Pondering the Path 01

Posted on May 1, 2020 by ehurst

On one level, it’s enough that I follow my convictions. That is the bottom line; it’s the fallback position I take when nothing makes sense in the world around me. Walk in the light you have.

On another level, the Lord has called me to reach for a long view, something that is entirely out of fashion in our Western society. I strive to see the train of human events with a prophetic eye.

We are beset by a large body of plutocrats who give some limited lip service to such things. They provide a robust example of being heart-led — in a certain sense — across a longer sweep of history than is common among the little people. But their hearts are darkened by commitment to something man-centered. Their review of the sweep of history is narrow and partisan. They serve a pantheon of false gods.

We need to be deeply cynical of them, and of the Harlot Church leaders who ride that Beast. If you grasp biblical mysticism and the uniqueness of Hebrew epistemology, then a review of Church History is not very encouraging. We know that the solidly anchored ancient point of view of the Apostles faded rather quickly, if we go by the collected papers and letters among church leaders (“Early Church Fathers”). The substance of mystical faith that lay behind the New Testament writings was lost almost as soon as the last apostle died around 100 AD. The mystical teaching that arose from that faith took a little longer to fade.

Keep in mind that the church leaders had for the next two centuries struggled through a long train of heresies, but their answer to each of these was to seek a defense of the mainstream teaching on the same grounds as the attacks. They fought the fruit, but didn’t bother to cut down the tree. They did not handle the disputes the way Paul would have; they kept getting drawn off into intellectual disputes without a solid spiritual foundation. They didn’t fight the epistemology. God alone knows what happened to the legacy of intellectual background Paul himself carried, but it would appear he didn’t find too many apprentices to train in the ancient Hebrew philosophical orientation. We can discern that Paul understood the differences between Hebrew and Hellenistic epistemologies, but we have no evidence he ever identified that as an issue. We are in no position to question how God was working on that issue.

So after that two centuries of doctrinal conflict, we see that the church leaders face another major problem. Having languished long under Roman persecution, they were eager for any measure of relief that might come from official recognition. So eager they were that they left the door of compromise open too wide. That is, while they stood firm on doctrine, they were very weak on organizational practice. They had long ago drifted into a more Greco-Roman structure, with little memory of the ancient Hebrew covenant family image. This was their primary vulnerability, and it’s where Constantine was able to bribe them into complying with his political agenda.

Constantine needed a church that looked like the imperial government he hoped to form: united and disciplined in the Roman sense of things. All he cared about was the fruit of a burning conviction, not the conviction itself, nor how it results in a tribal covenant identity. He was by no means a believer, only an astute politician who favored the unifying potential of Christian religion as he saw it. Lacking a solid grasp on the biblical Hebrew model, the church leaders were unable to present a solid front on organization itself. They didn’t have a biblical covenant; they had an ecclesiology. This left them vulnerable to Constantine’s demand that they end the doctrinal squabbles by establishing a clearly documented authoritarian edict. That’s not how the Bible says we should handle such things.

In the Kingdom of Heaven, one does not elevate human intellect to a high position of trust. We are careful to identify what human intellect can produce, so as to distinguish that from the kind of conviction the Holy Spirit produces. Conviction cannot be reduced to doctrinal proposition. Truth has never been propositional; it has always been personal conviction. Divine truth has always been variable in expression because God, being a genuine Father and Lord, doesn’t treat any two of us precisely alike. No one else can know exactly what I know, because no one else can duplicate my experiences and DNA.

In Church History, we have no tradition of seeking to clearly understand just what it is about serving God together that gives us a common ground for fellowship. There is no study of how we learn to tolerate things that cannot possibly be the same for all of us. Instead, church leaders have instituted a whole range of things they demand others embrace on pain of various means of coercion. You can’t tell me today’s religion bigshots don’t lust for the legal authority to persecute dissenters. Every time I turn around, I run into a clarion call for the brand of unity “in Christ” that is merely intellectual in nature, and it comes from every nook and cranny, as well as from great leaders.

I’ll grant you that Scripture warns Christ will not return until His bride is ready, spotless and clothed in His glory. But that purity is not a matter of theological orthodoxy. It is something else entirely on a another level. I won’t pretend that I understand it yet, but I’m striving for a different answer based on a different epistemology from what dominates the field these days. My divine calling includes a drive to come up with a different strategy that looks more like the times God poured out His blessings on His people. The social stability of shalom is not the same as political stability; God’s peace is not confined to what humans call “peace”. I’m doing my best to dig through the false assumptions exhibited in Church History to something that stood before there was a church, when the Messiah walked this earth.

So what do I hope to accomplish? On one level, it’s nothing more than mere obedience to the divine calling. I’m walking in the light given to me. Is there a long view here? Sure, but it passes too much through things I cannot see yet. I understand the necessity of pointing to something eternal in all of this, but all I have is a shadowy outline, a shadow cast by glory shining out on the other side. It’s enough light to see the path, but only a step or two ahead of where I am now.

It’s certainly not about me. I didn’t get this far by clinging to some vain hope of being remembered as some great sage and founder of a religion. We don’t need another religion — not just one. We need a million new religions individually sprouting in every soul who sincerely seeks the Lord. We need to treat religion as an individual response to the divine provocation of the Holy Spirit’s Presence in the soul. We need something else to bind us together, not a common religion. Maybe we can refer to a meta-religion, a religious study of religion itself, but not another organized religion with a recognized founder, etc.

