Bed, Bath, and Beware

Bed, Bath, and Beware.

by SK Johnson

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 1:51am 

Today I stepped into Bed, Bath, and Beyond with mom to pick up a few supplies, including some college-related items. I was donning an uncharacteristic frown because I was not wearing my fake tooth partial, since I’m still recovering from my surgery. Exhausted from late night loan-application projects, a post-surgery body, and a general disaffection with shopping (I’m an idealistic extrovert, mundane things like shopping for house supplies normally bores and exhausts me all at the same time…unless I’m in a rather autonomous or creative mood), I wandered aimlessly, very quickly, in order to draw large amounts of subconscious attention to myself. Anything for kicks. 

I passed by a platform of door-mats, designed mostly for dorm room entrances, and a seemingly patriotic door-mat caught my attention. I saw the word, “Life” and then the word “liberty” and finished the sentence in my head… “and the pursuit of happiness.” I was proud of my historical egotism. Yes, siree. I, Kyle Johnson, had the most famous line of the Declaration of Independence memorized. 

I continued with my wandering, headed towards the sliding doors to catch a glimpse of what freedom from ‘beyond’ looked like, all the while knowing that my bondage (mom) was still hovering in the midst of the bathroom supplies behind me. Somewhere in the middle of this thought, which I don’t really remember having, I came to a screeching halt once my visual perceptions caught up with the rest of me. Soon, a furrowed brow was added to my frown. I like pretending that I’m an old grouch sometimes. I took a closer look at the aforementioned door-mat and noticed the absence of 3 important words. The door-mat said “Life, liberty, happiness” instead of the Declaration’s real words, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Hm…. why is it different?

Is this an immaterial difference? Does it matter? 

Perhaps, taken in context the door-mat simply is supposed to mean that, the people living at this house or dorm room have gained happiness because of their right to pursue it. Is that what it means? 

Or, does it mean that the Declaration of Independence argues that happiness is a right, just as life and liberty are? 

Who knows what the intentions behind this door-mat were, and who knows how many different interpretations people could take from the words. But these few words constitute a huge philosophical difference from what the Declaration actually says. 

According to the Declaration, happiness is NOT a right, the PURSUIT of happiness is a right. There is a HUGE difference. 

If happiness is seen as a right, someone can validly say that the government has the responsibility to make everyone happy. But this is impossible, and leads to all sorts of injustices. 

If happiness becomes a right, life and liberty very quickly are no longer treated as rights. It creates a huge mess. 

For starters, how can anyone define what happiness is? Happiness isn’t something that can be defined in moral terms like rights can. What if murder makes you happy? Someone could, rightfully so, argue that murder is not wrong because it makes someone happy, and they have the right to be happy. The right of the victim to live is taken away to give someone happiness. 

You’d be surprised what happens when nations don’t remember and don’t define the moral ideas they are based upon. 

This is a secular humanist, and in fact nearly a Marxist, idea. Marx would argue that if you change society, you can change people’s definitions of happiness so that they are content, thus government can and should make people happy. So, Marx designed a system that tried to make people happy. 

When anything stood in the way of Marxism, the iron-fisted government took away people’s lives and liberty (the first two rights) in order to institute ‘Utopia’ or happiness. That is what happens when happiness is seen as a right. 

Life, liberty, and happiness can’t all be considered rights at the same time. Those who want ‘happiness’ always will do so at the expense of liberty and sometimes even of life. People who disagree on what happiness is will try to gain power over the people who have another definition of happiness. The result is chaotic mob rule at worst, and at best, a government that cares more about special interests than liberty or life. 

See what a difference a few words can make? 

Thomas Jefferson, and those who helped revise the Declaration of Independence took great pains over every single word of that precious document. The document represented thousands of pages of philosophy, ideas, theories, etc… all on one page (granted, a very large page, but still just a page). Every word was important. Changing just a small part, changes a lot.

While we do not have a right to happiness, we have a right to pursue happiness. We have the freedom to make a life of our own, to own property, and to do with it what we will. But we can not use it to take away someone else’s freedom to pursue ‘happiness’. We can not use it to take away someone’s life. We can not use it to take away someone’s liberty. They are all in check, they are all limited, but the existence of the rights do not by their very nature conflict with each other. It’s beautiful. It’s just. It reflects the law which is ‘written on our hearts’, as it says in Romans. 

It is this freedom, beauty, and justice which has made our nation the shining city on a hill that it has been referred to by many wise individuals. It is this justice and freedom which has been a testament to what a country founded on the Justice of God can be. It is this Justice that glorifies God. It is this testimony of God’s glory which has been a powerful tool of the Gospel… a picture of what those trying to create a redeemed world can look like. 

Sure, we fail. Sure, our country is not what it once was… but what she tries to be, is beautiful.

Ideas have consequences, and just a few words can completely change an idea. With the large amount of historical revisionism forced into our public school textbooks, the last thing we need are stores selling misrepresentations of the principles of our country. 

If we forget what our country stands for, we might slowly accept these wrong ideas, and justice will eventually be destroyed. In fact, we’re well on our way. Our government, regardless of which party, currently revolves around using government to make people happy, to ‘fix’ people’s lives. Money is dished out to special interest groups. 

