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The Two Cities: The Really Important Source of Division in Our World
In the present “lovefest” climate that’s surrounding Barack Obama’s inauguration, it’s good to remember that there’s more to finding peace and happiness than racial unity and “equality:”
I have already said, in previous Books, that God had two purposes in deriving all men from one man. His first purpose was to give unity to the human race by the likeness of nature. His second purpose was to bind mankind by the bond of peace, through blood relationship, into one harmonious whole. I have said further that no member of this race would ever have died had not the first two–one created from nothing and the second from the first–merited this death by disobedience. The sin which they committed was so great that it impaired all human nature–in this sense, that the nature has been transformed to posterity with a propensity to sin and a necessity to die. Moreover, the kingdom of death so dominated men that all would have been hurled, by a just punishment, in to a second and endless death had not some have been saved from this by the gratuitous grace of God. This is the reason why, for all the difference of the many and very great nations throughout the world in religion and morals, language, weapons, and dress, there exist no more than the two kinds of society, which, according to our Scriptures, we have rightly called the two cities. One city is that of men who live according to the flesh. The other is of men who live according to the spirit. Each of them chooses its own kind of peace and, when they attain what they desire, each lives in the peace of its own choosing. (St. Augustine, City of God, XIV, 1)
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Pathway Bookstore Closes
It’s official, the press release in its entirety:
For the last several years Pathway Bookstore has served the Cleveland and Bradley County community at its current location. Pathway Press has struggled with the economic issues that affect everyone at this time. Due to the uncertainty of the economy, and after much deliberation, the leadership of Pathway Press, its Board of Directors and leadership of Church of God have made the difficult decision to close Pathway Bookstore, effective immediately.
Current plans are to sell the existing bookstore property on 25th Street. Decisions regarding possible reopening of the bookstore at another location are under consideration, but as of this date no firm plans are in place. We will continue to be available to serve the community via the internet at www.pathwaybookstore.com. If you hold a gift card or have layaways, they will be honored through the internet or at Pathway Press, located at 1080 Montgomery Avenue, Cleveland, TN 37311 (423) 479-9601. Pathway Press has enjoyed the opportunity of serving the city of Cleveland and Bradley County, and appreciates the support of everyone in our area.
At one time this was the second largest Christian bookstore in the U.S.
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A Reminder of the Real Meaning of “Separation of Church and State”
Baby Blue’s nice little article on the role of the local church vis à vis the beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Virginia are interesting for the current history of TEC, but they have a broader application:
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did not think so highly of the former established church’s assertions either. And so we have the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (and what religious corporate entity’s past proclamations and actions do we suppose was the object of grave concern in that statute?) opening the door wide to the First Amendment’s protection of individual – not corporate – rights in the United States Constitution. The statute recognized the freedom to dissent.
The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786 and it’s no wonder that the shrinking remnant of the institutional church were not pleased. Though they had sent a clergyman over to England to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, things did not go well back home. The Episcopal Church in Virginia fell into deep decline, not even bothering to show up for the 1811 General Convention where, it was reported, “the Church in Virginia is from various causes so depressed, that there is danger of her total ruin, unless great exertions, favoured by the blessing of Providence, are employed to raise her.”All of the Southern colonies–Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia–had the Church of England as the state church, supported same with tax revenue, and dealt unfavourably with other churches. The whole point of the disestablishment of same Church of England was to put all of the churches on an equal footing before the law and not to have one of them established (or “official”) at the expense of the other. By this religious freedom is established.
Today people talk of “separation of church and state” as the exclusion of any religious reference from public life. But the original concept was more concrete: it was the repudiation of the European practice of an institution being designated as the governing religion of the nation. When people talk today about the “separation of church and state,” the vast majority of them have no idea about the real meaning of the phrase.
The Episcopal Church finally got over the funk of disestablishment to become for many years the church of choice for those seeking to get to the top of this society, no mean accomplishment.
What worries me is that our government will circumvent our constitution and create a “two-tier” system of churches. One tier has values which are acceptable to the government, and receives tax exemption, zoning variances, public accolades, and the like. Another loses the tax exemption, receives unfavourable treatment from government and elites, effective state control of schools, hospitals and other charitable efforts, etc. The Carter Administration started down this road. All it takes is a bureaucracy empowered to do it and a judiciary ready to go along with it.