So while it’s my job to look far into both past and future, that doesn’t mean I should expect to see all pertinent details. I’m not the One shaping this. It does help if I have a long view to drive me forward into the shadows of tomorrow, but a perspective is not the same as specific insights. I have no reason to expect a particular outcome.

More about this later.

Posted in religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Parable about Rationalism

Posted on April 29, 2020 by ehurst

Reason is a tool, a way of approaching things. Most jobs require more than one tool. Rationalism is restricting yourself to just one tool. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If all you have is reason, you will miss things that cannot be perceived through reason.

If you wade into the ocean with a cup and scoop up some water, you would be a fool to say, “I have the ocean in my cup.” What you have is one tiny sample of the ocean water at that location on that particular day, at that particular time of day, in that particular season, during that particular year. The content analysis of that cup of ocean water could change significantly at other times. But the whole approach of rationalism is that those changes don’t matter; whatever you can make of the contents at that moment is all you really need to know. It treats reality as a static thing.

So maybe you are particularly bright, and your container is a bucket that holds more. And maybe you travel around the world, stopping from time to time in many places, both along the shore and out in the middle of the ocean, to scoop up another containerful of ocean water. Maybe you will get a better understanding, if you do this long enough. You still wouldn’t understand the ocean.

Someone who leaves their cup/bucket on the shore, and wades out into the water with a different sense of things, a different level of perception, will end up with a totally different notion of the ocean. They try to feel the power, the rhythm, and sense the force of life at work there. They gain a sense of their insignificance and the vastness of Creation. You don’t get that from reason. You can get a little of that from an artistic temperament, but it won’t really change you. To come away from that moment in the ocean changed, to merge yourself a little with the totality of the ocean, you have to work from a much higher faculty than intellect and emotion.

To encounter God in that moment requires both the heart and the spirit. There is simply no way I can use human language to tell you about the Spirit Realm and how things work there. The best I can do is use parables to indicate to you something of the essence of what your heart will experience when you encounter the Spirit Realm. (That zone of encounter is what we call “the moral sphere”.) I might be able to help your mind prepare for the rolling waves of imperative that come crashing down on your fleshly nature. It’s possible I can suggest things that allow your conscious awareness to rise above mere reason and feeling. But it’s really between you can God.

There’s no sin in scooping up ocean water in a container. There’s no harm in trying to analyze the physical contents. There’s folly in thinking that doing so will provide sufficient answers to your life.

Posted in sanity | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Praying for Their Enlightenment

Posted on April 27, 2020 by ehurst

Participating in an ongoing discussion over at Sigma Frame, I notice that most of the correspondents quickly get stuck on concrete details. Some will occasionally make note of generalities, but there is still a tendency to stop at that level and not talk on a higher level yet — moral wisdom itself. Moral truth is much more than mere intellectual principle.

I can certainly grasp how the particulars and principles matter: They exemplify good or bad moral discernment. Moral discernment is really hard to talk about in the first place. It tends to defy words, and we simply don’t have a legacy in the English language for handling such things. People who speak and write in English tend not to even recognize anything above intellectual principle. They pull moral truth down to that level, confusing the two. English can handle parabolic expression, but it is simply not part of the standard thought process.

This is why I keep pressing the image of the Ancient Near East (ANE) as radically different from the West. Even when people can accurately translate ANE documents, a great many scholars still fail to grasp the inherent symbolism of the writing. They keep trying to deduce a literal meaning. They recognize that it’s a parable, but they keep wanting to translate the parable itself, failing to understand that parable is a thing unto itself. It’s not taught, it’s caught.

That’s what I run into with a group of people commenting on Jack’s blog. Most of them are at least familiar with Christian faith, but the discussion often gets bogged down below the parable level. Such a discussion must inevitably require a context that includes particulars, and and moral truth is exceedingly difficult to supply in an electronic forum. All the more so when the participants often lack an awareness of the parabolic level of discussion. There are at least a couple of guys who persistently try to pull abstract principle down to concrete particulars — bad enough — but then it’s far worse when they do that with parabolic comments.

One of the primary ingredients often missing from our discussions is how redemption works. It’s not a matter of principle; redemption is a moral truth that cannot be pinned down by human intellect. We experience it in so many different ways, but we cannot hope to encompass the thing itself. We have to discuss it as something far bigger than any one of us, bigger than all of us together. It’s something about who God is as a Person.

Instead, talk of redemption is usually reduced to a mere principle, if it is discussed at all. In dating and marriage, redemption should be a major factor in our choices, just as it is in all our human relationships. Most of us start off on the wrong foot, get burned, and then try again with hopes of having learned something useful. God certainly runs that show, but it takes some doing to get our awareness above the intellectual level. We can be aware of an awful lot of things we struggle to put into words, and it’s those things that matter most.

Too many men participating in Red Pill discussions take positions that exclude redemption. It’s a matter of concrete rules and principles, but very few men seem interested in moral discernment regarding romance. It’s really hard to explain how something can be both wrong and right, because we don’t season our awareness with the moral truth of redemption. It’s too easy to make rules.