Whoever’s definition of happiness is shouted the loudest, gets the benefits. Often at the expense of the liberties of other people. If one demographic demands that they deserve something to make their lives better, a Democrat (or John McCain) will give them a government handout and a Republican will offer them a tax break. Even at the expense of all the other people groups. Either way, government is acting upon the idea that people deserve happiness, just as much as they deserve life or liberty. Even if it means taking a piece of someone else’s liberty away, which is always the consequence of treating happiness as a right. Happiness as a right can not co-exist with life or liberty as rights. Something has to give. Usually, it’s liberty or even life. 
(by the way, the great irony is that when people demand something to make them happy, they are rarely really happy. Usually they end up worse off. If not materially, spiritually or emotionally. See Theodore Dalrymple’s book ‘Life at the Bottom’ for more on that). 

Where will it end? Could it eventually lead to socialism, and even greater injustices? I wouldn’t be the first to say that America is well on its way to socialism, as are most of western forms of government. 

So let me bring you back to the words of the man who wrote our Declaration in the first place. He had some strong words to say on the topic of maintaining justice in our country: 

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . .” — Thomas Jefferson

Skip Church

Modern Christianity puts a lot of stock into worship. We have big Christian worship concerts with people like Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Hillsong, or for some of us, The Gaithers. We go to festivals in the summer like Alive and Passion. Our churches spend a great deal of money on staging, and equipment for forms of modern worship, or for more liturgically conservative churches, we spend a great deal of money on ornate sanctuaries and huge organs. We’ve written lots of books on worship, and about prayer. I went to amazon.com and searched the word ‘prayer’. there were 314,704 book results. ‘Worship’ yielded 227,588 books and 6,491 CDs. One could say that we put a lot of work into prayer and worship, and who could blame us? We have the means, why not go to great lengths to praise our Lord? Yet I am here to present the highly unpopular and controversial idea that there are times when all of this work, money, and thought is for nothing. Is it possible that there are times when God ignores our prayers, and our worship? 

In the Old Testament, God entered into a covenant with his people, Israel. As a part of that covenant, there were certain prescribed methods of worship. Although our culture is very different, and the covenant of Christ we are in provides some ritualistic differences, there are actually a lot of similarities to worship now and then. We have festivals, so did they. We have weekly gatherings, so did they. We pray a lot, so did they. We worship with music, so did they. They sacrificed lambs, and goats, and other animals as atonement for their sins. Although we don’t follow those rituals anymore, we celebrate the sacrifice of The Christ, and partake in communion, which is symbolically the same thing. 

Yet, despite Israel’s devotion to ‘good worship’ and ‘prayer’ similar to our own, there is a time in Israel’s history that, by looking at Scripture, we can see that God paid no attention to their worship, he covered his ears, and he found their worship to be disgusting. 

Isaiah 1:11-15b
“The multitude of your sacrifices— 
what are they to me?” says the LORD. 
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, 
of rams and the fat of fattened animals; 
I have no pleasure 
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to appear before me, 
who has asked this of you, 
this trampling of my courts?

Stop bringing meaningless offerings! 
Your incense is detestable to me. 
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— 
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts 
my soul hates. 
They have become a burden to me; 
I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer, 
I will hide my eyes from you; 
even if you offer many prayers, 
I will not listen. 

——-

What did Israel do that made God so angry that he declares that He does not desire their worshp, that he takes no pleasure in it, and that he will not even listen to the prayers of His people? 

The context of this passage is a time in Israel’s history where some horrible things were happening. Much of Israel had resorted to idol worship, which brought with it all sorts of disgusting rituals. Worship to these false gods included the sacrificing of newly born babies, prostitution, and other forms of sexual immorality. 

Hebrew Law was partially based upon the concept of ‘victims’ rights’, where victims of crimes had the right to make sure that their case was prosecuted and that due punishment was given if guilt was found. The poor, orphans, and widows, were susceptible to being taken advantage of, but these victims’ rights laws were in place to make sure that they had a fair chance to have justice served against those who would oppress and terrorize them. In this time in Israel’s history, widows and orphans were being oppressed without their victims’ rights being defended. 

Although it is likely that only a small portion of Israel’s population were a party to such injustices, Hebrew Law gave a lot of ‘power to the people’ similar to the democratic elements in America’s foundation as a Constitutional Republic. The people had the political power to end these injustice, but history tells us that they were ignoring their civic duty to do so. This is why God goes on to say in Isaiah 1:15b

“You have blood on your hands”

If someone allows injustice to happen despite their power to do something about it, they share in the guilt for the injustice. 

and then God continues with: 

16 wash and make yourselves clean. 
Take your evil deeds 
out of my sight! 
Stop doing wrong,

17 learn to do right! 
Seek justice, 
encourage the oppressed. [a] 
Defend the cause of the fatherless, 
plead the case of the widow.

–
God told Israel that their worship and their prayers meant nothing unless they would live up to their personal and civic duty to ’seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, and plead the case of the widow’, which is what God had commanded in his law. 

Deuteronomy 16:20
“Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you”

Jesus spoke about injustice as well: 

Matthew 23:23
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

—

Justice is very important to God, and injustice still exists in our world today. 

—There are now more slaves in the world than any other time in history. Children sold into sex slavery. People of all ages sent into forced labor. Human beings trafficked across borders. There are an estimated 27 million people in some sort of slave condition across the world, right now. 

—Since the Roe v. Wade ruling in the United States, 47 million unborn babies have been aborted. 

—In the Darfur region of Africa, an oppressive anti-Christian and now racially anti-African government has killed 400,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million people from their homes. 

