Turning Over the Pews

There was a time during the life of Jesus when He got really mad.  So mad that He lost it in the temple.  Why did Jesus become angry?  He saw that the temple had turned into a "den of robbers" where people were greedy in their sale of animals for sacrifice and the money changers were set up in the Court of Gentiles preventing non-Jews from coming to worship God.  The greed and exploitation of worshippers by the merchants was defiling a holy place.

I think Jesus needs to get whip back out and overturn the pews in churches in America today.  Churches have turned into a place of politics.  I’m tired of how politics have infected Christianity.  I'm not casting a blanket over all churches but you could agree with me that there are way too many churches concerned about political agendas.  

I don't attend church anymore.  I haven't since 2010 when I left the church organization I had belonged to all my life.  I won't say that I will never be involved in a church again but at this point I don't see it happening. I certainly don’t know how I could do it today with the influence politics has on it now.

I didn't leave church because of politics.  Why did I leave the church? There is a long story but I will save that for another time. The short answer is that every Sunday I was more miserable and frustrated with my life after I left church than when I arrived. Something had to change. I had to change. 

I left the church but I didn’t leave God. My personal relationship with God grew stronger and remains strong.  I have become very disgusted with the American church today and how politics has perverted the reason churches exist in the first place.

I am very careful who I listen to now and not be taken away by a preachers opinion or how they slant the truth. Honestly I read or listen to my audio Bible more than listening to any preaching. We are living in the times when we must fight to hold onto the truth.

A church should NEVER tell you that you can't be a Republican or Democrat to be a Christian.  It's not about that.  The church needs a good shaking back to the main thing again and it's not who is the president.  

Preachers are slanting the gospel to politics.  The Bible tells us that "we are no longer children, tossed around by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes." (Ephesians 4:14)

Tell me that we aren't seeing these "deceitful schemes" being played out today?    

We are in a time where we have to  “work out our own salvation” now and we must be careful what we see, hear and scroll. 

If Jesus were going through many churches today, He would be saying "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations but you have made it a den of politics and hate."  

The church should be a place of safety for all. A place where the human rights and civil rights of all are affirmed and defended inside and outside the walls of the church. If the call for justice and advocacy for “the least of these” is the action that deems us political and involved in politics, may the church always be that! Silence in the face of tyranny and oppression is antithetical to the prophetic call to seek justice.

Ignoring the hungry, the poor, the unhoused, the uneducated, the undereducated, the sick, the anxious, and those whose very existence is threatened by injustice is to deny the example set by the ministry of Jesus who spoke out against the empire of his day and against the religious leaders who had the power and position as they contributed to the oppression of the people. Jesus had a lot to say about the religious elite who cozied up to the emperor and the empire while collecting temple taxes and tithes.

Preaching politics is something that some pastors have chosen to do.  The problem is that if you are more identified with your politics than your preaching of the Word of God, then people will often come to you for your preaching on politics rather than your preaching of the Word of God.  We don't need a Bible with the Constitution or even the American flag in it.  

I would urge you to resist the current pull of politics and make it about the main thing again. The main thing is this: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Fall Adventure in Mystic and Newport

My wife and I celebrated our 14th anniversary last week.  We decided to go on a trip to Mystic, Connecticut and Newport, Rhode Island.  My wife has always wanted to visit Mystic since we have been together, and we both have hoped to explore the New England coast at some point in our lives.  Yes, we are old-ER now and enjoy some "leave peeping" during the fall.  Our drive into Connecticut was full of trees with colors bursting of the fall season.

Mystic is a nice, small city on the coast of Connecticut.  Yes, this is the place where the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza starring Julia Roberts was filmed.  We did partake of the famous pizza, and it wasn't too bad.  Oddly enough, we were there on the 37th anniversary of when the movie was released.  We didn't know it until later in the day.  We enjoyed walking through the shops along the main street in Mystic.  Mostly your typical tourist stores.  We enjoyed views of the Mystic Bay and walking the short boardwalk.  A short drive from the downtown area was "Old Mystic Village" which featured more shops and restaurants which we explored and couldn't resist the temptation of making a few purchases.  Next to the village is the Mystic Aquarium.  The aquarium has an awesome Beluga Whale exhibit, and the keepers were eager to talk about them.  We stood at the tank for a long time enjoying these beautiful creatures.  We also enjoyed the seal/sea lion exhibit and the main gallery.  We were disappointed that the penguin exhibit was closed during our visit, but we still enjoyed our time there.   

We were in Mystic on Monday and Tuesday of our week so there were barely any crowds; however, we stopped back in Mystic on our trip home on Saturday and the crowds were overwhelming.  It reminded me of Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge crowds on a weekend.  

Newport wasn't a planned destination.  We were going to stop there on our way to Cape Cod, but we stopped in this Rhode Island city on the coast and loved it.   My wife and I love water, and the harbor/ocean views were absolutely amazing.  We are in love with this place now.  Newport was an unexpected surprise.  We stayed at the Brenton Hotel and had an amazing water view of the harbor.  There were many streets of shopping, food, museums and history.  We also toured three of the Newport Mansions.  The tours of The Breakers, Rosecliff and The Elms was amazing.  If you ever go to Newport, you need to tour The Breakers mansion which just totally blew us away.  Millionaires built these mansions as their summer homes and spared no expense.  Our favorite location was Brenton Point State Park where we parked and enjoyed the water view of the Atlantic Ocean.  We stopped here at least three times on our visit.  Just amazing views of the water, sail boats and waves crashing against the rocks.  

If you are planning to visit either of these places, I will warn you that it is expensive for lodging and food.  It was a lot more than we were expecting but we worked it out and enjoyed our visits.  It was a very nice adventure for us.  We also got a peek at Taylor Swift's mansion near Westerly, Rhode Island on a drive from Mystic to Newport.  

Our adventure was an ideal fall trip to celebrate our 14th anniversary.  Mystic was magical and Newport was an unexpected surprise.  

The Merging of Good and Evil

We are in a battle of good against evil. Sadly, it looks like evil is winning. Recently my wife and I were talking about the events in the news and it just seems that everyday there is a new level of evil. The scary thing about it is that people are blurring the lines between good and evil.

The Bible warned us about this in Isaiah 5:20-21:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!

You can’t even call someone out for doing wrong. When you do instead of admitting their error, they will attack you instead. We live in a time when nobody is wrong. Many refuse to accept accountability for their actions. People would rather justify them doing evil than repenting of their ways and doing what is right.

In our country there is a divide between Republicans and Democrats with good and evil being interchanged constantly until people really don’t know who to believe. Anything that is contrary to what someone believes is called “fake news” or attacked. The truth doesn’t stand a chance. Just because a politician or someone in the media believes something is true doesn’t mean it is. We have to be careful in weighing the good and evil. We can’t rely on what “they” say but trust what God has already said about it.

Apart from God, our value system will always become jumbled. We will begin to confuse sweetness and bitterness, light and darkness, and good and evil. Many look for every reason to disprove the Bible or have a belief in God rather than just simply doing what the Bible says. They would rather debate you and argue.

In these challenging days, we have to stick to a standard and that standard is the Holy Word of God. You can’t just base what is right on what you feel. Feelings change and we don’t like being told we are wrong.  Somehow we have to fight to keep the separation between good and evil.