It’s that issue of separating awareness from the intellect. The two concepts in English are not synonymous, though most English discussion of them assumes they are. If you don’t move your awareness above the level of mere reason, you can never hope to touch divine wisdom.

My point here is that a great marriage is possible, but it’s never going to be automatic. Sure, you could stumble into it by God’s mercy, but making it work for the rest of your life will inevitably require some conscious moral effort. The tough part is that it must of necessity require that both parties rise above the level of mere flesh in their conscious awareness. The Bible indicates that the performance is always iffy at best while living in a fleshly frame, but that we can harmonize on a moral level that makes Christ the Lord of our marriage.

But doing so is greatly enhanced by having a moral awareness that escapes the world in which we find ourselves, particularly for Americans. American life militates against that higher moral realm of awareness, mostly without even being aware of the difference in the first place. There is an a priori denial that such a thing could be. So the question for us is not, “Can we come up with a better lore of marriage?” The question is whether we can escape the swamp of moral death to make life worth living in the first place.

Whether I can persuade my correspondents on Jack’s comment section to join a discussion that aims for that is, so far, rather dubious. I keep trying to point things above the level of rules and precept, but it doesn’t float very well for very long. I am surely going to learn more for myself, and certainly learn better how I can express what I become aware of, but I’m not sure I will do much good for most of them. So far, it looks like only a couple of them grasp what I’m trying to do. One or two are actually trying to destroy it.

By now, my readers should likely realize I’m not trying to hijack the Sigma Frame blog for my own purposes; it so happens Jack is on the same sheet of music as I. His posts tend to point to the moral level in the first place. He and I both struggle to put those things into clear English simply because of that vast gulf between our language/culture and the ANE/biblical perspective we both agree is better. We are dealing with Christians mired in that bad cultural orientation, encumbered with a churchianity that doesn’t equip men to operate in the realm of parable and moral awareness.

Pray for us. Take a look at this insightful and introspective guest post by one of the regular commenters. If, by the time you read this, the comments are not loaded with posturing and nonsense, just wait for it. Check back in a couple of days. Then pray for Jack again.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Law of Moses — Deuteronomy 29

Posted on April 25, 2020 by ehurst

Many religions refer to the goal of reaching an enlightened state. This was a common element in the various religions of the Ancient Near East (ANE), as well. The broad culture of the ANE presumed that the ultimate good for human existence is to see things from a higher perspective, to gain a sense of moral clarity that made one a source of moral truth. As always, the terms of such a discussion were symbolic, because it was commonly understood that intellect alone was insufficient. They believed that the intellect could not follow the heart into enlightenment, but would have to learn to obey the heart. How a man might gain such enlightenment varied among the different religions of the ANE, but there was a common element of seeking it from the one or more deities.

So a basic assumption of Old Testament religion was that Jehovah alone could grant a transcendent moral clarity. And it would require a persistent effort to act on the more obvious requirements of the Covenant, but to also contemplate on what those commands meant more broadly. It was expected that one seeking enlightenment from God would begin by trying to personalize the Law, to see through the commandments to the divine moral character of God as a Person. It’s not as if no one young ever received such a wondrous gift, but it was considered typical that it might take most of a person’s life to push aside the self enough to catch a glimpse of the divine. But it was always within reach to anyone who really wanted it.

The Hebrew traditions understood the heart as the seat of commitment and moral identity. You could have a heart committed to the wrong things, for sure, so the language of the Covenant documents are filled with admonitions to commit oneself to Jehovah as Lord and head of the household, and to learn to love Him as adoring children.

This chapter opens with Moses reminding the people, while they yet camped east of the Jordan River, that their whole existence as a nation rested on the Covenant. Look at all the wonders Jehovah performed on your behalf, Israel! This is a part of the Covenant, part of His promises to us. You’ve seen things with your own eyes that other nations only imagine.

And why has God not yet given them that divine enlightenment (v.4)? The implication is that they haven’t persisted in trying to understand what the Covenant really means. Forty years they’ve been led faithfully by God’s servant. Their clothes and sandals didn’t wear out; they’ve lived a very pure nomadic existence without conventional bread or wine. Of course, there is grand symbolism in the reference bread and wine, so don’t miss that. He also defeated King Og of Bashan and added his kingdom of vast grassy ranges to the Promised Land, much to the delight of two-and-a-half cowboy tribes. The point is that His hand has been gentle, but they have been disciplined. Did it do any good? Have they gotten the message?

Not if Moses has to remind them to devote themselves to the Covenant. So let’s review: Every member of the nation was standing before Moses to hear the reminder of the Covenant requirements, as well as every ally hanging out with the nation, because they are under that Covenant even if they don’t embrace full covenant identity. There is no excuse; nothing has been kept secret from anyone. The whole point is that not a single person under covenant obligations can complain that they didn’t get the word.

Turn your heart to the Lord!

Now, surely there will be some smarty pants in the assembly who thinks he can hide in the crowd. Somebody out there is bitter and bears a poisonous attitude, thinking to himself that he won’t stand out. He pretends that a drunk man can walk along with sober men and nobody will notice he’s tipsy. The Lord is watching every heart. Don’t be a fool; God will distinguish between those who intend to obey Him and those who are just playing along for the sake of convenience. Jehovah will pile on this man all the curses individually that are indicated as penalties in the Law for the whole nation.

