So…

Just heard from a friend. He and his wife are looking for better jobs, and he asked me to keep them in my prayers. I can do better than that. I’ll keep them in YOUR prayers.

Put in a word for them, if you have a minute.

Get Religion on the Dirty old Web

I rooted around online today, checking out such local churches as had bothered to create a website.

I’m very confused about the Assemblies of God. On the one hand, they have a lot of problems in their history, such as the Swaggart and PTL scandals. On the other, it seems like many of the churches are fed up with the monkey business, and they’re talking about things like the need to lead a righteous life.

I looked at David Wilkerson’s site, just to find out what he was about. This is the man who wrote The Cross and the Switchblade. He moved to New York City in the Fifties and started reaching out to gang members, and now he has a huge ministry.

I listened to a couple of his sermons. He makes me a little nervous when he talks about how he’s sure the end of the world is close. A lot of preachers have ended up embarrassing themselves, talking like that for fifty years and then dying without seeing any of it come to pass. But he talked very convincingly about living by faith, and unless I have him confused with someone else I listened to today, he said he never asks for money.

I turned on the TV at breakfast time, and a guy named Randy Brodhagen was on. At first, he came off as crabby and maybe a little crazy, but he gave a lot of good, stern advice about forgiveness. He doesn’t ask for money, either, which seems unusual for a charismatic these days.

Sometimes a tough preacher is what you need. In the past I’ve seen preachers make unrealistic promises (on God’s behalf) and then berate their congregations for failing to receive them. Your leg didn’t grow back? You must not be doing X, Y, or Z right. That’s fraud, pure and simple. But a preacher shouldn’t pander, either. Part of the job is telling people what they’re doing wrong. I thought Brodhagen made some good, useful points. I don’t know what denomination he is.

I listened to a sermon by a local pastor with a very nice church. Seems like a great guy, but I could not find the lesson in what he was saying. It’s strange; he’s an AG preacher, and usually, they’re very big on exegesis and so on. But his sermon almost sounded like a secular newspaper column. Not many scriptural references.

I found another local guy who talked about alcohol. He doesn’t drink, and he’s against drunkenness, but he won’t tell believers they have to be teetotalers. That seems reasonable and hard to fault. But he went off on an explanation of the water-to-wine miracle which was a little gross. He talked fast, so I may have misunderstood, but it sounded like he was saying drinking from the six jars, which were ordinarily used for ceremonial washing, was like drinking from a toilet. I must have gotten it wrong. It doesn’t make sense. I’m no zero-century Jew, but my guess is, they didn’t wash with dirty water. And Jesus wouldn’t serve someone from a dirty vessel.

I always thought that miracle was some sort of metaphor for filling people with the Holy Spirit.

I see the value a church website has. People like me are out there, thinking about going to church, and they’re reluctant to just drive around interrogating preachers. A church with an informative site and some sermon downloads is a lot more likely to get chosen for a visit.

I just can’t get over the power of the Internet as a tool for Christians. I’m so used to seeing filth and anger and depravity pour out of it. It’s amazing to see how wholesome it can be. You can read just about any Bible translation. You can listen to sermons. You can read Bible teaching. And you can shop for a church. Next time you find yourself caught up in obnoxious blogs and political feuds and other unhealthy Internet pursuits, look around for religious material. If you haven’t done it before, you’ll be shocked. And the best thing about it is that it’s habit-forming.

Six Hours of Silence

I appreciate all the comments and emails RE church choices. As you may have noticed, my server was down all day, so I haven’t responded yet. But I have not forgotten.

Eeny, Meeny…

I had a sad experience today.

I’ve been looking around online, trying to figure out which Christian denomination suits me best. I really need to start going to church.

I want a church that believes in the Holy Spirit, and that God is as active today as He ever was. And I can’t buy into the saints. That rules out a number of otherwise acceptable older churches. On the other hand, the heavy-duty faith-filled churches tend to get into craziness and greed. I want a church that accepts charismatics, but which doesn’t insist that everyone pray in tongues. And I’d like a church that has a sense of duty; a church that tells members you actually have to try to do the things Jesus told us to do, even if you are saved by grace.

While I was searching online, I came across a church started by a couple my mother knew. Back around 1980, they were teachers. They felt they had the calling, so they took off and went to Bible school in another state. My mother stayed in their house while they were gone. This was a tough time for her, so it was a real blessing to have the house. I remember staying there over spring break when I was in college.