Jon Foreman, from the band Switchfoot, has written the following song which takes Isaiah 1:11-18 and replaces the cultural references with references to our times, culture, and modern mainstream Christianity: 

“Instead of a Show” by Jon Foreman

I hate all your show and pretense
the hypocrisy of your praise
the hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show

Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when your 
singing ‘em
I hate all your show

Instead let there be a flood
of justice
An endless procession of righteous
living, living
Instead let there be a flood 
of justice
Instead of a show

your eyes are closed when you’re praying
you sing right along with the band
you shine up your shoes for services
but there’s blood on your hands

you turned your back on the homeless
and the ones that don’t fit in your plans
quit playing religion games
there’s blood on your hands

Ah! let’s argue this out
if your sins are blood red
let’s argue this out
you’ll be white as the clouds
let’s argue this out
quit fooling around

give love to the ones who can’t love at all
give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
stand up for the ones who can’t stand up at all
instead of a show
I hate all your show

–
In this song, Jon Forman parellels the writings of Isaiah to modern times. The passage in Isaiah begins by describing Israel’s worship rituals (sacrificing animals, etc…), and Jon Foreman describes modern worship rituals: 

“your eyes are closed when you’re praying
you sing right along with the band
you shine up your shoes for services”

No element of contemporary Christianity is let loose from Foreman’s criticism. He mentions ’shining shoes’ which feels like a reference to the more conservative liturgical Christianity, as well as ’singing along with the band’ as a reference to modern church worship. 

Isaiah speaks of God’s response to this worship, he does not delight in it, he does not listen to it, and he turns away from their prayers. 

Jon Foreman describes a similar response from God to our worship today: 

“Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when your 
singing ‘em
I hate all your show”

God tells Israel to fight for justice, and to stand up for the oppressed. 

What are the modern day injustices that Jon Foreman speaks of? 

“you turned your back on the homeless
and the ones that don’t fit in your plans
quit playing religion games
there’s blood on your hands”

First he mentions the homeless. 

Mainstream conservative Christianity sometimes has a tendency to ignore the poor, by pointing to the alcoholism, drug use, and laziness that is sometimes attached to the poor as an excuse to deny mercy and help. As Christians, we should not hold back compassion because of the poor choices and habits of those in poverty by declaring ‘It’s their own fault and their own problem’, but instead we should offer compassion more abundantly and help people overcome these personal problems that lead to poverty. We must also realize that there are causes of poverty besides poor choices and habits. Liberal Christianity, on the other hand, fools around with welfare programs, which in my opinion, only worsen the plight of the poor, and is nothing but an impersonal attempt at fixing very personal problems. Once again, it does not wish to touch the very complicated social and psychological problems associated with poverty. Yes, this is a gross-generalization, but mainstream Christianity both on the left and the right often seems to want nothing to do with the poor and their real problems. Even those of us who do care for the poor need to do better about encouraging others to do the same. *

Foreman’s reference to ‘those that don’t fit into your plan’ could perhaps be a reference to abortion. The common excuse for abortion is that ‘I did not plan for a child, thus I shouldn’t have to take care of it and deliver it’.

Mother Theresa’s words come to mind: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

‘Those who can not stand’ also sounds like a reference to babies, who can not stand on their own.

Yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not to mention human trafficking, child prostitution, the genocide in Darfur, and other injustices. And perhaps God’s call to justice also requires a civic responsibility to stand up for justice in every detail of public policy. Fighting to have a traffic light installed in your town, which could save lives, perhaps glorifies God and reflects his love of justice as well.

Is American Christianity ignoring these injustices? 

Not totally, but perhaps we are not doing enough. 

Chuck Colson once said something along the lines of, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there are now more Christians in the world than ever before. The bad news is that it doesn’t seem to be making any difference” 

Just as God declares that there is blood on Israel’s hands for allowing injustice, specifically the murdering of newly-born babies, to occur… what is on our hands as we allow trafficking, abortion, and genocides occur when we have the political and economic power to do something about them? We all vote. We have access to our representatives. We have access to Washington. There are organizations fighting to stamp out these injustices. Why are we not more involved? Why is the church caught up with writing books about being better worshipers, while our ignorance of the poor, the needy, the oppressed, and the murdered destroys our worship in God’s eyes? 

Let us not turn a deaf ear to the oppressed, because if we do, will God turn a deaf ear to us? 

Scripture teaches that God hears the plight of the oppressed, why don’t we?

(From Exodus 22)

“22 “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.”

25 “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. [e] 26 If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, 27 because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.”

We go to big churches, Christian Music Festivals, worship concerts, and we pray.. yet if we ignore the injustice around us, it is all meaningless. God does not care, and it makes him sick. 

May we listen to history! May we respond to our Lord’s calling for us to stand up for justice! Let us end these worship charades, and put an end to these shows, until there is a flow of justice and righteousness, which is a music much louder than any amount of speakers and amplifiers can match. 

I would invite you all to join the Facebook event I will be creating, tentatively titled ‘International Skip Church Day’. This will be a day set aside to remember that our prayer and worship is nothing if we ignore justice and righteousness. This will be a day set aside for us to stay home from church to pray for God to gives us ears for the plight of the oppressed, and to forgive us for our political and social apathy on issues of injustice. Take this day to find out how you can become more politically involved. Take this day to encourage and pray for the people that you know who are in politics, or law, that they will have the heart of God as they seek justice. Take this day to do something practical for the countless organizations working against injustice in our world. Take this day to give some organization some money. Take this day to become smarter about injustice, which organizations are really making a difference? What is the nature of the injustices in the world? What are the possible solutions? Take this day to raise awareness about some issue of injustice. Take this day to read Hebrew Law in the Old Testament and see God’s heart for justice. Gather friends together to watch a movie that tells the stories of God’s work against injustice through Christians, such as ‘Amazing Grace’. Read about Mother Theresa or William Wilberforce. And take this day to remember, that God does not hear us if we harbor sin in our hearts, and allowing injustice to reside in our world when we have the power to fight against it, places the blood on our hands as well. Take this day to let Christ wash our hands of blood, in His grace, to seek justice, to stand up for the oppressed, and to praise God not just through our music, but through our compassion and our actions.   http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=23851572789

Skip church. The music can wait, God won’t. 