Can you recall seeing the land of Sodom and Gomorrah near the Dead Sea? Do people not still marvel over the ruins of it today? Elder generations tell the younger folks how the evil of the residents there brought down such destruction upon themselves. Other nations near the ruins tell strangers the same story of how God simply could not tolerate them, even in a fallen world, any longer. And would not the same thing happen to Israel if they forsake the Covenant? Well, it can happen to individuals, too.

God does keep some secrets, but He has been quite generous with revealing the Covenant requirements. We have them in writing; God Himself wrote them down for us. No other deity has granted this much insight to any other nation.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Law of Moses — Deuteronomy 29

Raising Ruins

Posted on April 25, 2020 by ehurst

I saw it coming as a tsunami of darkness. It made me feel really out of place as I struggled to find my way through the pastoral ministry jungle. On the one hand, I knew by faith, beyond all doubt, what I had to do to serve Jesus Christ. I also knew it brought increasing alienation from the existing program.

I miss the fellowship. I miss the joy and excitement of seeing people set free by the truth. I don’t miss the lies and outright criminal fraud perpetrated by the conspirators in the church leadership. It’s nothing really new; it’s just a different paint job on the same old corruption. There will always be people who worship the church system instead of the God who called His people to be the church. They have no moral anchor above; they’ll do anything to protect the system. The system is their “divine calling,” not the gospel message. They’ll use the same terminology, but it isn’t too hard to see the different meaning they give it.

In order to protect the system, the organized church after Constantine’s day twisted the gospel message to appeal to the invading hordes of Germanic tribes. They rewrote the gospel, recasting it in terms of Germanic pagan mythology — it changed the character and personality of God from a Hebrew deity into a mishmash of many tribal heathen deities. The ancient Hebrew heart-led mysticism, at home in the Spirit Realm, was exchanged for the fearful spookiness of the unknown. Roman civil government fell under the crushing onslaught, but the official church hierarchy remained alive because of their moral compromise in the message.

So it is with much of the church leadership today: They compromise the message to appeal to the invading horde of heathens. Today it’s the metaphorical invasion of Social Justice Warrior mythology. Earlier in my life, it was the invading hordes of secular scholarship in something called “neo-orthodoxy.” What we have now is just the latest paint job on what I faced back then. It’s the same heathen mythology of vagina worship, but with new layers of disguise. It’s just the latest wave of that same Germanic pagan invasion.

And do I have to explain that it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that we must have vagina worship because the only alternative is phallic worship? Both are simply different faces of the same demon.

There’s a group of more traditionalist ministers trying to raise funds to produce a movie they claim will expose the SJW convergence in American churches: Enemies Within: The Church. It is presented as an exposé of this SJW convergence in several major institutions, to include the Southern Baptist Convention where I once tried to serve. This is the same crap that sees Beth Moore become a symbol to defend. For these false leaders, it’s better to contradict the Bible than to risk loosing the money and power inherent in the aging system.

Unfortunately, the people behind this movie are defending Western Civilization. They don’t understand that the West was born more from compromise between pagans than the greatness of the gospel. And this compromise of the Hebrew gospel message with the invading Germanic hordes was actually the second compromise the church leadership made. They had already become more Greco-Roman than Hebrew during the previous three centuries before the Fall of Rome. But while that transition was incomplete, the arrival of the invading tribes rushed the church leadership into the final tomb that buried the gospel. The birth of the West was no great thing; it was a sad burial rite for the gospel message of Jesus the Messiah. It’s an ornately decorated cenotaph for the heart-led way of faith.

Still, the movie may be worth watching when it comes out. The central figures behind the movie promise to reveal things long hidden. There have been numerous controversies in churches that, while duly reported in the mainstream press, are often caused by something totally different from what is reported. One predominately white church failed to approve a new pastor candidate, and all the reports say it’s because the new pastor was a black man married to a white woman. But the dissenting voices in alternative reports say this new guy was an SJW with questionable plans for ministry. And they also suggest that denominational leadership were involved in some kind of coup attempt in the church to force this man into the pulpit.

I’ve seen that kind of thing before. A church coup was the last straw that drove me out of mainstream ministry. I bounced off a few other options before sensing the call to the path outside the mainstream. While I sense prophetically that there will be a mass exodus from existing evangelical institutions in the near future, I’m not sure what the final end will be. Historically, non-government institutions tend to survive across the collapse of empires and civilizations, but I’m quite sure the size and influence of today’s mainstream churches will dwindle into insignificance as they are replaced by totally different kinds of church. Right now, that’s about as much as I can say.

And it’s enough for me to continue in the calling that now holds me. I suspect I’m just a place-holder for someone else, or maybe several people. That’s fine with me. I’m not a founder, just a guy who stumbled across something long buried and I’m trying help recover it. I’m sure there are others doing something similar. Forget my name, forget about calling it Radix Fidem, but please resurrect the ruins of what once stood so gracefully in this fallen world. What was once the scattered remnants of faith here and there in this individual, or that small group, should be restored as a family identity of faith. It’s our time.