After all, if judges, supposedly educated in the history of our country, can forget the real meaning of “separation of church and state,” what else can they forget?
That’s what happens when you let a gang of superannuated hippies, too many brain cells destroyed by substance abuse, get the upper hand.
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V. Gene Robinson’s Prayers Should Be Consistent
Now that he’s on tap for Barack Obama’s inaguration festivities, Robinson complains about the prayers that went before him:
Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.”
“I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.”
Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to “the God of our many understandings,” language that he said he learned from the 12-step program he attended for his alcohol addiction.
Robinson would make more sense if he just ditched the Christian prayers altogether, including all those he intones as Bishop of New Hampshire. Ditching the Scripture quotes would make it easier to line up his way of life with his theology, too. Who knows, perhaps he can get Christian prayers and Scripture quotes excised from whatever replaces the 1979 BCP, and then we would at last have some transparency in the TEC.
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Jesus’ Method in Forming Disciples
From Abu Daoud:
1) He taught them with authority–We have the same Word, the same Spirit and the same authority.
2) He lived with them–he had daily contact. Discipling Muslims demand our daily time and togetherness.
3) He discipled in small groups or 3, 6, or 12. We make a mistake if we look for large numbers. The core men and women of peace need intensive, personal training in order to for them to train others.
4) He knew their capacity to learn. He began simple and only entrusted them with what he could trust them to keep. Security is a major issue for Muslim background believers.
5) He taught them from the beginning how to deal with opposition and persecution. When you call a Muslim to trust Jesus as Savior and Lord, you call him to come and die!
6) He disciplined during teachable moments. Peter was a good example, i.e. The confession at Caesarea Philippi, the Lord’s Supper, before the cock crowed and even after the resurrection beside the Sea of Galilee. We need to know when to be gentle, firm and direct in discipling Muslim background believers.I dealt with this subject last year. And, our society becomes more secularised, the more relevant this becomes. These points were directed at converts from Islam, but their application is much broader.
To a large extent, American churches have used the “cultural Christianity” as an assumed background to save them a lot of work. But this is no longer a viable game plan. As George Barna recently reported, Christianity is no longer America’s default faith. (To which I would add that heaven has never been eternity’s default!) It’s time for churches to recognise this and plan accordingly.
Three years ago the ministry I work for published LifeBuilders Essentials, which is designed for basic discipleship for men in small groups. (It’s also available in Spanish.) I trust that these are helpful for both you and your church in making true discipleship a reality.
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Apple Tax? Absurd!
Microsoft is getting desperate these days:
With Apple’s last Macworld keynote speech just hours away, Microsoft is again talking up the idea of an “Apple tax” that people pay when they opt for a Mac over a Windows PC.
What Gates’ Gang doesn’t want to think about is something that any car dealer–and most Macintosh owners–know: there’s added value in reliability, longevity and resale value.
One of the reasons I switched to a Mac in 2002 (this blog was largely developed on that Titanium Powerbook) was that I was tired of mindless system crashes and having to constantly outwit the world of viruses and other unwelcome invaders. If you have a systems administrator, that’s his or her job, but for a single user you’re on your own.
That Titanium Powerbook lasted six years, still running when I disposed of it just before the stock market tanked. Biggest problem I was having with it was the lack of USB 2.0 port, which meant that my iPhone wouldn’t sync with it. I only know of one Windows machine that lasted that long, and that was a Win 3.1/DOS server with a SCSI drive that was seldom accessed and had no internet connection.
Old Macs have better resale value, too. Why do you think a site like Low End Mac is viable?
In Europe, they speak of a “Microsoft tax” on computers, especially in groups, which is one reason why Linux is still standing. Macs, with their Free BSD base and other advantages, are for most users an easier option. If there’s taxation going on out there, it’s being sucked into Seattle.
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A Thought on Episcopal and Anglican Churches Leaving
Something just hit me about this topic.
During my first visit to the UK, I went to Westminster Cathedral (the central cathedral for the Roman Catholic Church in the UK.) I think it was there I read the lists of the main archbishops who presided over the “holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” in England, at least. It starts out with the same Archbishops of Canterbury that any Anglican would count. Then, at the time of Henry VIII, the list stops. After a break, it resumes and eventually picks up with the Archbishops of Westminster.
