Exloring Life Eternal

A brother shared this note, after I indicated that all are born sinners & with evil hearts:

"culture of deception" I also would like to reflect on the apostle's words in Titus 1:12-13. [He elaborated on cultures of deceipt.]

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That is a good point. Well made & well taken. I agree that lies must be confronted. From experience, it can be painful to confront them. Actually, I believe that the boldness to prayerfully confront sin, though it may cost a friendship is exactly what David called, "I hate them with a perfect hatred" & why Jesus said "You must hate your father & mother" ... even though he clearly taught us to honor them.

I find theories which dismiss the content of the Psalms as "merely expressing the emotion of an OT saint" to be less than useful, though pleasing to a psychologically-oriented society.

Peace in Christ,
Mert Hershberger

Here is a summary of my response the the question of whether or not it is better for a saint to live & be called crazy or to die & be forgotten, editted slightly.

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I minister mostly among the "mentally ill" & the "disabled" & the poor. With a clear conscience, I can say that often God is most glorified among the weaker brethren. Paul the apostle wrote to the saints in Corinth, "Not many of you were strong, not many of you were wise ... yet God has chosen the weak of this world to confound the proud, the things which are not to confound the things which are."

Do not belittle the little! Remember where you yourself have come from! If Abdul's life continues, he has time to share the love of Jesus in word & deed, whereever he may be. Governments come & go. The public standards of sanity change. But love & life & light endure.

I have seen those who were poor far outgive the rich!
I have seen the faith of children accomplish far more than the learned!
I have seen the weak & infirm glorify God far more than the strong &
healthy!
I have seen the kindness & love of "sinners" far exceed the love of the pious!

I write that to my own shame: for in each of those instances, I was "the rich, the learned, the healthy, & the pious."

Even the mouths of pagans are shut when they see that the saints love the least & the little as well as the lost. But if the insane are living rationally & kindly with their neighbors, then what remains for the "sane" who kill each other? The mouth of the lion will be shut & the lyin' will one day cease altogether. When God's people are called "wretched" by the world, yet live holy by the power of the Lord then the Spirit vindicates Himself.

The argument about the "mentally ill & retarded" being the only ones who believe in the Truth is the same argument that people in Secular Academia use against the gospel & that Marxism uses. But why do we need to pretend that we are all powerful or all wise? God is far more glorified through the weak than the strong! Don't despise the day of small beginnings! Jesus did not come to break a bruised reed or put out a smoldering wick, but to strengthen & to fan into flame.

In one country where the good news is now going forward with power though there are & were _few_ Christians of any sort from the west, one of the key markers that indicated a harvest was about to come:

A young man was put out of his home because he was apostate. He had
been very badly mistreated. In time, a measure of reconciliation came. He would visit his family from time to time & stayed at his parent's house as long as possible. Finally, his father was annoyed & asked why he lingered there when he knew he was no longer a part of the family. The son then told about the young men at the house who had taken him in. They would pair off each night & tried to get him to do the same. The son did not believe this was right in God's sight nor his father's, but if he had to leave his father's house again that night, he would. His father could no longer hold back his compassion, he told his son to bring back home all his possessions. He could stay at the family home.

The worker who shared the story said, "While Chistians may not be as "good" as ordinary citizens, they are not as "bad" as homosexuals. So, that is progress."

Even in the Philipines, the end of Marcos' regime of terror came when elderly nuns, priests, and the lame & infirm were put in the first row against the line of tanks. The tanks could have plowed over them. The people were not strong and were not armed. Very different from the Greco-Roman hoplite phalanx. They were weak & dependent & retarded & disabled. But God used them to take back the Philipines. And that is merely a modern secular revolution, but it was a change of government that happened _peacefully_, unlike anything the world had known. The talking heads on radio & TV still don't understand the power of the Gospel. (Church planting & evangelism was & is going forward there & beyond.)

Yet, if you read the _minor_ prophets, you will remember that the Lord said that the lame & infirm would go up on Mount Zion. (Micah 4:1-7; Zephaniah 3:16-20). Mephibosheth (who had both a weak body & a shameful name) was welcomed at the table of David. This is like God's love.

Let the nations mock us.
Let the Lord vindicate.
We will honor the Lord,
& He will honor us.

With Christ as King,
Mert Hershberger

Serving with: International Fools for Christ
Proverbs 17:24; Zechariah 4:20; 2 Chronicles 16:8-10

I highly recommend David Mays' notes. Mail him & request the periodic notes. Saves time in reading & motivates him to read & summarize.

- Mert Hershberger
mertaka@everybody.org


David Mays [mailto:davidmays@acmc.org]
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BRANDED NATION
The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld

James B. Twitchell
Simon & Schuster, 2004, 327 pp., ISBN 0-7432-4346-3
Twitchell is a cynic. But reading this from a Christian perspective may lead us to serious consideration of our practices.