Posted in religion | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Raising Ruins

Another Dog Fight in the SBC

Posted on April 24, 2020 by ehurst

It’s the nature of Western Christianity to fracture, for sectarian divisions to proliferate. Every new theological fad that comes along generates new divisions and distinctions. Radix Fidem is on a different planet. We may tend to overlap now and then with one group or another, but we are genuine Christian Mystics, something that is wholly rejected by the Western Christian mainstream. The only time a mainstream agency may pretend to accommodate us would be for political reasons.

So it’s no surprise that there comes to our attention yet another dust-up within the biggest evangelical denomination in the US — Southern Baptists. Try to understand something: Genuine liberalism has no place among Southern Baptists. Christian liberalism essentially denies the existence of God in the first place, never mind the rhetoric. But among Southern Baptists, there are folks who are relatively liberal to varying degrees. They still believe in God, but dispute with others how He operates, and over what the Bible requires of us. Thus, they generate a different flavor of religion that still resembles the more conservative flavors, but simply isn’t the same thing.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) itself was born of political controversy, and was regarded as inherently more conservative since it was formed. Within that broad belt of relative conservatism, you can find leaders all over the map, ranging from fundamentalist to fairly moderate. A few decades ago, a whole raft of moderates were forced to pull away under the label “Baptist Fellowship” while trying to remain in varying degrees part of the SBC itself. The SBC lacks the mechanism to purge dissidents; it’s entirely democratic and political, rather like a parliamentary entity with many parties.

Within the mainstream of the SBC, a recent trend has seen those formerly regarded as “conservatives” drift into a quasi-SJW camp. I am not sure what to call this thing, but it includes some leaders with outsized political sway, able to convince boards to vote their way. Try to picture a very powerful influence that remains somewhat fragile behind the scenes. They can push through certain decisions that would be difficult to reverse later, but at any moment the whole thing could fracture. This group includes folks like Al Mohler and Beth Moore (a defacto “female preacher”).

I noted a few months ago a spat they had with John MacArthur who is a full-blown Calvinist (pointing to yet another fractious controversy in the SBC) and traditionalist, when he rebuked Beth Moore over her preaching, against very clear Scripture that women should not teach men. MacArthur was actually rebuking everyone who supported this trend. He was also reacting to Beth Moore’s very public support of gay marriage.

Well, in their rush to defend Beth Moore, some of the ostensibly conservative leadership of the SBC have been forced to embrace the wild SJW nonsense that permeates Moore’s teaching. This is kind of an odd, semi-Charismatic revivalism that pulls in a bunch of feminist nonsense, but with the same kind of subtle rhetorical trickery we first saw historically with the Judaizers in the New Testament. The net result is a sort of weird Pentecostal Globalism. In the end, it really cannot avoid supporting the globalist agenda. It tries to sanctify it with a heavy fake Jesus-propaganda paint job, with all kinds of Scripture quotations twisted to give credence to their globalist ends.

Despite the vastly different packaging, it remains little different from Dominionism. It is still the belief that we could somehow save this damned world via “good” politics — theocracy and theonomy.

At any rate, Mohler used his influence to get some folks fired recently. This includes a quartet of seminary professors who refused to endorse Mohler’s promotion of Beth Moore and her wild teaching. They are manifestly more conservative than Mohler. I shed no tears for these rationalist professors who deny the mysticism in Scripture, but I’m just pointing out how purely political this whole thing is, because it’s part of a long series of skirmishes in a war that will destroy what the label “Southern Baptist” used to mean. It’s a war that started with the battle to hijack the SBC by the Zionists, shortly after WW2. The planning for that began much earlier, around the turn of the previous century, but the warfare broke out in earnest during the 1950s.

I’ve noted previously that Zionists and globalists began to diverge from each other in the past few decades, so we are seeing the fruit of that in Mohler’s moves. Not because he has necessarily taken sides in the feuding between globalists and Zionists; indeed, both he and Moore appear to be rather quiet about Israel, but loud about the globalist agenda. Still, that whole thing is becoming quite unstable. The instability is hitting the SBC, which has become a very political institution. I can recall when an SBC church would not even consider putting a US flag in the sanctuary. Now they drape it over the Cross.

And to be honest, I have no dog in any of their fights. However, I am still friends with SBC people, and I know it affects them. It’s part of my ministry to help them walk through the coming tribulation. No, I have no pretense of trying to attach them to my particular kind of religion as a replacement, but simply to help them find a clear path to wherever it is they think God wants them to go. In so doing, I know that I can help them examine their own hearts, and any move closer to a heart-led walk is far more important than trying to point them in a particular direction.

Posted in religion | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Another Dog Fight in the SBC

Wherever You Are

Posted on April 21, 2020 by ehurst

I’m struggling to keep track of it all. With a wry smile, I suppose I must admit this is the result of praying for prophetic insight way back when I was a lot younger. Not that it was the wrong thing to ask, but that it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I was hoping for greater clarity so that I could obey better, and that part is working fine. I have an immense sense of peace with God about most things. But it also includes a rather clear view of just how chaotic things really are outside of that shalom.

