Blog suggestions

I took the liberty to post this letter from my friend Anna, who like me is searching and learning to LOVE GOD .


Dear Eric,

Hello, I hope all is well with you. I have a suggestion for your blog. The review of other religions is interesting but it may be hard for others with limited knowledge of other cultures to participate. How about a Christian Book Review? I am attaching two sample book reviews for your consideration.
Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis 1952
This is a elegantly written defense of Christianity which is very intellectually satisfying to read.During the first 5 chapters of the book, Lewis discussed the idea of a Universal Morality or Natural Law. He goes on to elaborate why there must be someone (God) behind this idea of universal law. He then argues that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity and sums this up in a famous section:“A man who is merely a man and said the sorts of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic or ... else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut he up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He has not left than open to us. He did not intend to.”
If you have ever had intellectual doubts about Christianity this book will rejuvenate your faith.. He then goes on to explain what Christians believe, how Christians must then behave, and discusses Christians values such as forgiveness, hope and faith. I also found the last quote of the book particularly inspiring:
“Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions, and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end; submit with every fiber of your being and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, depair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”I think this quote describes what a daily walk with Christ is really like and encourages us to keep on going when the way is difficult. Has anyone else read this book? Comments anyone?
Finding God in the Questions by Dr. Tim Johnson 2004
Many of us are spiritually searching and wondering if we can question God and if religion is relevant to our everyday life. If you have many questions, then this is the book for you. This book encourages you not to shy away from your questions but notes that this is where God meets us – wrestling with heartfelt questions about faith. Dr Johnson takes on modern science in the first section of the book where he reviews arguments about whether God exists or not. He argues that the Universe was specifically designed for human life by our Creator and is not the result of a series of accidents. In later sections of the book he answers the questions: What is God like (as taught by the Bible)? And How should faith shape our lives? My favorite answer to this question in the book is the discussion of the parable of the final judgment :, “Then the King (God) will say to the people on his right, “Come you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me” The righteous then answer, “When did we do these things?” The King (God) then replied, “I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did for me!" I think this section summarizes how we can put our Christian faith into action. We have to get outside our “comfort zone” and help other is real need! Comments anyone?********************************************************' The stack of books on my desk is growing & I have only recently become more aware of the vast Christian literature on faith questions and apologetics. Please let me know what you think. Discussing these books with others through a blog format would be spiritually enriching. GodBless! Ana

Dear Ana,

Thank you for your suggestion. I will definitely keep that in mind and in the future will review books which will help us grow.

GPS

My daughter attended a summer ' Musical Camp,' last two weeks. Over all I believe most parents, relatives who came to see them perform were very pleased with the program. GPS or God's Plan of Salvation. The whole camp program revolve around the idea that God has a plan of Salvation for us through His Son Jesus. I especially enjoyed their foreword quotation from

C.S.Lewis: A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn. There is no other.

It is good that at a very tender age our children learn about God's Love for us and has a plan for us not to harm us but to prosper us.

Question: If that is true why does it seems that the wick prosper or those who love the Lord have to suffer or why should God allow innocent children suffer and even die? It is not enough just to say that we all have sin therefore deserve to suffer and die. This very question has plague Christians for centuries. David Hume in his 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,' has this to say:

" Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? "

In my next blog I will attempt to take up that challenge from David Hume and the likes.

If you have suggestions, comments would love to hear from you.




Blessings


Eric

Covenant relationship-- Marriage

We had a good sermon today given by Dave Berry on Marriage. I like to tie this in with what we have been discussing about "America is no longer a Christian Nation." I documented that Obama not only was mistaken but indirectly showed that he intended to revise history so that his agenda is achieved namely, "global understanding, everyone is right, no one is wrong except the Christians who are narrow minded and bigoted people."
We as a Christian Nation must understand what that actually means for us. How did we come from a Christian Nation to this point when Obama claiming to be a Christian can say America is no longer a Christian Nation and "we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."


http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Transcript-of-the-Interview-of-the-President-by-Laura-Haim-Canal-Plus-6-1-09/ Here are two paragraph from the French news.

What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.


I submit to you two basic reasons: 1) We are not well founded in our historical understanding of 'covenant' 2) Our reasoning are postmodernist.