“There is a yearning for justice inherent in the lining of every heart, and a sense encircling every synapse that tells us things are not as they ought to be in this world. But it is a glorious and unique endeavor to fight against the disconnect of our privileged culture and start to breathe and move and embody the mandate to act on the yearnings, and respond to the sense, and ultimately live as if the Gospel is true, and freedom and justice are worth every ounce of blood, muscle, and thought, we could possibly offer.”

-Dan Haseltine of the band Jars of Clay

—-

*(Jon Foreman’s song ’somebody’s baby’ is a great piece on this subject… and in my interpretation takes a stab at welfare programs by saying ‘when people don’t want you they throw you money for beer’ …which in my estimation, is all that welfare does. It ignores the personal problems of poverty and just throws money around. Supporting welfare programs in no way makes you more compassionate than anyone else who walks by the homeless and pays them no attention. Both personal ignorance of the poor, and welfare programs send the same message of ‘I don’t want to touch you, so I’ll let the government touch you by throwing money at you from a far off capital building).

Turn your Ears and you Heart to Darfur NOW.

Turn your Ears and you Heart to Darfur NOW.

3:03pm Sunday, Apr 13 | Edit Note | Delete

Turn your Ears and your Heart to Darfur NOW.

Today, April the 13th, is the Global Darfur Day of Action. All over the world today, projects and protests to raise awareness and lobby governments to take action in the Darfur region of the Sudan are taking place.

Because of an intense attack of allergies (the pollen count was around 160 where I am), and a possible sinus infection, I have been rendered unable to be involved in any local protesting. So I’m going to start a revolution from my bed, as the Beatles’ would say. In all actuality, I’m sitting at my desk, but that is of no consequence right now.

I am posting this note multiple times until every person on my friend list has been tagged, to tell everyone I know about what is happening in Darfur region. I apologize, but only a little bit, if I tag you multiple times by accident. Personally, I am very uneducated about the issue as a whole, but it is still close to my heart and often in my prayers and regularly on my mind….so I will share with you what I can.

I am posting some basic information, links for where you can find more information, and links for places you can get involved.

As a Christian, I want to begin with one thought as you read over the material below. In the book of Isaiah, our God strongly chides his people for the disconnect between their beliefs and their actions. They believed in and claimed that they wanted to follow God, but they denied this faith by their actions. Our God is a God of justice, and when they ignored the injustices going on in the world around them, God got angry with them. He even told them that he would not listen to their prayers, and that their worship made him sick. Instead, he said, “Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17).

Turn your ear and your heart to Darfur, and learn to to good and seek justice, O children of God.

—-

What Is the Situation in Sudan? (From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20765-2004Jul1.html

An increasingly dire situation in Darfur in western Sudan has devolved into the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to international observers and the U.S. State Department. A State Department report issued Sept. 9 says that 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes in Sudan while at least 200,000 have fled to neighboring Chad. As many as 405 villages have been destroyed and and more than 100 others significantly damaged. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports at least 50,000 people have died as a result of the conflict between government-backed Arab militias and Africans in western Sudan.

Living conditions in the region threaten hundreds of thousands of people. The U.N. World Food Program delivered food to nearly one million people in Darfur in August, falling short of its goal of 1.2 million people. If the situation persists, the U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that at least 350,000 people will die of disease and malnutrition by the end of the year.

The government-backed groups, known as “Janjaweed,” terrorize Africans, destroying villages, killing and maiming men, ransacking food supplies and blocking international assistance. The Washington Post’s Emily Wax reports that the Janjaweed also carry out systematic campaigns of rape against African women in an attempt to humiliate the women and their families and weaken tribal ethnic lines. Human rights groups say the government, by funding the Janjaweed militants, is carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign.”

—
(basically, an Arab government in the Sudan is terrorizing and killing communities and entire tribes, leaving thousands upon thousands of people displaced or killed. I’ll note that some of the targeted groups have been Sudanese Christians)

—-

From www.savedarfur.org :

Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

——
I want to turn the attention to China for a moment:

China has strong ties to the government in Sudan that is carrying out this violence.

http://savedarfur.org/page/content/china_sudan_darfur

Here are the highlights from the eye-opening website cited above:

Arms sales: Over the past decade and more, China has been the leading supplier of weapons and weapons technology to Sudan. Beijing defends its military sales to Khartoum as legal. UN and human rights organizations have reported sightings of Chinese-made small arms weapons, military trucks, and other war materiel being used by Sudanese government forces, and their janjaweed militia, in Darfur.

Oil: China is the world’s largest player in Sudan’s oil industry, with major roles in the development, extraction, and acquisition of Sudan’s oil. Oil accounts for 70% of Sudan’s total global exports ($5.25 billion in 2006). Reports suggest that a substantial majority of Sudan’s oil profits may go to the military.

——

Something important to consider is the fact that we, the United States, trades a lot with China. It is one thing for our country’s commerce being used to grow the economy of a nation that requires forced abortions, persecutes the Church, makes and sells weapons to our enemies (including Al-Qaeda, Iran, Venezuala in connection with Russia, etc…), and who is specifically allowing and supporting the government in The Sudan that is committing these atrocities. However, it is another thing when we consider that our trade policies with China give them an economic advantage. They tax goods going into their nation, and we don’t tax goods coming into the United States, and as a result we have a HUGE trade deficit that is threatening our economy and giving China extra money to buy weapons that are sold to the Sudanese government to persecute the people of Darfur.