I know beyond all doubt that I am supposed to promote tourism in Oklahoma via my drive to ride bicycles around some of our beautiful natural landmarks. I’m supposed to ride and take pictures, and that means camping some, if only because I need to hang around some of those places a day or two at least. I’m supposed to write about those adventures. Not so that I can try to sell you on the idea of coming to Oklahoma, but to provoke Okies to go see their own state, to appreciate what God has made. We need to build a life that doesn’t depend on folks outside our state, but find all that God has placed within our borders for our prosperity. And maybe a few of them will experience that deep, thundering voice of God as He speaks through natural beauty.

You get to see some of that because the message to you is something more subtle: Where are the places where divine thunder can rattle hearts where you live? A critical element of God’s wrath on America is forcing decentralization. Some of you should expect a calling to promote your own state wherever you live. In other words, we should all be celebrating each other’s efforts to participate in what God is doing. This is part of how we broadcast the message that God demands human government and organization be decentralized. We need to shatter the false belief that all men everywhere are accountable to each other on the human level, as if this world can be made better by pulling together under yet another Tower of Babel.

Our only accountability to each other is in the Spirit Realm. We all must obey the divine calling on our lives; that’s in everyone’s best interest. That’s as much as we can hope to do for this world. Frantic efforts at uniformity and centralized orchestration of a human agenda is a temptation from Satan to entrap the world under his authority.

God wants us to know Biblical Law, the moral fabric of how Creation works. Anyone seeking to absorb that could have seen that sinful humans have always perverted God’s revelation. The current global economic system has always been aimed at robbing the little people, by concentrating wealth in the hands of a privileged few. Nothing new about that. But it might require a little education to see how they’ve been going about it. Turning all currencies into debt instruments was a major element in that scheme. Every American dollar out there is an IOU. Every dollar in the US is a debt owed to the bankers. If you try to stack up cash instead of actual property, then all you “own” is a debt obligation. But the implications of such a system is that every physical item of use or value is technically owned by those bankers.

They don’t want the stuff; they want the legally enforced ownership of human productivity. That requires a centralized system of credit and some mechanism of enforcement. They have long used their control of currency and economic activity to leverage enforcement from local governments. Now, they are seeking a more formal unity among governments. To get from where we were — hundreds of sovereign governments — to where they want us, building a new Tower of Babel, they had to engineer a mind-blowing conspiracy of credit and economic control. It was creaky and cranky by design; it was never meant to last forever. It was designed to break down at some point, and we have just about reached that point. The final collapse was meant to generate such fear and chaos that they could step in with a centralized regime that would bring peace on their terms.

It won’t work, of course, but that hasn’t stopped them trying. So we have to endure the coming chaos and rest in God’s hands as He sends Satan to collect on all the suckers who thought he could deliver on his lying promises.

This pandemic is a huge lie. It does not spread by the means we are being told, and its effects have been blown out of proportion. Maybe I don’t understand how it does work, but I can see clearly it’s not what TPTB say it is. Some people catch it at random, but most of it spreads by some mechanism hidden from us. (Your focus should not be on how it spreads, but how you can arm your body’s defenses against it.) It has been pretty carefully targeted to create maximum chaos and fear. It was engineered to provide the panic that covers up all this intentional collapse of the global economy. Everything people think they know is at least partially false.

Yes, massive dark evil conspiracies, indeed, but they will all fail in the end. The people who engineered all of this never counted on God’s hand working. They believed the lies of the Devil.

In the midst of the darkness, Our Lord’s light shines bright. I’ve been trying to direct attention to that shining beacon. Part of that effort has been trying to explain some of the crazy stuff I believe I can see. Just seeing some of that stuff has left a lot of scar tissue on my soul. I’ve been allowed to see some things that burned me and numbed me on a human level. I won’t miss the flesh when I’m gone, but while I’m still here, the conditioning has equipped me for a mission I’m still discovering.

I’m going to ride my bicycle out to quiet and lonely places of natural beauty, where the voice of God speaks quite loudly and brings peace to my soul. I’m going to share pictures of those places, and tell the stories of my explorations. Maybe through those things you can catch a whiff of the peace I find. Hopefully, it will provoke you folks to seek peace wherever you are.

Posted in personal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Law of Moses — Deuteronomy 20

Posted on April 18, 2020 by ehurst

True to it’s name, Deuteronomy (deutero secondary and nomos law) is a second recitation of the Covenant. Thus, we skip over some chapters reiterating things specific to the context of that people, that place and that time.

However, the law of warfare in this chapter speaks to something utterly foreign to our current understanding of such things. What we have here is very brief and sketchy. Tactics and battle training are one thing; the fundamental nature of how God works in human conflict is another thing altogether.

Israel is His adopted family, a people destined to conquer and occupy a land promised to the Patriarchs. It was not merely a gift of inheritance, but it was His command that they commit genocide. Jehovah had a beef with the residents of the land; He had made that clear. He even warned Israel in previous chapters that it was not because the nation were such fine people that He was giving them the land. Rather, He denounced them as a very stiff-necked people. But the reason He was sending them into the land to kill and destroy was because the current residents were morally evil beyond any tolerance.