Meanwhile, any Anglican church would continue the succession of Archbishops of Canterbury up to the present occupant (Lord have mercy upon us!)
TEC can whine all it wants about those who want to leave, but the truth of the matter is that bailing out is in the DNA of Anglicanism. When it came time to separate, the Church of England had the advantage of state support (coercion is more accurate.) TEC is using the state to prevent schism, a state which itself is a product of a violent separation from “Mother England.”
Leaving aside the issue of parishes seceding, if dioceses like Pittsburgh and San Joaquin succeed in making the break (and I hope they do) there will be yet another two sets of lists of bishops for these dioceses.
And, unless the cops show up, TEC’s will doubtless be short.
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The Dalai Lama’s Worst Nightmare
Beijing is one thing, but this kind of thing is another altogether.
People forget that the rule of the Dalai Lama in Tibet (and I’m not just talking about the present holder of the title, but in general) has both secular and theocratic aspects. If the Tibetans abandon Buddhism, they abandon the Dalai Lama. That’s why events like those depicted in this video are just as dangerous to the Dalai Lama in the long run as whatever Beijing might do.
From a recent episode of the 700 Club.
Update: this is now on YouTube:
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Losing the Church Property, or Why the Romanians Don’t Tithe
The fallout (and for the true Anglicans, the agony) of the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold trusts based on the Dennis Canon–and thus facilitate the retention of parish property by the Diocese of Los Angeles and TEC–has generated a lot of comment, some of which has linked back to this site (thanks!)
One of the reasons why I follow the Anglican/Episcopal world is that I see it as a microcosm of the larger social conflict we have going in our country and our world. This setback for Anglicanism, however, has gotten me to thinking about another problem that isn’t entirely related but is important to our understanding of what’s important for Christians and why.
My wife and I recently had dinner with a well known minister who oversees, among other things, a network of Romanian Pentecostal churches in the U.S.. One observation he made was that, because of so many years under communism, the Romanians don’t tithe and give to their church the way their Anglo counterparts do.
Regulars to this site know that communism is a subject I frequently deal with. I’ve also had extensive contact with Ukrainian and Russian Pentecostals. This is a hardy bunch. They’ve survived the likes of Stalin and Khrushchev (Brezhnev wasn’t too bad, and the Romanians outlasted Ceauşescu.) Many of them or their ancestors survived the brutalities of the Siberian gulag, or “orphanage” schools (their parents weren’t dead, just in prison for their faith.) They can be rigidly legalistic, which doesn’t always go over well in this country. But their disassociation with communism transcends the atheism; they had no problem participating in the “underground economy” or “black market” that flourished in those years. They are, in other words, good, industrious capitalists, and many are very successful in the U.S. But getting them in the swing of regular and substantial tithing and giving to a local church is a struggle.
The problem isn’t greed or lack of commitment to Christ. What the problem is that, for many years, their churches back home–mostly house churches–were unable to hold or accumulate any funds that were given them. Any bank account they might start would only alert the authorities, who would duly seize the proceeds. The same problem existed on a larger scale if they decided to build a church. Wads of cash in the hands of whatever church clerk or bursar they might appoint was also subject to seizure, and remember how the first person appointed to this job ended up? So they operated their churches in a largely cashless manner, taking care of each other directly. Now they live in a country where it’s possible for churches to accumulate wealth available for ministry, but old lessons–especially learned the hard way–are difficult to forget.
And they may have to be relearned. It’s true that centrally owned and governed churches who abuse their powers regarding the property will find themselves with a laity more reticent to support the church. Today, it’s the homosexuals, but tomorrow who knows what will get a parish in trouble? Beyond that, however, the whole concept of private property in the U.S.–essential to our economic prosperity–is being eroded by a wide variety of factors, including environmental laws, zoning, and stuff like Kelo vs. New London. Any major expansion of government–almost a given with the current administration–will erode these further.
People advertise giving as “God’s plan for financial success.” But this plan is dependent in part upon living in a society where God’s church can accumulate (and dispense at will) wealth. I don’t believe that God’s plan can be frustrated by socialism; the Romanians and Ukrainians proved that communism couldn’t either. But if we find ourselves in a place where the accumulation and control of income is frustrated by governmental or ecclesiastical fiat, we, like the persecuted church has done and is doing, will have to shift the emphasis of our Christian life elsewhere.
And that, my friends, isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 