Our elected officials seem scared to stand up to the Chinese. Even our media is influenced by China… since they make their money off of their sponsors, and their sponsors make their money in China right now. That is why you rarely hear about Darfur in the mainstream news.

It’s just something to chew on. This is not a simple issue, it is not simply a mater of making the global community aware of the problem, it is not an issue of just sending food to Darfur… it is a complicated geopolitical issue based upon the evil of certain governments and their leaders (primarily the Sudanese government, and the Chinese government) and the fear or apathy of other nations.

When we learn about what happened in places like Nazi Germany (the holocaust), we sometimes say things like ‘never again’. We believe that we will never again allow something so terrible to occur. The events in Darfur is the only place in the world where a genocide has been declared by the US government while the events are taking place…and we are doing essentially nothing.

What will you do?

Visit www.savedarfur.org for some ideas and lots more information.

The most important, most foundational thing that you can do however… is to pray. Pray alone. Pray with your family. Pray with friends. Pray with strangers. Pray in the dark, or in a well-lit room. Pray in a crowded street or in your closet. Pray indoors or outside. But whatever you do, pray. Pray for the people of Darfur. Pray that we will find ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus and the justice he represents. Pray that our leaders will think of what is right, instead of appeasing an evil regime. Pray even for our enemies, those who are carrying out these atrocities, that they will see the errors of their ways and repent. Simply pray.

Remember that God made men equal. The men and women being terrorized in Darfur are fellow human beings. They are our people, because we are all people. Let us join together and pray and fight for freedom for our people. I want freedom for my people. And maybe, maybe one day soon, we can look across the Atlantic ocean, join our hearts together with our brothers and sisters in Darfur and exclaim,

‘Free at last! Glory to God hallelujah, free at last!’

But it starts with you. Now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQwCCm-H-sU

The New Slave Trade that We All Have a Hand In…and We all Can Change

I have a lot of bad habits. Among the worst of my bad habits is my constant habit of making things more complicated than they have to be. The things I am about to discuss have been on my mind for a long time, and have developed with prayers, ideas, objects of study that have been rolling around in my head for an even longer time. I have thought about these things very in depth although I am merely scratching the surface of something that God is trying to teach me. I have been tempted to fall into my habit of making these thoughts more complicated than they have to be, and it will be my attempt to avoid that throughout the rest of this essay.

There has been a very dangerous and very important change in our culture. This change has its roots in very complicated philosophical changes, that I don’t fully understand. But this change is affecting all of our lives for the worse…. and could snowball into something so dangerous that the darkest minds of past years could never comprehend or predict it. This change, has been the cultural disconnect between morality and the basis of morality.

Ouch, that’s a mouthful…. let me try and explain it better.

Although I wish I could explain all the philosophical reasons I think this has happened… let me leave it at this: Atheism is a philosophy that has taken over our culture..even with people who claim to not be atheists. All ideas stem from a basic worldview, and in our day and age we have a bad habit of incorporating ideas that stem from a worldview contradictory to what we claim to be true. In this case…. atheism is a worldview that I believe ultimately leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as right and wrong…… and this has seeped into the church in a very bizzare way… let me explain.

If you ask an Atheist if they believe slavery is wrong, they will probably say yes (unless they’re an extremely well thought out atheist, like a nihilist). If you ask a modern day Christian if they believe slavery is wrong, they will also say yes. If you ask an atheist why it’s wrong, you will get a lot of different answers. Their worldview gives no basis for morality, so they often steal buzzwords from other religions (namely Christianity). An Atheist might say that slavery is cruel (but then you could ask them, why is cruelty wrong?), or that it goes against the way of things, or it’s not nice, or any number of things. They have borrowed a moral idea, and have no idea why they believe it if you really talk them through their beliefs. What about a Christian? Well, sadly, many Christians will say the same sorts of things. They have been warped into not really caring why something is wrong, and simply have borrowed the cultural concept that it is wrong. We have borrowed the idea that right and wrong has no basis, and we can not seem to explain the basis for why something is wrong.

What’s the result? Well, if we fail to understand why something is wrong… we fail to understand the idea behind it. If we fail to understand the idea behind it, we can make the mistake of committing the same basic sin in a different way. We have become so good at being hypocrites. We condemn things on a social level because it’s become culturally considered wrong…but we commit the same basic sins all the time. This is because of the secularization of right and wrong. We rarely turn to thinking about God and his law for determining moral judgements.

So now that I have introduced the basis for my idea… here’s the specific application. I believe that we have become Thomas Jefferson-like in the way we treat and think about people. We have become hypocritical, like he was. We have become slave owners.

Thomas Jefferson talked very strongly about human rights, and the evils of oppression. He also said a lot of things about the evils of slavery. Yet, he kept many slaves himself and never once freed a single one as far as i know. Historians can only determine that he was a hypocrite. It is my belief, and my main point… that each and every one of us is guilty of the same basic sins of slavery. We have enslaved people around us, we do it constantly. As a whole, we have caused a lot of pain, a lot of hurt, and even death because of it (not just spiritual death, but physical death). Why have we done this? In part because we have borrowed the idea that slavery is wrong from Christians such as William Wilberforce who understood scripture and understood why it’s wrong. We have forgotten why it’s wrong, and have committed the same basic sins in other ways.