This was a grisly mission, and God needed an army of men who were utterly convinced of the moral necessity of cleansing the land. So first would come the priests to remind the troops that this was not just something God was permitting, but it was His marching orders to go and face whatever it was the filthy scum could raise against them. Never mind them being bigger people, with armed chariots and walled cities. God said those people were already dead, so Israel needed only go bravely to face them and the enemies would collapse in battle.

This was standard in that day and time. Troops were to become utterly convinced that their ranks were filled with the spirits of their deities, and that the opposing deities had abandoned their people. Whoever turned tail and ran had lost their spirit, quite literally. In this case, it was the one and only Creator God who marched with Israel, and their opposition worshiped demons subservient to the Creator. The land itself cried out for relief from this filth, so go wipe it out.

Before they go, the officers (their own clan warlords) would come and thin the herd down. Men who had unfinished business would not go to war. That is, if they were betrothed and still in that year between the betrothal and the actual wedding, then they would need to go home and get married, make babies. If they had built a new house for their family, and had not yet formally dedicated it, they should go home and take care of that first. Move in and get it all set up and the household running. If they had planted a new vineyard, something that took years to begin bearing fruit, they should go home and harvest that first crop.

These men would be distracted from the battle, thinking and longing too much to go home with all that unfinished business. Men who had established families and households, or who had invested a few years into their vineyards — these men would have something to defend, something a man could fight for. He needed to feel vested in his own future and the future of the covenant community. Yes, some of them would die in battle, but that’s better than the whole nation turning tail and someone conquering them all.

Naturally, if there was anyone lacking the conviction to want the enemies dead, they would hinder the essential business of warfare. We aren’t going out there to reason with the occupants; a battle comes after the negotiations have failed. Get it firmly in your mind they have signed their own death warrant by rejecting the Creator and His terms of peace.

Granted, there were cities out there on the fringes or outside the Promised Land who would cause you trouble. Israel didn’t inherit their land, so if they surrendered, then take some tribute and a few slaves and leave them alone. But if there was no way to live peacefully with them, then take `em out. Kill all the males; their future generations are forfeit. Save the females and plunder for yourselves, Israel.

But as for the people within the borders of the Promised Land, save nothing alive. Kill all the people of both sexes, all ages, and all the animals. Take only the food and the stuff, and empty the buildings not dedicated to demonic deities. Shrines and temples and idols must be destroyed. Don’t destroy the crops, and don’t use fruit trees in your siege works. You’ll be glad you saved them later when you live there.

The first issue of note here is recognizing who was an enemy. Idolaters are a threat by their very existence. Second, it is critical to understand that they cannot be rendered harmless. As long as they breathe, they will do all they can to subvert your trust in Jehovah. This is a reminder in symbolism that we dare not get too close to people who won’t serve our God. They aren’t a part of the covenant family, so you must maintain a solid boundary with how much you let them into your life. If they don’t die to self, they’ll kill your faith.

Posted in bible | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Conversational Labor

Posted on April 15, 2020 by ehurst

When it comes to sharing information, a good collegial discussion is hard to beat. Over the years I’ve been asked several times to serve as a moderator on forums and email lists. The people who managed those virtual meeting places felt that I had a good grasp of how to stay on track, or so they said.

After awhile, I began to see patterns for which I had to issue warnings or bans. I’m not prepared to lay out a laundry list, but there were three things that always seemed to be the biggest recurring problems.

————

1. Some people are trolls, if not by nature or intent, then trolls in effect. Their comments on the list/forum have the effect of calling into question issues that had already been settled by the majority, and should not be raised again. Some people just cannot let things lie once the conversation has moved on to other things. The most popular tactic was subtle ad hominem attacks. Trying to make the discussion about the people involved in any way was a violation. As long as the comments were about the discussion itself, or about the positions people had taken, that was okay. But stuff that got personal in any way was out of bounds. Sometimes it was just a judgement call.

When I encounter that nonsense these days, it’s not that I’m offended that much. It’s okay that some people hate me; that’s normal. I keep saying that I don’t take myself seriously, and I maintain that. But when I see something in the vein of ad hominem, my reaction is: Oh, crap. I have to wade through this again? Sometimes it’s just not worth it if the people running the show can’t be bothered to stop it from ruining the conversation.

2. Some people are lost in their own world. They tend to see everything through a very personal frame of reference and can’t step outside it. They simply cannot bring themselves to see another person’s point of view. Thus, they tend to inject into the conversation all kinds of stuff that misses the point. If you answer any of it, the whole thing quickly bogs down in trying to get them to see that they are off track. If you don’t answer, they take it as some kind of vindication that you didn’t challenge them.

People who do this all the time are socially crippled. It’s not a question of moral failure, but they don’t belong in the same room with everyone else. Most of the time these folks could come to terms with where everyone else is, but they slip back into their own world often enough that you never know when you’ll have to deal with it again. And then it goes around and around again, wasting time and energy on trying to get them to see they aren’t on the same track. As a side note, they also tend to come across as didactic and slightly arrogant, as if trying to lecture others about something.

3. Some folks are just too long winded; they love to hear themselves talk. You get walls of text from them in forums and lists. I’ve had a few walls of text in comments on this blog in the past, and had to ban folks who simply don’t understand that they aren’t entitled to ramble on and on. You don’t have an inherent right to be heard. We might try to give everyone an equal access to means of expression, but only in shared territory, not on someone else’s turf.

