Legalism

Legalism, everyone knows the holier than thou legalistic type. There in our churches, they are our friends, family, and sometimes ministers. Everything is brought down to a list of rules or laws, nothing is left to love all is left to law.

There is a key point here God's people are not the covenant keepers, Christ was and is. He has kept the law. We no longer have to for we have his righteousness, and he has borne God's wrath for our sin. We are now part of the New Covenant people of God. A people that God has given law not on stone tablets but on our hearts. God Changes our desires, we long for holiness, not necessarily keeping the full OT law. But the heart of the law is kept, conviction is brought when we fail to keep the spirit of the law.

This brings up an interesting phenomena, conviction something that is not universal to every experience I know people who are convicted to drink and others who aren't at all. Neither is wrong, it is a gray area. If you are convicted of something and persist it is sin. If no conviction and no clear command in the NT era, then you are fine, and probably not sinning.

And here is the dreaded application, you Christian stop keeping a law on a list and keep the law of the Spirit in your heart. Aid in that in fellow believers lives, not comparing you list of don'ts to their behavior. Aid their devotion to God not their behavior.

What Dr. Greene meant to me.

Sadly yesterday my beloved English Professor passed away in his office. There is quite a hole in the Sebc family, we miss him, love him, and know he has found his souls ultimate fulfillment in what he was created to do. This has brought about this blog post I truly must show what he meant to me and other students.

"Dr. Greene teaches you how to be a person, how to care about people, and disguises it as english." This has been said by more than one of my fellow students, and said by myself. It is true, he played a very important role in the lives of countless students.

When you arrive at Sebc you are immediately thrown into an intellectual and academic environment, you gain so much knowledge. This can have adverse effects.

I won't pretend to have read all of "Orthodoxy" by G.K Chesterton, but what I have read he shows disdain for logic.

"The poet only asks to get his head in the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." G.K. Chesterton.

He pinpoints logic as a thing that causes men to lose their sanity. I completely disagree. I prefer C.S Lewis's "Men without Chests" that a man that is all intellect is a dangerous and completely unable to function in any vital role. Dr. Greene knew that Sebc was an academic environment, so he tried his best to not let it produce "Men without Chests."

Do not get me wrong Dr. Greene discussed theology with Dr. Snyder chair of Biblical studies. He modeled for all of us being in balance; loving God and people; with his heart, soul, and mind. He truly loved everyone I have ever seen him with, he did his best to teach and to show us how to be good Christ like people. He made everyone feel valued. I and other students experienced him knowing our names before we were in any class of his and before we were ever introduced.

He did all this effortlessly. I pray all of us would learn to care about people the way he did. That people would see us and just know we care about them.

Professors and students all loved him and saw him as an example of how to be caring and intellectual. How to be smart and still be moved emotionally. He taught all of us to be better people.

Thank you Dr. Greene you taught me so much more than proper usage of commas, you taught me that caring is just as important as being right.

The necessity of separation.

California's proposition 8 struck down based on america's constitutional 14th amendment. To interpret the constitution we must not import the context of religious beliefs, as we should not import political beliefs into our interpretation of the Bible. Under our constitution GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and Trans-gendered) individuals have the right to be united civilly. This event brings about this blog.

Quick history overview Catholicism corrupted by governmental ties, Anglicanism influenced by heathen monarchs, Islam enforcing religious practice as law, and republicans trying to legislate the Bible.

Government and Religion are at the core almost indistinguishable from one another. Both have set doctrines; both require the public to believe in them; both to be of any consequence must be of large size; both rely on charisma, power, and momentum; and both are corrupted by fallen man. So it seems natural that they form alliances in a hunger for power.

In history we see this quite evident, in Babylon, Ur, Egypt, Israel and contemporaries we see deities and religious practice directing the government. In Rome we see imperial cults worshipping the emperor. The Catholic church and varying ties to countries. Anglicanism as the English church tied directly to government. Islam enforcing as law the Koran. All of these has negative effects on these entities.

In America we have the good sense to not tie the two together. We have separation, the government says gays can marry but the Church can disagree. But as a country with the core doctrine of religious freedom we also cannot require a lesbian Buddhist to act as if they are a Christian, we all know everyone will not make it to heaven why would we require them to follow our rules if they do not believe them. I am not saying they are valid in their beliefs I am saying fallen man will always be somewhat wrong. They will not be perfect unless at death Christ fully sanctifies them. So it is anti-american to legislate your beliefs upon someone else but you can also believe what you want in america.

It is healthy to separate the two entities to not corrupt the Church as a whole. The Church is the bride of Christ and Rome is portrayed as a prostitute these two should not unite. Ergo separation is healthy. So take the good with the bad, no prayer in schools, no prayer to Obama. I hope you understand and are edified by this blog.