So…let’s do the right thing and examine from a Biblical standpoint why slavery is wrong, and see if we can see the same basic sin in another area of our lives (or from our generation’s attitude as a whole). This is where we return to the concept of worship which has pervaded a lot of my notes as of late.

Worship is not just something we do on Sundays or Wednesday nights, and not just something we do with a musical instrument. Worship is a complete submission of ourselves to God. We owe God our very lives, and we worship him through that. We tithe as a symbol of giving our lives entirely over to God. Just like I said in my note about worship and authority, the Jews were angry about having to pay taxes to Rome because taxation in Israel was considered a holy act of worship. It said who you belonged to. The Jews’ taxes went directly to the church as well as the state, so by giving taxes they were worshiping God and respecting his ordained authorities.

Tyranny is what happens when a certain person sets themselves up as a God over someone else. When someone tries to receive worship from the people that is meant for God. On a political level, it can mean a state having full control over peoples lives. That is why a key American ideal is the idea that people have the human right to be free. Because freedom means the ability to submit oneself to God entirely without another person or another institution trying to take God’s place and take what is yours to give him.

Slavery is the same thing on a smaller (though at the same time, much greater) scale. Slavery is what happens when one person says to another. Look! “Your work, the toils of your work belong to ME. Your life belongs to ME! Not God! I define who you are, and what you’re worth, not God!!!!” The sin behind this is quite simply…idolatry. The very first of the 10 commandments condemns idolatry. What’s the idol? Yourself. You are so obsessed with worshiping yourself that you long to force others to worship you too. You long for them to be under your thumb and to belong to you. You need them to elevate yourself up, so you can find yourself even more worthy of worship. You are no longer treating them as human beings, you are treating them as brutes. And as John Newton said of his involvement of the slave trade in the movie Amazing Grace, ‘we became the brutes…they were human.’

What is even worse, is that when someone is not spiritually very mature, and someone forces them to worship something besides God (like another person), they submit quite easily, even if it’s subconscious.
Furthermore, one must remember the concept that you will become what you worship. The men who worship themselves and force others to as well, start to become the corrupt things they are worshiping. They start to become less of what God created them to be…they become less human. The slaves then start to become less human, as they become the object of their worship. They either become numb and dead, or even submit to being just as cruel and oppressive. Look at John Newton. He was a slave himself for many years, and immediately became a brutal slave trader after he was ‘freed.’ Thankfully, Christ had been at work among our nation’s slaves before the civil war and many of them were very mature in Christ and came out of slavery without as much bitterness as would be expected.

Now…think about it. Worship, idolatry, brutality, becoming dead to your humanity…. it happens everyday in our social lives and social structures in a game we call popularity contests.

Everyday you can walk into a school and pick out the cliques. There are the cool people, there are the not so cool people, and the flat out rejects. This is a new game of slavery that is being played. Everyday, people around us proclaim that they are ‘god’ and force those around them to worship them. By putting others down, they are able to elevate themselves and feel as if they are worthy of worship. And I’m not just talking about with bullies or the obviously stuck-up… I’m talking at just about everyone. Anytime you have written someone else off as different, and ignored them, or talked behind their backs… you have claimed that you determine the value of people’s lives, personalities and abilities. Who does that sound like? God. You are trying to become God. You are taking their ability to be who God created them to be (worship) and taken it for yourself. You no longer want them to become like or worship God, you are wanting them to worship you. I’m guilty of it, and I think just about everyone of us is.

What happens as a result? We have kids who feel left out, oppressed, and feel like nothing. They have been treated as unpopular and unimportant and they start to play the part. Look at the raging problems with teen suicide and depression. And it isn’t just among the unpopular people, it happens among the popular people. They become just as dead as the people they oppress because they worship their corruption as they force others to join them. The game of popularity is a game of how many people can you put down so that you can get to the top. It is brutal, it is deadly, it is dangerous, and it’s wrong.

So now comes my manifesto. Be a movement of change. Look out for the oppressed and free them. Topple the idols, free the slaves. There is a full-flaming slave market going on all around us and we sit idly by and ignore it!!!! Every day, kids are in such devastating worlds of low self esteem, self hatred, and suicidal tendencies because of our sick desires to elevate ourselves and define what is popular and normal.

Perhaps this comes from my life as a quirky person myself…but I have never truly understood the way slightly off beat people have been treated and ignored. I actually have an affinity to slightly odd people (none of my friends should read too much into that!!!). But you know, it’s really not that hard to reach out to slightly odd people. But take it beyond that, abolish the word odd altogether. The word ‘odd’ is a slaveowners word. It’s not a godly word. God has created all people in His sight and who are we to have the gall to say we can change that?

We may not all feel as guilty as I am portraying us as… but we are. We commit these terrible sins all the time even if we don’t realize it. We have to realize the danger that we can cause so that we may correct it and help keep it from happening elsewhere.

Another symptom of this idolatrous culture is the need that is felt to conform to a certain look or personality. I look at people who come from school environments that especially breed these tendencies and see how alike they try to act and look. There is a desire to ignore the differences among people. They worshiping an cultural image, or a popular group of people when we conform that way. That is another similar form of slavery.

(side note: This is a reason I love homeschooling. I am so refreshed and impressed by spending time with my homeschool friends. They are not afraid to delve deeply into the people God has created them to be and are each not afraid to be a little different than someone else. They are so much more open about their interests and talents…it’s so exhilirating and I feel so at home with them!!!)