They were charismatics. They studied under a well-known evangelist who used to appear on Trinity Broadcasting from time to time.

When they came home, they started a warehouse church. And it survived for quite some time. A few years back, I drove by the site, and I didn’t see the church. I assumed it had failed.

Today I found that the church had moved to a new, bigger site. Things appeared to be going great. I was so happy to see it. My mother thought the world of these people, and they were good to her, and she would have been pleased.

I wondered if I should go to the church and introduce myself; I’ve never met them. I wondered if it might be a good place to attend services. It would sort of complete a circle.

I took a look at an archived sermon. And the husband was at the front of the church, holding a notebook with a cover that looked like a giant banknote. A twenty or a hundred, maybe. As I understood it, they had printed notebooks like this up for church members, and they were studying from them. And he was talking about money. For the few minutes I listened, that was all I heard. Money, seed, tithe, offering, sowing, reaping. It was like taking a time machine, back to the days when I got so discouraged with the church, I couldn’t make myself go any more.

Maybe they know something I don’t. Maybe they’re right and I’m wrong. But it broke my heart to see that man waving that notebook. My mother admired him and his wife so much, and spoke so highly of them. And they were so brave, leaving their secure teaching jobs to become preachers. And after all these years of work, this is what it amounted to. I can’t believe this is a good result.

Yes, I believe we’re supposed to have prosperity. No, I don’t think we should wear hair shirts and live in huts. But like another preacher said in an article, God is not a vending machine. You give out of duty, and because you feel in your heart that it’s a privilege to give. You give to know the pleasure of being allowed to help people God cares about. I just can’t believe it’s right to go to church and donate money with wealth as one of your main goals.

That church is out.

I like Corrie ten Boom and Brother Andrew. I tried to see if I could find something resembling the Dutch Reformed Church, to which they belonged. But it has split over and over, and they expelled Brother Andrew for evangelizing. I can’t find out what denomination he belongs to now. He says he has no use for denominations. That’s fine, but where does he go every Sunday? I know he’s not sitting around the house.

It appears that the Assemblies of God has changed a lot. The church I used to belong to was somehow affiliated with them. At that time, they were too caught up in TBN-style money-and-miracles theology. But now they openly condemn prosperity preaching. This is the church to which Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker used to belong. Is it possible that they’ve reformed enough to be considered viable?

The Seventh-Day Adventists seem to be less scary than you would think. Most of their theology seems very reasonable, and I think they may be right about hell. But they’re a bit on the cultish side, and they tell you what to eat and so on. They seem like fine people, even though I don’t agree with their more-unusual ideas.

I took a look at the Foursquare website. This is Jack Hayford’s church. Seems pretty much okay, although somewhat inclined in the TBN direction. The thing I don’t like is that their website proudly features the biography of Aimee Semple MacPherson, while omitting the part where she pretended she had been kidnapped and was nearly indicted. You shouldn’t hide a thing like that. Makes you wonder what else they hide.

Someone mentioned the Reformed Church in America, which is somehow related to Dutch Reformed. This is Robert Schuller’s organization. A church with that much pomp scares me. If you can’t preach in a normal voice, and if Larry King actually likes you, it makes me uncomfortable. I’ll give Catholicism credit; the Pope wears some fancy outfits, but he doesn’t seem affected, and he doesn’t seek approval from people who don’t believe.

Some churches substitute theater and human effort for the active power of God; that’s the thing that worries me. A church the world accepts and praises seems unnatural. I’ve always thought that a church that demonstrates God’s power will provoke the god of this world and spark resistance and persecution. Going to a big, bland church that accepts everyone…well, to me, it seems like going to one of those churches the government of China approves. If people on the other side of the aisle like what you’re doing, maybe you should stop. It’s just an impression, though. I know virtually nothing about the Reformed Church.

It occurs to me that this is like any other kind of Internet shopping. You get so many choices, in the end, you become paralyzed.

I came across a couple of interesting concepts. They’re not churches, but they’re worth commenting on. One is the International House of Prayer, or “IHOP.” This is an outfit that keeps prayer services going at all times. If you walk in at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday, there they are. I really like that. Isn’t that a fantastic idea? Off the top of my head, I think prayer and Bible study are the things we neglect the most, and they’re the most powerful parts of a Christian life. What could be more powerful than constant prayer? The IHOP folks seem a little “out there,” though.