Covenantal idea was a unique feature for Israel's religion. That is a covenant between a deity and a people is unknown to us from any other religions or cultures. It must be emphasised that covenant is a matter of heart-- of trust, devotion, and obedience not imposed law.
What better illustration on covenant than the book of Hosea. Here we have prophet Hosea who was commanded by God to take an adulterous wife and gave birth to three children of unfaithfulness. The point here is that God loves Israel and wants her full or wholehearted devotion, but Israel would prefer to trust in foreign alliances, idols, humankind.
Does it not seem very familiar. Our Great Country was founded on Christian Biblical Principles, our official were once men of principles and honesty who love God.....we currently have career politicians who have mastered the art of speaking with two tongues at once e.g. " I did not have sex with that woman... I smoke but did not inhale."
There are no real truth or True Truth as Frances Schaeffer would say. Everyone is right because we cannot be sure that we are right. That is the essential believe for Postmodern man.
The end result is " Everybody has a say and everybody is right. We should be tolerant to every idea. We will not tolerate any one who say they have the Truth."

Any thoughts or comments ?

Eric

AMERICA NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN NATION

Obama US President in his recent trip to Turkey made a statement that 'America is no longer a Christian Nation.'

I very much would like to hear your response to that.

My response to that SHAMEFUL yes SHAMEFUL statement he made are:
1) Why Turkey ? His response is location--Muslim country
2) Do most American believe that we are no longer a Christian Nation?--two thirds of Americans still consider this Great Land is still a Christian Nation.http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=953
3) How many of you heard counter argument to Obama's statement--just because he is the President he is right?
4) I submit to you that one of the basic reason there is little disagreement to his statement is most of us including Christians have not or do not know much about our own history--including this writer.
5) After some research my results are :
a) What do you mean by A Christian Nation? That every citizen is a Christian? The law of USA require all leaders to be Christian? Christianity is the establised religion--Constitution states that 'Congress shall not make law respecting an establisment of religion or prohibit the free exercise of it.' and so on...
b) I submit to you that it can be demonstrated historically that Bibilical Christianity is responsible for the many beloved traditions we enjoy still today like a republic and not a theocratic government, institutional separation of church and state--do not confuse this with today's FALSE and WRONGLY enforoced upon us institutional secularization of church and state, religious toleration and rights of conscience, this Great Nation whose values, society, institution are founded upon Christian Biblical Principles. This of course is ignored by today's revisionists.
c) The US Congress states that America is a Christian Nation, the Judicial Branch states that America is a Christian Nation--this is important because Christian principles are relied upon as the basisi of its ruling on issues like marriage, foreign affairs--if a US citizen live in a Islamic nation this citizen would be tried in the US Consul in that nation (Consular Tribunals) not before the courts of that country-- Christians might be charged with capital offense for blashphemy because we read the Bible !!
d) Be aware of Obama's revisionist view . Do our homework by knowing our own American History and SHARE, SHARE with us your view, research

Eric

God is Good, God is Great Still in the 21th Century

Here we go again, the same old drawn out cheer or is it? How many of us can actually say that from the bottom of our heart after major calamity? Or how many really believe in that statement ? Is it important to truly believe in that statement and can we back up that statement in 21th century in a coherent, well articulated reasoning ?
The above statement has different meaning and practical application for Muslims, Buddhists, Atheist, Evolutionist or Agnostic.
Is it important to be able to articulate coherently, cogently so that we can provide 'a reason for the hope that we have within us?'
I submit to you that as Christians is it VITAL that we must be able to do just that !
I also submit to you that as Christians we need to practice what I call 'Tai Chi Apologetics.' This idea actually come from my good friend Allen Jang.
In our 21th century culture, people desire IRENIC, geninue relationship. Christianity is seen by Postmodernist as losers, backward, ANTI-you name it Christian is. There are growing hostility towards Christians currently in US and persecutions in other parts of the world. How can we turn this around?
The KEY : Love the Lord with all your mind, might, strength and heart.
Here we have the cornerstone for our living. This is the 'fire' inside our Soul that no man or beast/Satan can put it out.

As always your input is greatly appreciated.

Blessings

Eric