Remember that you have the power to free the oppressed everyday by treating all people with godly respect, and standing up for the person your world, your church, or your school loves to hate (even if it’s a very silent hate…marked by simply a desire to ignore them). You have the power to remove chains and hold back the whips by becoming a friend to someone and showing them love. You have such immense power for evil, but also such immense power for good.

And for those of us who have felt oppressed and looked down upon and laughed at…remember to live a life of Christlike humility and not to focus on the way other people treat us. The more we focus on the way we’re treated (this is a major part of my testimony), the more we become focused on ourselves and the more we will turn into the thing we hate. We can be agents of change too, with the love of Christ.

Remember that rejection of tyranny is obedience to God. Help others run away from worshiping themselves or from worshiping the people that worship themselves. Be an agent of change, and of freedom…and of abolition. Be creative, and take the things I have tried to communicate to you and find other ways of understanding and describing where ever this evil pops up. Don’t take this information lightly, or this manifesto without graveness. We are setting out to change an entire generation’s culture. We are setting out to change the world. It sounds impossible, but the older I grow the more I realize that God loves the impossible. He loves the lost causes. He loves those who try.

Besides. Just like William Pitt tells William Wilberforce, “We’re too young to know that some things are impossible. So we will do them always”

Go out and shake up the world. Turn it on it’s head. Look for the least among you, and elevate them to the respect that they deserve as children of God and think not of yourself. (taking another line from the movie Amazing Grace)…. As your friend I would advise extreme caution in how you go about change. But as a brother in Christ I say:

To hell with caution.

Lost Tribe of Israel Returns to Holy Land?

I have been traveling and unable to update as regularly as I had previously hoped, and left many prospective blog projects on the shelf a lot longer (look soon for a journey into the music genre of chamber pop, plus a discussion as to whether or not attending a Christian school is seclusionary or a fundamentalistesque platonism). However, I came across the following article that was very interesting and hope to share it with you. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

-SK Johnson
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FROM WND’S JERUSALEM BUREAU
‘Lost tribe of Israel’ arrives in Jewish state
Group in India ‘descended from Joseph’ struggled to ‘return home’
Posted: August 30, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Members of ‘lost tribe of Israel’ arrive at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv (Courtesy Shavei Israel)

TEL AVIV – One-hundred-seventy-four people from a group of thousands in India that believes it is one of the 10 “lost tribes” of Israel landed here this week, fulfilling for many a life-long dream of returning to what they consider their homeland.

Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organization led by American Michael Freund, hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph’s two sons and a grandson of Jacob.

The tribe lives in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they claim to have been exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

“I truly believe this is a miracle of immense historical and even biblical significance,” Freund told WND as the group of 174 arrived here earlier this week.

“Just as the prophets foretold so long ago, the lost tribes of Israel are being brought back from the exile,” said Freund, who previously served as deputy communications director under former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Another planeload of 57 Bnei Menashe is slated to touch down in Israel tomorrow.

The group, which has preserved ancient Jewish customs and rituals, has been trying the past 50 years to return to Israel.

(Story continues below)

Over the last decade, Freund’s Shavei Israel, at times working with other organizations, brought about 1,200 Bnei Menashe members to the Jewish state. Many settled in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. About 80 lived in Gaza’s slate of Jewish communities, which were evacuated by the Israeli government in 2005.

The original batches of Bnei Menashe to arrive here were brought to Israel as tourists in an agreement with Israel’s Interior Ministry. Once here, the Bnei Menashe converted officially to Judaism and became citizens.

But diplomatic wrangling halted the immigration process in 2003, with officials from some Israeli ministries refusing to grant the rest of the group still in India permission to travel here.

Bnei Menashe member arriving in Israel (Courtesy Shavei Israel)

To smooth the process, Freund enlisted the help of Israel’s chief rabbinate, which flew to India in 2005 to meet with and consider converting members of the Bnei Menashe. Once legally Jewish, the tribe can apply for Israeli citizenship under the country’s “Law of Return,” which guarantees sanctuary to Jews from around the world.

Six rabbis were sent by Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, to begin converting the Bnei Menashe. The rabbis met with hundreds of tribal members, testing their knowledge of Judaism and assessing their conviction, converting 216 individuals – over 90 percent of the members interviewed.

“The rabbis were incredibly impressed with the Bnei Menashe,” said Freund. “They saw for themselves that the group is very serious and should be integrated into the Jewish nation. That they are a blessing to the state of Israel.”

Last year, 218 converted members arrived in Israel. Freund hoped to repeat the process for 231 more Bnei Menashe who had been approved for conversion, but the Indian government, which heavily restricts conversions, put a halt on the plan.

Bnei Menashe member (Courtesy Shavei Israel)

Instead, the batch of Bnei Menashe that arrived this week were brought to Israel as tourists in coordination with the Israeli government. Once here, the tribe will be officially converted by the country’s chief rabbinate and qualify for Israeli citizenship.

The new immigrants will spend the next few months studying Hebrew and Judaism at a Shavei Israel absorption center in northern Israel.

The Bnei Menashe that arrived here over the years have fully transited into Israeli society. Many attended college and rabbinic school, moved to major Israeli communities and even joined the Israel Defense Forces.

Twelve Bnei Menashe served in the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon in 2006. One of them, Avi Hanshing, a 22-year old paratrooper, was injured during a clash with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hanshing’s father was among those who arrived here earlier this week in an emotional reunion at Israel’s international airport.

“As much as we might think that Israel is helping the Bnei Menashe, it is the reverse that is true. It is they who strengthen us – with their faith, with their commitment and with their undying love for Zion,” said Freund.