Evian water: 9 oz. For $1.49 equals $21.19 per gallon (11)
[MERT: Which backwards spells: Naive' ! Amazing how many water bottles litter the roads & riverways!!]

We have “become emotionally involved with not just animate nature but inanimate commerce.” (35)
[MERT: The Message paraphrase hits the nail on the head when paraphrasing the prophets, calling forms of idolatry: religious kitsch. (sp?)]

“Heaven is richly imagined in poor cultures.” “When we have a surfeit of stuff, we tend to spiritualize parts of it in the her and now, forgetting the luxury Beyond. That’s why few people in the West today even have a sense of what’s in Heaven.” (36)
[MERT: Did Jesus say anything similar about the sort of blessing that comes to the poor?]

2. One Market Under God – The Churching of Brands
[It is very interesting to read what someone writes about ‘church’ from a purely marketing perspective. dlm]

“At the macro level, all religions offer the same transaction. They exchange the meaning of life for some investment by the believer.” “The product of most religions is usually safe passage to the next world....” (48) [How do you respond to these statements? dlm]

==> Is the narrative that the religion offers actually historically & objectively based & universally relevant? WHAT IS THE PROOF? GIMME A GUARANTEE THAT I CAN TRUST & NOT JUST CHANT!
Christianity (not merely denominations) is historally based (The tomb is empty, the Old & New Testament documents have a better historiographic base than ANY other narrative, including Chinese dynastic histories, which far outpace any other "narrative"), objectively testable & satisfying (Jesus said, "If you want to know if what I say is true, put it into practice." When false religions [including branded forms of godliness] are practiced, the result is increasing frustration!), & universally relevant (all nations)

“What is remarkable is that these systems rarely compete head-to-head with one another for market share. With the exceptions of Christianity and Islam, they seldom convert fresh believers.” (49)
(Buddhism actually does compete, in a more subtle form of introducing idolatry & pagan statuary & ideas of futility & lies via the "exiled ruler" of Tibet who makes many famous displays of humility. Hinduism has at time competed in the forms of various devotee sects.)

If religion were a company, it would be number five on the Fortune 500 with $50 billion in revenues. (56)
MERT: James 1:26-27 gives the best definition of true "religion." (Religion: that which is binding as an obLIGatory lifestyle.)

The Catholic church is a $7 billion brand in distress. (58)
MERT: According to some parishes, if it were not for INDULGENCES (yep), more local "franchises" would go under.

“For many churches this never-ending competition added the perpetual pressure to stay solvent. That, in turn, always argued for attracting the widest audience, paying attention to the take-away value, and focusing always on the end user while all the time pretending to a higher calling. Marketing became a necessity.” [Note the word “pretending.” The author apparently
does not believe there is a higher calling. dlm]
MERT==> As I have read through the Gospels, I have come to believe that it is exactly this "pressure to stay solvent" financially which is the mythical & deceptive "teaching of the Pharisees." Jesus knew that if satan could entice the church with the candy of cold cash, then the church would become impotent. Simple churches & compassionate lifestyles are what Christ starts, we despise the little things & want a better image, so we make one for ourselves with "new teachings," "new books," "new churches."

“American churches have invented lots of fun—serious, competitive fun.” (57)
[MERT: Why do kids who go to youth group drop out? The fun does stop at some point & the deepest needs are not met with one more ski trip, mission trip, or camping-trip. The Gospel does lead to joy though, even in the midst of suffering!]

“Branding fetishizes objects in exactly the same manner that religion does: it ‘charms ’ objects, giving them an aura of added value.” (65) [Wow. Dlm]
“The powerful allure of religion and branding is the same: we will be rescued.” (68) [Has the marketing of stuff taken the place of God for our rescue in American culture? Dlm]
[MERT: The saddest thing I ever read was how a fellow decided he needed to "re-image" his ministry to be more successful in the USA. Most ministries (my own included) could typically gain more by re-pentance.]

"Forget the hellfire and brimstone; pass the remote control.” (72)
[MERT: Some like it HOT, some like it COLD, most like their own pot, NEW or OLD.]

“The megachurch is the dumbing down of American religion, epiphany lite, minister as personality, service as TV with musical interludes, cherry-picking of smug baby boomers, obsession on the ‘front door’ never minding the flood leaving the ‘back door,’ fair-weather churches feeding easy-to-digest junk food to the already overweight.” (89) [Easy to dismiss the overdrawn cynicism but are there any smoldering old rags under all this smoke? dlm]

EDUCATION
Getting into college is a cinch. (110)
[MERT: here at Ann Arbor @ the U of M, after a lawsuit about reverse discrimination, the net result was MORE students admitted & less clarity & "justice" than ever in the application process.]