I found another group called Healing Rooms. They have offices where you can go and receive prayer for your illnesses. I’m not sick, but you can bet I’d want to go, if I had a real problem. Free prayer from total strangers who don’t owe you a thing? How can you turn that down? When I saw it, I thought it would be a great place to volunteer to help. But they probably don’t take walk-ins, and I’d feel a little funny, showing up and offering.

It seems like we don’t DO much, when it comes to prayer. Do most Christians even pray every day? I know there have been many days in my life, in years past, when I didn’t. And what percentage of Christians fast when they have problems? It’s pretty neat, having establishments whose sole purpose is providing a place for prayer. Prayer is powerful, right? If so, we should be doing it every day, with goals and direction. If not, why do it at all?

I checked out the Promise Keepers. Not a church, obviously. They seem okay, but they have offended people by letting gays show up at their events. They have an unusual policy. They say homosexuality is wrong, but that they will still allow gays to participate. I guess that’s a good approach. It’s a tough decision. Do you want to run people out of the church, when you believe they truly need help? On the other hand, you don’t want them becoming such a big part of the group, they start agitating to change the rules. You don’t want to have to celebrate Promise Keeper Fantasy Fest.

I think it’s pretty obvious that Catholicism is not in my future, but I did check out some Catholic TV, just so I could claim to be open-minded. The thing that struck me was that nobody on EWTN seems happy. They seem kind of worn out. Like a party that just lost an election.

When I used to go to church, I had a wonderful time. I went twice a week. I enjoyed the teaching. The music wasn’t that great, but I got through it. I enjoyed seeing people I knew. I loved the atmosphere; that relaxed sensation that God was present. I don’t get much of that flavor from Catholicism. I’m trying not to be critical. Don’t get out the comfy chair and the stuffed cushions. Catholics say it, too. Where do you think guitar masses came from? Priests were trying to compete with the wacky Protestants.

There used to be a charismatic priest down here who was considerably more upbeat than the EWTN crowd.

There has to be some healthy middle ground, between Robert Tilton and Mel Gibson. One thing I will never believe is that you have to belong to a certain denomination to be saved. God has given me a number of supernatural experiences. Surely He wouldn’t go to all that trouble without warning me I was on the way to hell for going to the wrong church. Surely there would have been a clue by now, with all my searching.

It seems like an odd thing is happening. Bible-believing Christians have more denominations than ever, yet we seem less inclined to be divisive. We tolerate each other better than we used to, I think. I sometimes wonder if the charismatic movement has brought people together. It started with Protestants, but some Catholics proudly insist one of their Popes got the ball rolling with a prayer. And now it seems to have penetrated many denominations to one extent or another.

I’ll figure this out eventually. I want a church, and I would also like to be of some use to God.

I used to believe you could measure a person’s goodness by what he didn’t do. Lately I’ve learned I was wrong. The Bible says your deeds will be measured in the afterlife. And you can’t get points just by naming all the sins you didn’t commit. You have to make some effort to improve the world. I would like to feel that I accomplished something of value on earth. Luckily–if that’s the right word–the opportunities are endless. The world is a smorgasbord of remediable suffering.

I suppose I should see this as a hopeful time for me.

Leah Improves

I heard from Leah Friedman this week. You may recall that she has a heart problem, and that she went into respiratory arrest and suffered oxygen deprivation to her brain. She has been recovering well, but she still has some language problems, and she has paralysis in her left arm and hand. Thankfully, she no longer walks with a cane.

She has been so upbeat in her communications that I didn’t realize she still had these lingering difficulties.

Leah credits prayer for her recovery, and so do I, and she seems especially grateful for the prayers volunteered by readers of this blog. I’m grateful, too. A lot of fine people show up here every day. Thanks for turning this blog into something that occasionally benefits humanity.

If anyone is still willing to offer a prayer, I feel sure she wouldn’t turn it down.

On the subject of changing things so they turn from harmful to beneficial, I have been trying to work a similar change in myself over the last couple of years, and I highly recommend it. I can’t explain it, but when you focus too much on doing things for yourself, it’s like lying on the couch all day, overeating and drinking beer. You start to feel sated but not satisfied. You start to become conscious that every additional thing you do for yourself adds weight to your burden. On the other hand, turning your efforts outward lightens your load and adds to your peace.