Bnei Menashe member (Courtesy Shavei Israel)

According to Bnei Menashe oral tradition, the tribe was exiled from Israel and pushed to the east, eventually settling in the border regions of China and India, where most remain today. Most kept customs similar to Jewish tradition, including observing Shabbat, keeping the laws of Kosher, practicing circumcision on the eighth day of a baby boy’s life and observing laws of family purity.

In the 1950s, several thousand Bnei Menashe say they set out on foot to Israel but were quickly halted by Indian authorities. Undeterred, many began practicing Orthodox Judaism and pledged to make it to Israel. They now attend community centers established by Shavei Israel to teach the Bnei Menashe Jewish tradition and modern Hebrew.

Freund said he hopes the arrival this week of more Bnei Menashe would “jump-start the process of bringing back the rest of the 7,000 Bnei Menashe who are in India yearning to return home.”

Welcome

Welcome to this humble outpost of thoughts, ideas, argument, beauty, justice, and fervor.  This is a blog set aside as an experiment in the new Christian Reformation that is growing out of the ideas of those like Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, and Nancy Pearcey.  It is a picture of Christians taking a stand to look at the world around them and stand up for Christ in it.  This blog is to encourage Christians to have a love of justice, beauty, truth, and building the kingdom of Christ in the world around them.

Something that I can not get past is the idea that some Christians might have that spending time discussing art, music, politics, philosophy is wasting time that could be better spent in evangelism.  I understand the sentiment.  Yet, I am a firm believer that Christians who live a live pleasing to God in whatever he calls them to do (a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, an artist, etc…) is in fact preaching the gospel in a profound way.  Furthermore, when we look at the world and see how we can better bring about God’s kingdom by creating and exposing beauty, in standing up for justice, and in seeking and exploiting truth for the world to see (even small nuggets of it), we are also preaching the gospel then.  I do not wish to diminish the need for the gospel to be spelled out in words, but I do not want to diminish that the gospel can work alongside and often because of the other things God calls us to do.  That is the thesis of this blog.

I would love to go on and on about the ideas and the foundation behind this blog, but let me leave you with the description I have already written for our ‘What we do’ page:

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What We Do.

This is an experiment, born out of the mind of a young, home-schooled, Christian rebel against the neo-platonism that dominates our day. This is the first front for the beginning of the new reformation.

What is this new reforamtion all about? The church today has slowly found itself slipping back into the bad, unchristian philosophies that led to the need for the first reformation. The reason for this can be attributed to several things, one of which is that the reformation never truly finished its job because it got cut off by the secularist enlightenment. A group of Christian leaders both celebrity (C.S. Lewis, Nancy Pearcey, Ravi Zacharias, and Francis Schaeffer) and obscure (the strong coalition of professors in Christian colleges for example) have been planting the seeds in my generation (I am entering my final year of high-school at this writing) for a new reformation. I have encountered countless spiritual leaders who are convinced that this generation will bring about a reformation of the Christian Church unseen in history. This blog is one small attempt to ‘get the ball rolling’ by simply being a tool of living out what I believe in.

We will feature interesting news, reviews on music, art, and film, guest posts, my political rants, and etc. All of it is designed to let you, the reader, take everything around you one level deeper and hopefully find the truth and beauty of your Creator at the root of it all. All in all, this is the attempt of a Christian to live out his faith in a new, relevant, convicted, timeless, and true way. We believe in standing up for justice, in exploiting and creating beauty, in discussing truth, and we believe in a God who is the author of all those things.

I hope you find your time here encouraging, enlightening, and dangerous.  But ultimately, I hope that it teaches you how to think too much, so that you time after time stumble upon your Creator.

Sincerely,
SK Johnson [administrator]

Meet our writers/contributors: (to be updated as we grow)

S.K. Johnson
[Administrator/Renaissance man]
My name is SK Johnson. I am a homeschooled high school student. I am also the owner of the Duncan Hunter Grass Revolt (www.dhgrassrevolt.wordpress), which was the beginning of my blogging career. I am obsessed with ideas, books, music, politics, and my heroes: William Wilberforce, James Madison, William Blackstone, C.S. Lewis, Ronald Reagan, Brother Andrew, and Jon Foreman. I hope to one day be a college professor and/or involved in politics, depending on where the Lord leads me and when.
I also have a weakness for sweet tea and European cities.

Disclaimer on politics: In the church today, it is almost taboo to talk about politics in certain atmospheres and occasions. It is my philosophy that as Christians we are called to affect culture in all means necessary to further the work of Christ. That means standing up for justice, and for fulfilling the Biblical mandate of creating a society pleasing to God. I do not mean that I believe government itself should create a Godly society, but I believe that it is a piece of the puzzle. On the surface, I suppose that sounds like a communist statement. Let me be clear, I am an ardent anti-communist and an ardent anti-socialist. What I mean by my statement is that government shapes society and as Christians we are obligated to be a part of that, yet it is not the only way we affect the world for Christ. In my opinion, a government based upon the US Constitution is something consistent with Christianity and something I support and fight for.

The point I am finally getting to is that I believe the church needs to have open discussion about politics and a Christian’s role in it. We are not always going to agree, we are not always going to be right, but we should look objectively to Scripture for truth on this subject and do something about it. That is why, with this blog, I will not be shy in expressing my political beliefs. However it should be noted that any political statements about specific politicians made through banners or on any sections of this site that are not actual blog posts are the opinions of the administrator (SK Johnson) and not necessarily of all contributing writers. As contributing authors are added, it is my position to enforce a certain amount of content control but overall I am not against having differing opinions within these posts.

This is how to think too much.

-SK Johnson [administrator]