“Schools like mine have four basic revenue streams: student tuition, research funding, public fiscal support, and private giving. The least important is tuition, the most prestigious is external research dollars, the most fickle is state support, and the most remunerative is what passes through the development office.” (120)
[MERT: Whenever monasteries became focussed on "development" in the middle ages, it was a sure sign of their imminent decline, eclipse, or destruction.]

“An English major at [the University of Florida] today can graduate without taking ... a single course in literature.” (169)
[MERT: Is it any surprise then that there have been English teachers who couldn't read?]

4. Museumworld – The Art of Branding Art

5. When All Business is Show Business, What’s Next?
“And since you can’t generate brand loyalty on the basis of faith, you essentially do it on the basis of add-ons, on the basis of value added to affiliation, on the basis of providing convenient community.” (280)

“As opposed to the megachurch, Higher Ed, Inc., and Museumworld, the diplomatic world is acutely aware that it is in the marketing business. No one pretends otherwise. After all, diplomats are politicians, which, as formed Clinton adviser and current TV pundit Paul Begala famously observed, is just showbiz for ugly guys.” (292)

“In the next generation of diplomacy the ability to brand your nation before your competition does it to you is going to become crucial. “Those states that successfully fictionalize themselves to others...will prevail.” (292)
[You can see this in travel brochures. dlm.]
[MERT: New Orleans successfully began to "fictionalize" itself in the early 1980's in a massive . Result? It was a wash-out ... & the poor suffered most. It was a very costly gamble, yet people continue to invest in what is a sure loss.]

“We have come to live in a world of continual and often frantic storytelling.” (298)
[MERT: This is why I think the whole thing with C.S. Lewis' novels cum movies is WAY out of proportion in the Promo department in Churches:
A. They are fiction.
B. They were not intended to tell the Good News.
C. They are kids's stories.
D. They are not nearly as amazing or as powerful as the Bible itself.
E. REPEAT: THEY ARE FICTION!! THE BIBLE IS TRUE!! (AS ALL WHO HAVE SET OUT TO DISPROVE HAVE FOUND.)
F. ARE WE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO BECOME LEOPHILES OR "LAMBS" WHO ARE WILLING TO FOLLOW THE =GOOD=SHEPHERD= TO A "SLAUGHTER."]

[I discount a good bit of what Twitchell says about churches because he seems to have no understanding of spiritual reality. He only sees at a surface level. But I am deeply concerned about a society driven by a yearning for deep meaning within the material world. dlm]
[MERT: I disagree with the fundamental discounting of _any_ truth & pure cynicism. It does seem ironic that a "professor of marketing" is critiquing marketting so severely & selling a book about it. BUT his cynicism should lead us to ask 1 simple question: is the church in love with Jesus or is it not? Are we salty? Or salt mixed with sugar? Looks the same, but not nearly as useful! I think the fellow hit it right on the head when he pointed out the lack of "fire & brimstone." Where there is no fear of God that comes from prophetic utterance / vision => chaos happens. Blessing comes as we dwell on&in, the Word, even Jesus. Again & again, I wonder if Tim LaHaye did not do the Bible its greatest disservice when he created an apocalyptic series that was a bestselling work of fiction & then sued his co-author. "Kyrie, eleison!" "Tuhan Allah adalah terbesar-besar dan Allah adallah kasih, tetapi jika gereja ngak mau dikasihi dariNya, apa?" [Lord, have mercy!! The Lord God is Most Great, and God is Love. But if the church does not want mercy from Him, then what?"]

[?? How much of what the church does is actually modelled on the babylonian approach to God??

Right now my Mom is studying about Odd-Animals in the Bible. I thought these excerpts from her outline were particularly useful for myself:

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Yesterday I read something that said, always do an outline, all of life is outlined.

We need to remember to pray to God, not to the means that He uses to remind us of Himself.

Our God is greater than all the man-made gods who will bow down and worship Him. The breaking of the head and hands shows how helpless man-made gods are at the feet of The Living God who sees us.

When God is in charge, not even basic instinct will reign. Pray that God is in charge of your life and thoughts at all times. Keep connected with Him to go His way.

God is holy, do not demean Him and His provisions with common ways and actions. Do not demean Him by tearing apart everything that He gives us.

Evidently the residents continued to handle the ark correctly and God blessed that. Others missed his blessing because they feared his judgment.

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My thoughts in response:

The philistines worshipped a fish statue.

I think it behooves us as saints to also be wise in our use of the cross, lest it become a stumbling block because it is reduced to a wooden structure & we forget the reality of what Christ has done!

I was just thinking yesterday along your lines above: The sin / teaching of the Pharisees was that it is the means of blessing that is the key, whereas Jesus was saying it is the Messiah who is the Key to the Father's heart.