There’s nothing wrong with a long presentation that is well organized and engages the whole idea behind a presentation in the first place. Someone with a lot of pertinent data can save a lot of wandering around if they know how to present that data.

There were times I had to confer with the list/forum manager about their level of tolerance for blather, because as I got older, I became somewhat less patient with that kind of thing for myself. It really depends on whether teaching and learning about communication itself was part of the purpose in having a place to discuss things. I had to learn for myself to start responding in bite-sized pieces when I felt I had a lot to say in response to really complex ideas.

————

I have yet to see or enter into a discussion where I didn’t run into at least one, and usually all three of these problems. As someone who is just a part of the herd, I often walk away after a while. There are people with whom I simply don’t belong in the same space. They aren’t bad, but the whole process starts grating on my nerves because people can’t let each other be themselves. It’s not a question of giving offense; what I gain from the discussion is often completely outweighed by the level of hassle in the process, having to read a bunch of nonsense to see if there’s anything pertinent.

I have a mission, and I cannot solve the world’s problems. It’s not my job to change people, but if I can help them with something they want to change, I’ll try. Sometimes I’m privileged to contribute some useful input, and frequently I learn something new, if only from really good questions. But it can get downright expensive in terms of the sheer work of having a conversation.

Posted in sanity | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Bring It On

Posted on April 14, 2020 by ehurst

Let me try something different here.

I look in the mirror at my face and I know full well the filth in my fleshly desires. At times it terrifies me, snarling and threatening to expose me at the worst possible moments. It’s Satan’s ally in my soul. There are temptations in my life that I dread because I’m not sure I will overcome them if I face them. I pray to avoid those things.

Another part of me has every confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit. How in the world did I marry as a virgin at 21, and remain faithful to my spouse, and avoid all the dalliances I was offered along the way, before and after? I can assure you, it was not from a lack of interest in sex. Yes, there were many real offers and some were quite blatant. This is not a boast of my purity, but in the power of God to help us stand in those moments of testing.

The ghastly impurities of fleshly lusts rage within me still. I’m not special. I don’t have anything God has denied others when it comes to the battle against sin. Hebrew 12:3-6 warns that we must be willing to shed own blood in resisting the sin demanded by this world. I’m not sure I can explain where that kind of passion comes from, but I’ve been allowed to taste it, and I know beyond all doubt that it’s there for you.

Here’s a parable of how I envision things. I’m like a SpecOps soldier. Not some super-duper hero, but someone truly passionate about handling the mission. The ultimate qualification for something like Delta Force isn’t merely being physically superior; that’s just how you get in the door. And even then, most of it is matter of accepting the training and pushing yourself because you have that passion. What really matters is that you be willing to endure immense loads of crap, sheer nonsense and inexplicable hassle, because you are addicted to pushing through to the end. This is the only real factor in what makes them “elite.”

Don’t get the idea that success is even really that important. Those guys fail more often than they succeed. It’s because they keep trying that they become valuable. There’s nothing they won’t try to do in order to carry out the mission. They have no compunctions at all about anything that restrains typical humans. Most people would say they have no moral compass, but that’s a mistake; their moral compass is magnetized to the mission. They can be trusted with the darkest secrets because they would rather die than compromise the mission.

This is where I point out that prissy middle class morals are a major problem, demanding that certain things be controlled for the sake of material prosperity. The leaders of that idolatry claim it’s the Word of God, and pervert Scripture to make it seem to say what they promote. It’s not that SpecOps guys are psychopaths who reject all restraint; they just don’t adhere to the common expectations of our society.

I don’t either. Not because I could really be a SpecOps soldier, but God uses me because I’m not a sucker for the silly nonsense promoted by those who think only of their comfort. A part of me is willing to face temptations I know could eat me alive, because that’s where the action is. I’ll endure a lot of discomfort — keep in mind I’m the kind of idiot who rides 50 miles or more on a bicycle with bad knees — because I want to push through to the end of the mission. And if you are stupid enough to try hindering me, you could get hurt. And if it’s me that gets hurt, that doesn’t change my resolve. Nothing matters more than the mission.

If you read the fat load of crap in the archives of this blog, going back more than ten years, you’ll see that I’ve tried several different projects that fell through. I believed they could work, but somehow things didn’t turn out in my favor. I’m still at it. I made some adjustments to my expectations and I’m still advancing the mission. As with so many times during my military service, there are plenty of things I know I am not privileged to see about the future. But when I can get a clear image of what I have to do right now, I’ll push ahead with that, regardless of the outcome.

I have a burning certainty that there is a divinely appointed mission ahead of me that I cannot see, and that will no doubt surprise me in many ways. This Corona virus plague was most certainly a surprise, but it clearly matches things I did expect in the past. I have no idea how this will end, but I know what God requires me to do with what is right in front of me. All the things God has put me through up to this moment were preparation for the coming day of battle. And when I get to the other side of that, it will in turn become a training experience for what lies farther out there, should I still live.

But I’m addicted to the challenge. I can’t retire now; there is too much I haven’t tasted of this calling. When something breaks, I grab a crutch and keep on moving with the mission. Bring it on, Lord!

Posted in personal | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments