WardWritings: 2007

First Book Review

I was pretty upset when I was first trying to find resources on ecological responsibility from a Christian Point of view. I stumbled across this book when putting together a presentation, and O thank God that I did. This book led me to other resources on this topic and I was very enlightened by the contents of the book itself. I was even more delighted when I was told by a friend who worked at out school library that this was one of the most checked out books. That is encouraging because it means that many people are becoming familiar with the ideas that are conveyed in the book. It is somewhat discouraging because I think that more people should put these ideas into action.

The book is not necessarily a deep theological book. This is encouraging to most but to some it may be a discouraging bit of news. Don't let that fact deter you from reading this book. This book is all about practical biblical principals which, if practiced well, results in good theology. The author is a medical doctor who converted to Christianity. This means that he is not a well of historical theology, orthodoxy and heresies. I was very impressed with how well he knows the Bible. That is always the best foundation you can have, and he most definitely does.

What I liked most about the book was how he took some good Christian ideas and showed how, if practiced correctly, they are good for the environment. I want to give you an example, but I'm limiting info from the book because I would prefer that you read it. An example of this is marriage. As Christians we don't like the idea of divorce and we believe that marriages should stay in tact. He shows how this is not only a moral decay, but a moral decay which has an impact on the environment. If you split a home that means there are two homes using energy instead of one, two televisions, two furnaces, two refrigerators, etc. That is just an example. The author really follows the ideas of Pope John Paul II with the idea that the environment is not the issue, it is the sin that leads to the degradation to the environment.

Not only does he show how moral decay leads us to creation destroying lifestyles, he also shows us how to lead Christian lives in regard to ecology. He does this by giving many personal examples. He admits that he and his family are on a journey and are by no means the perfect ecological friendly family, but he fives some examples of successful changes that they have made. Also, near the end of the book he has some very useful appendixes to help you understand the gravity of the situation and your impact on the situation.

To sum up, this is a great read that I would recommend to anyone.

by Unknown ~ Sunday, December 16, 2007 0 comments

Smog in Heaven?

I am starting to wonder if the portrait of Heaven that was on the flannel board in Sunday School is even close to the real thing. The flannel board always showed a bright yellow place that had white clouds and streets of gold and a see that was sparkling clear like crystal. I wonder because I'm not so sure we understand some things that Jesus was talking about.

Matthew 6:10 "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

I don't think that Jesus meant that we should do everything to make earth look like that thing on the flannel board. I do think that He told us to pray and ask God that His will and His kingdom be carried out on earth just like it is in Heaven. Of that's the case then most of us should stop praying. I was taught as a child not to pray for something unless I really truly meant it. I shouldn't ask for God to help my enemy until I truly desired God help for them. Do we truly desire Heaven on Earth? Do we truly desire the things of God here where we live? I think we do, and yet I can't help but notice that we don't tale care of this Earth as if we truly wanted it to be His. We don't treat this planet like a possession of the creator. We do not treat it as if we really expected it to be Heaven on Earth.

I believe that the Scripture teaches pretty clearly that all of creation fell and must be reconciled to God. I'll get into that more later, but that point leads me to the next. We don't treat the Earth as if we truly believe that it can be reconciled to God and that all of creation can be redeemed?

With the way that we put our prayer into action, we must believe that there's going to be smog in Heaven.

by Unknown ~ Wednesday, November 28, 2007 0 comments

Dominion

"Then God said, 'Let us make man[1] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" -Genesis 1:26 (ESV)

What does this passage mean? We are given dominion over the Earth. Does this mean we are able to do whatever we please to the earth as long as it is too our advantage and suffer no recourse or feel no sense of obligation to any standard or rule?

I have heard many Christians say that God has given us dominion and so we are allowed to depleat the earth of all it's resources. We are allowed to use the resources of the earth as we please and feel no responsibility (at least religious responsibility) to take care of the earth in any specific way. I like to think of a Father who fixed up a car for his son and gave it to his son, even so far as to put the title in his son's name. If the son goes out and totals that car because he was driving recklessly, the Father would be furious with his son. I'm not saying whether or not God is furious with us, I'm simply making the point that I believe God does care what we do to this earth that He created for us. Instead of recklessness we should respond with respect. God created this world and everything in it Himself, but even more important than that, He created it with us in mind. We should be extremely reverent in the presence of the beauty of nature. I'm not arguing that we should worship nature but rather adore the complex beauty of it all and let it show us more about the Creator.

by Unknown ~ Thursday, November 01, 2007 0 comments

Luke

I have had a lot on my mind over the past few days. A good friend recently passed away. I don't really have much of a platform to discuss what's going through my mind and how I feel so I'm going to use this.

Luke was many things to many people, just as we all are. To most he was an amazing guitarist. Luke was by far the best guitarist I've ever known. In his few short years on earth and his few years playing the guitar he has already mastered it far beyond what most people could ever dream. I personally feel that he was better than a lot of professionals out there today. Luke loved music and it showed. Every time I talked to Luke the conversation would always turn to music somehow, and usually ended in a conversation about Tourniquet, Stryper, Demon Hunter, Killswitch Engage, or any other band out there that had good guitar in it. Luke always has been and always will be a musical inspiration to me. He was amazing in that respect.

Luke was more than just a good musician, he was also an amazing Christian. Luke was not trained or taught in the inner circles of theology or Biblical study, yet he always loved to learn about that stuff. He loved to discuss the things of God on a deeper level than just what you'd hear at church. He was one of the few people that I would talk to and know that I didn't have to be afraid of getting too deep or to serious because when it came to God Luke just wanted to soak it all in and talk about it as long as we could. This was another area where Luke was an inspiration and always will be. At first I thought he was a musician and that's all most musicians care about, but then he joined Bible quizzing. Luke was by far the best quizzer on his team. I remember sitting down with him a church camp one year and he was excited because we had just received our quizzing books for that year. We sat down and started memorizing the verses even though the quizzing season was months away. That was Luke, hungry for God and His Word.

A few years ago I was excited to find out that Luke and I would be going to the same college. I was blessed to spend that time with him. During that first year at school we had the opportunity to play in a worship band together and I was again blessed to be a musician playing with someone as talented as Luke. I was also blessed with long car rides from the school to church and back. This is where Luke and I help most of our deeper discussions. Luke was fun and serious all at the same time. Luke was unique and there will never be anyone like him.

A few weeks ago I was looking for a guitarist to help me out in a service. My thoughts immediately went to Luke. I gave Luke a call to see if there was anyway he was going to be able to help me out, but it was too short notice and kind of a far drive from his apartment. That was okay, and it was actually the response I had expected, but I took the opportunity to talk to Luke and find out what was going on in his life. He told me everything was good. He spoke some about school and Jessica and some about some friends we had in common. As all our conversations did, we soon started talking about music as he told me about this new awesome band he was playing in and how he felt like this was going somewhere and how successful he thought it would be. He talked about the band for awhile and was excited about it, but then got even more excited as he told about a Bible study he had started for the band and he was very excited about how God was going to use that. That was Luke. He was very passionate about his music, but he was more passionate about God.

I will truly miss Luke, we all will.

by Unknown ~ Thursday, July 19, 2007 0 comments

Spykes? Who cares?

I recently got this e-mail.

"These new products appear to be marketed for young people. Also, as they begin to appear, officers may not realize that these bottles contain alcoholic beverages. They are the size and shape of many small perfume or mouth wash bottles. With the different colors of liquid they could/will be easily overlooked by patrol officers, especially in a woman’s purse. These are small (2.5 - 3 oz) malt beverage at 12% alcohol in very slick bottles.

They are put out by Anheuser Busch, and they are only available in a handful of states thus far. They are being marketed as something to add to beer to improve the flavor, or to pour over ice. They come in four flavors:

Spicy Mango

Hot Melons

Hot Chocolate

Spicy Lime

They are retailing in Michigan for $0.75 up to $1.00 each."

Upon further research I found that there are organizations accusing the company of intentionally marketing to children. They say that it's obvious to see by the flavors chosen. These organizations are spending time and money to stop this.

These are real, but the claims that are made about them are stupid. The company advertises them using this phrase.

"Spykes is a malt-based beverage with caffeine, ginseng and guarana. Spykes mixes well with beer to add alcohol, caffeine and unique flavor and can also be chilled and consumed as a shooter."

First of all. You can get a "shot" of any alcoholic beverage at just about any restaurant that's not fast food. People have been drinking alcohol in shots for hundreds of years, this is nothing new. Secondly flavored alcohol is nothing new. Go to Applebees, Joe's Crab Shack, Cheeseburger in Paradise, or any other restaurant and they have alcoholic beverages with whip cream and hot chocolate on them, or made from a fruit base (just like the spykes). They are simply coming out with a new thing that markets to current alcohol drinkers, mainly women in their 20's and 30's. This is nothing new, just a new bottle. They are not marketing to kids and it's stupid to even make that claim. Can't these people find real issues to put their time and money into. I'm pretty sure that less than 1/6th of the world's population has safe drinking water, their are Christians who are still persecuted daily and killed daily for their faith. There are still people dying in Darfur because of a genocide that the U.S. doesn't seem to care enough about to even put it on the news. There are still thousands of children a day who die because we use all of the worlds resources to feed our obesity. There are still thousands of Mexican slaves in Florida, Texas and California that the government doesn't feel worthy enough of a cause to put any real time or money into investigated and stopping slave rings. There are still drugs being smuggled into the country. There are thousands of homeless people in the State that you live in. So why do we care about the same drink in a new bottle?? Excuse me if I don't seem to care.

by Unknown ~ Friday, April 13, 2007 0 comments

Some Clarification

I'm writing this post for two main reasons. The first is because I haven't posted in a long time and I need to put something on here. I apologize for having posted nothing all year. The second reason is to clarify my last post. I wanted to do this earlier, but I didn't want to lose any of the effect (if there was any to begin with).

I believe very strongly in the Body of Christ. I believe very strongly the the church is the Body and Bride of Christ. I also believe that it is becoming increasingly difficult to locate the Body of Christ in American Protestantism. I believe that we, as American Protestants, are not functioning in the way intended by Christ who is the head. I have more on this, but this is a progressive study for me. My goal is to draw out what we can truly learn from Scripture and post something concrete on this topic. For now, I felt it important to at least address. There will definitely be more coming on that topic.

There are a few more upcoming posts that I've been working on as well. The first will probably be on viewing the world as Christ views the world. The second will be a continuation on my Postmodernism discussion.

by Unknown ~ Friday, February 09, 2007 0 comments