hittite Vassal treaty. They didn’t have blogs, or tweets, or fb posts; novels weren’t around, nor were comic books. So when Moses (likely) wrote Deuteronomy he wrote it in the style he would have known–a treaty.

Later, when the Gospels and Paul’s letters were being written, they too were written in the forms their authors would have known. Keeping in mind that none of the Bible’s authors knew that what they were writing was going to be compiled as part of “The Bible”, in a roundabout way, this strengthens the argument that the Bible deserves some time and attention before discarding it.

Then there’s the Book of Mormon. Sesame Street has the familiar, “One of these things” segment and the lesson applies here. Unlike Mr. Joseph Smith, none of the Bible’s author’s claimed to find the Bible. Sure, we can debate whether or not Moses made up the Noah’s Ark story, but it’s Moses’ story. If God wanted an American to add to the Bible’s 66 books in the 1800s, then the writings would been similar in form to, say, the U.S. Constitution, or a dime novel, or more letters, or anything else that Joseph Smith’s contemporary’s would have recognized as “normal”.

Did I just imply that I posses the power to discern how God talks? Yes. Don’t be alarmed. You do too. Who’s up for a little game?