It’s easy to get the idea that all you have to do to make God happy is leave other people alone and accept salvation. But it’s not enough to avoid doing harm. If you’re not actively helping people, you’re missing out on half of the experience. So I’m always–okay, usually–grateful when I get a chance to do something for someone. You can’t help another person without helping yourself. And I have a lot of idle years for which to account. I tried to be good, as I understood “good,” but from my current perspective, I see that I missed opportunity after opportunity.

One of the things I have had on my prayer list for a couple of years (at least) is that I would become less critical and corrosive, and that I would become a person who affects others positively. I was getting sick of myself, to tell you the truth. To some degree, I still am, but I am enjoying the progress.

A reader complained that I seemed crabby since I started trying to improve my relationship with God. I was very surprised. I’ve gone back and looked at things I wrote three or four years ago, and “crabby” doesn’t begin to describe them. Sometimes I’m tempted to delete them, but I think they have a certain amount of value, because they show how things have improved.

Any time you draw closer to God, you’re going to encounter resistance and anger that don’t seem justified. I believe these are signs that you’re headed in the right direction. I think I should try not to take it personally when people react badly. They usually mean well, and they may be under influences they don’t understand.

Anyway, don’t forget Leah. She hasn’t forgotten you.

Turns Out Socrates is Unavailable

If you’re not near a TV, let me give you the news. John McCain hasn’t picked a running mate yet, or at least he won’t say who it is. He was supposed to tell us today at 11 a.m. The problem? Barack Obama made his announcement by text message. John McCain chose Pony Express.

The waitresses and bartenders appreciate your tips, folks.

I couldn’t resist.

I’m completely creeped out by Obama’s weird Acropolis stadium set. Have you seen this thing? They put phony Greek columns up at Invesco Stadium, and I guess Obama is going to come out with a bronze sword and slay Polynices.

Does anybody remember Wag the Dog? I don’t. But I recall this much: it was about a President in trouble, who tried to save himself by hiring movie people to fake up the news. Do you get the feeling the Obamas may own the DVD?

I guess it makes sense that Obama is promoted like a movie star, and that he’s surrounded by actors and musicians all the time, while McCain is lucky if he can get Pat Boone to send him a non-alcoholic beer on Facebook. We are gradually learning that there is a conservative entertainment counterculture with more than a few prominent members. Problem is, if they go to Minneapolis, they’ll all end up unemployed. Because Hollywood and the music business want to be diverse, and as we all know, “diverse” means “free of conservatives and Christians, regardless of color.”

As I have noted before, if you take a group of white male liberals and add a black female conservative, the group actually becomes less diverse. It’s like conservatives and Christians are the antimatter of diversity. Or something.

Condi Rice is a white man. Get used to it. Colin Powell used to be white, but since he turned on the Republicans, he has browned up nicely.

As a Christian, I continue to be bummed out by two things. The right’s abandonment of Christian (or Judeo-Christian) values, and the anti-Christian undertones of the Obama phenomenon. This guy runs around with an idol in his pocket, and the idol just happens to be a demigod which has been characterized credibly as the Hindu Antichrist.

For a long time, I’ve believed there are people who succeed beyond reasonable expectations, simply because dark spiritual forces help them. Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Oprah may be examples. Also Hitler and Castro. By the way, if you think I’m picking on Oprah, find out what she’s up to. She has hitched her wagon to a pop-culture faux Messiah named Tolle. And she says there are all sorts of paths to salvation, not just the one which Christians accept. That’s anti-Christian. Take the hyphen out, and what do you get? Furthermore, “anti-Christian” contains the letter “T,” which rhymes with “P,” which stands for “pool.”

I never saw an obscure reference I could resist.

We usually use the term “antichrist” to describe a unique person we think will rule in the future. But I believe there are lots and lots of people who are “anointed” by evil to prosper in this world and influence people negatively. Is that crazy? I know I’m not the only one who believes this. And I worry that Obama may be one of these people. He’s a nobody, with no qualifications for the job he wants. And he had very powerful competition for the job, in the form of Hillary Clinton. But he squashed her effortlessly. On top of that, the press is so giddy over him, you can’t help but wonder if something spiritual is clouding their judgment. Chris Matthews said Obama made a tingle run down his leg! Is that something a person says, when he’s in his right mind? THREE network anchors went on a press tour with Obama. How can a thing like that happen, without generating a wave of firings? It’s inconceivable. But we all saw it.

He also spent twenty years at an anti-Semitic church. I don’t differentiate between anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. To me, it all seems to come from the same place, whether you’re talking about Pharaoh killing the Hebrew firstborn or Muslim fathers murdering their sons for accepting Christ. Increasingly, events bear out my impression. The same people who hate Jews, now hate Christians and America. Like I always say, these days, we are all Jews.

Even Christian churches are anti-Christian now. Many of them tell us to divest from Israel. Many say God is just a pleasant idea that will help us behave. Crazy. We have moles in pulpits.

The Greek Obama motif is bothersome, because in the past, the struggle between Jehovah-worshippers and the rest of the world has often been characterized as a struggle against Hellenism, or against Rome. To a person like me, who sees everything as a symbol, the Greek set is like a punch in the face.

Of course, we have to be fair. When the actual Parthenon was built, John McCain cut the ribbon.

Sorry. I see why Jay Leno does this. It’s so easy.

I don’t think people who are promoted by evil know what’s going on. I don’t think Oprah wakes up every morning and thanks Satan for a chance to send more people to hell. And I would be amazed if Obama had bad intentions, beyond the usual desires for wealth, adulation, and power. I doubt that religion means much to him. When he was young, he knew he wanted to be a politician. So he did two things politicians have to do. He got married, and he joined a church. Much as many conservative politicians have done. But his meteoric and unmerited rise to prominence is freakish, and I don’t think things like that happen without supernatural action.

I am afraid Obama will hurt Israel, by weakening support. I am afraid he will strengthen judicial attacks on Christianity by appointing far-left freaks to the federal bench. And I fully expect him to push us in the direction of socialism, which is a system that has always been anti-Christian. He’ll probably do what he thinks is best, most of the time, but he’ll be completely wrong.

Sometimes I get the impression that this is a pivotal election. It’s as if God is giving us a choice between a fairly normal politician with relatively old-fashioned values, or a guy who represents humanism, immorality, and pride. More obviously than Bill Clinton did. It has the smell of a test.

I think John McCain will be President this time next year. I don’t think we’ve gone crazy enough to elect a man who has never held an executive position, and who pals around with anti-Semites and unrepentant terrorists. My guess is that once the ads start running full-force and people learn what Obama is all about, McCain will be in position to win by four or five percentage points.

But it disturbs me that Obama could get this close to the Oval Office.

I pray for the McCain campaign. If this is a spiritual battle, we have to fight it on a spiritual level. That’s how I see it. I would suggest you do the same. The Bible says God chooses the king. So cast your vote.

Some New Species of Barackteria

It’s not Sondra, but it’s on her blog.

This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the Greek columns.

Hard to Believe my Luck

A while back, I revealed something I thought would benefit people. I mentioned one of the reasons I believe in Jesus Christ. It was something I had kept to myself, except for few times when I mentioned it to people close to me. I used to think it was a waste of time to tell people about it, but that was before the Internet. It may be a waste of time to tell people one-on-one, but if I put it here, it might reach someone who will get something out of it.

Again, as I have said before, the best reason to believe me is that I don’t profit by telling the story. If a TV preacher tells a story about a supernatural experience, you know he’s getting paid to do it. I don’t receive a thing for my trouble.

I’m thinking about this, because I happened to flip to a religious channel tonight, and I saw a guy interviewing people, asking if they had seen or otherwise sensed God. They all said no, and even though he appeared to be some sort of clergyman, he said he hadn’t, either. I thought that was a little weird, since so many people say they have physically sensed God’s presence. It occurred to me that maybe I had a duty to talk about the things that had happened to me. If such experiences are rarer than I once thought, maybe people who have them are supposed to tell other people about them.

Last time, I told about an incident that took place while I was driving. I was on my way from Milwaukee to Kentucky, in the dead of winter. And I had a terrible feeling of dread come over me. I was positive I was going to die that day, and I had no explanation. My life was okay. I hadn’t suffered any emotional trauma. But I still felt that way, and I couldn’t shake it. I pulled over and prayed, and suddenly, I felt a warm, loving presence in the car with me. It was just to my right. It was full of peace and reassurance and love, and these attributes seemed to have a pressure that drove them against me like a hug. It wasn’t visible, but it occupied an identifiable space on the seat next to me. After it showed up, I was okay. And I was sure it was a visitation from Jesus.

I have had that same experience on at least one other occasion. It was in the mid-Eighties. I was becoming more religious. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best role models or teachers I could have asked for. But I was improving, compared to what I had been in the past.

One night I was lying in bed, fully awake, about to drift off to sleep. And I felt the strangest sensation. I can describe it in a way that will help you to understand it, to some degree. Imagine you’re wearing a blindfold. You can’t see any light at all. And someone across the room from you trains a spotlight on you. If they moved the spotlight so the beam played over your body, you’d feel the beam as it moved over you. Where the beam struck, you would feel warmth, and the rest of you would be cooler. I felt something like that, in that dark room. I felt a warm beam playing over my body, but it wasn’t a beam of light, and it wasn’t physical warmth. It was emotional and spiritual warmth. And of course, powerful love. The same thing I felt when I had the experience in the car, except that instead of a more or less ball-shaped presence, it seemed more like a beam, coming from above.

This will sound crazy, but it’s absolutely true. Everywhere this beam touched me, I felt happy and secure. The crazy part is that when it hit my legs, for example, my legs felt warm and safe and content, and the rest of me felt less so. The same applied to my arms and my chest and the rest of me. You may not believe you can feel emotions in your legs or your arms, while the rest of you feels something different, but you can. You can probably have one toe that is happier than the rest of your body.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. If it happened now, I think I’d get out of bed and worship, to be on the safe side and show respect. But that didn’t occur to me. And I had had a few other supernatural experiences, so I didn’t get all that excited. Besides, the nature of the beam was such that it was impossible to be disturbed by it.

I was sure this was a manifestation of Jesus. Just as I was sure the first time, in the car. I don’t know why I was sure, but I was. I expressed my gratitude and so on, but beyond that, I didn’t know what to do. And I fell asleep, believe it or not.

People tend to think that if they see or hear or feel something miraculous, they’ll run up and down the street proclaiming it, but the truth is, you may take such things calmly. I think most people convince themselves their supernatural experiences didn’t happen, so they won’t have to react to them. That’s the easiest thing. I didn’t do that, but I was calm enough to sleep.

As soon as I drifted into that funny state between sleep and waking, I woke up, and I found myself flat on my back. My arms were extended in front of me, with the palms up. They were just there; I have no memory of raising them or of turning onto my back. And I heard a sound like arcs of electricity pouring into a pair of electrodes. And I felt a buzzy sort of sensation in my palms, as if some kind of energy was pouring into them, from a place beyond the ceiling. I didn’t see anything. I just felt it. And my arms stayed up for a little while, and then the sound and the sensation disappeared, and that was the end of it.

I would love to tell you that when I got up the next morning, I ran around the neighborhood using my magical palms to heal people of cancer, but nothing like that happened. I never did figure out the significance of the event. But it happened; that’s a fact.

Sometimes I think it was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There was another event in my life which I had taken for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but maybe the encounter with the beam was the real thing. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know, during this life.

I don’t know why I was the person it happened to. It didn’t happen because I’m a wonderful guy who deserves such gifts; I can swear to that. I didn’t earn it. Do me a favor and don’t even suggest it happened because I’m a good person. I know better than that. And no one I have told about it has ever become a Christian as a result. In fact, at least one person has completely forgotten it, as though I had never mentioned it.

I sometimes wish things like that would happen to everyone. But then I remember the parable of Lazarus and Abraham. And I remember the Hebrews following Moses, unwilling to trust God even after they saw Him in a whirlwind and saw the Red Sea stand up in vertical walls so they could pass. People believe what they want to believe. If Jesus came down to earth in person and took people by the shoulders and ordered them to believe, most people would say he was a fraud or decide it had never happened or assume they had hallucinated. That’s the truth. That’s no exaggeration. If you’re alive when He returns, you will see people try to explain Him away. Our ability to believe what we want is one of the great mysteries of human nature. Even though the things I reveal here happened to me, and I’m positive they happened, sometimes I have to remind myself I didn’t imagine them. And I’ve spent a lot of time living as though they had not happened. I never pretended they hadn’t, but I didn’t act the way a person of faith should.

I’ll tell you another strange thing about my experience in the car. You may remember that I’ve been reading Brother Andrew’s books about evangelizing Muslims. I also took a look at some online testimonies, including Youtube videos. If Brother Andrew and a whole slew of Muslim converts are to be believed, many Muslims are coming to Jesus because of visions and dreams. The other day I watched a video which was supposedly about a true story. A young Muslim man had had an experience very much like what happened to me in the car, only his experience was more vivid.

He said he was lying in bed, awake, and he felt something pin him down, and he saw a figure approach him. And it somehow communicated the knowledge that it was going to kill him. Although he was a Muslim, he had been learning about Christianity from his brother, and he began wondering if Jesus could save him. And when that thought entered his mind, he was released and the figure left. But he was delivered, just as I was, from something that had convinced him he was about to die. Later that night, he sensed the presence of Jesus in the room, and he felt a sensation he described as “aggressive peace.” Much like what I felt that day in the car.

The parallels are remarkable. I realize this guy could be a complete charlatan. In the past, I’ve been burned because I believed other people’s stories of supernatural experiences were as true as my own, so I don’t assume anything. But it sure sounds like he and I got a dose of the same thing. I wish everyone could feel it. It’s really something, being exposed directly to God’s true personality. You would not believe how much He loves us. I know life is full of suffering, but I felt that love, physically, as surely as I feel the keys I’m using to type this entry.

Here’s the video:

One message I have derived from my reading and study is that I have to quit being so obnoxious to Muslims. It’s fair to say they’ve shown great cruelty and bloodthirstiness and ruthlessness, but I shouldn’t insult and antagonize them gratuitously, just to express my anger and frustration. I criticize Ann Coulter for being so nasty to liberals she prevents them from hearing the conservative message. Well, if everyone is as nasty to Muslims as I have been, there is no hope we’ll ever succeed in acquainting very many of them with Jesus. And Jesus is the only force that can change them. It’s fine to send the military to hold them back by force, but I remember what Paul said: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” That’s from the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12. While we have to resist evil with physical strength, the truth is, human beings are not the primary enemy, and any earthly effort that is not supported by spiritual effort is wasteful and likely to fail. I’m not saying God will turn all the Muslims into Christians, and there will be peace on earth and free cupcakes for everybody. But things would be better than they are now, and countless people could be turned into friends and saved from destruction. It really happens.

I think I’ve said this before: I wonder if we pray for Muslims as much as we pray for cheaper gas.

The world is like a Japanese bunraku play, in which black-garbed puppeteers stand on a stage and manipulate dolls that represent characters. We see the people in the world, and we see their actions. But the dark forces that drive them are more obscure, as they desire to be. And often we attack the puppets and ignore the puppeteers. That is what I’ve been doing.

I did not make my stories up to get attention. I will never earn a dime from them. They will not help my writing career. I’m telling the truth. I almost hate to ask people to believe, because we have all believed so many things, only to find out we’ve been lied to. I hate to ask anyone to try one more time. But I hope someone out there will consider the possibility that I’m not lying and will be inspired to pray that God will help him or her find her way. I can’t defend God or tell you why life isn’t easier. I can’t explain the fact that you can’t have Him the way you want Him. I’m not a preacher. I do not have the answers. But I can promise you that He exists and that He cares, and that sometimes He takes dramatic steps to prove Himself to people. If the deal seems unfair to you, try to have faith that God knows better than you do. You better take what’s offered and be teachable and make the most of it, because if God is really God, there is no Door Number Two.

Not Everyone has a Gift Like This

Last night a commenter took me to task for being supercilious, suggested it was inconsistent with my religion, and implied that bad Christians like me had helped him on his way down the road to atheism.

I don’t want to reflexively defend myself. I have plenty of crabby moments. I try not to be rude these days, but sometimes I still offend people. There is no doubt about it. I am what Christians kindly refer to as “a work in progress.” Sometimes I embarrass myself. What can I tell you?

On the other hand, as I noted in my response, it’s impossible for a Christian to be righteous enough to make an angry atheist happy. It can’t be done. Just as Christians look for reasons to believe, many atheists look for reasons not to believe. History shows us that angry nonbelievers may remain angry even after the Christians who make them angry are torn apart by lions or roasted alive. They even got angry when martyred saints forgave them, or when they refused to renounce God during their torments. It’s always good to try to make peace, but you can’t expect too much cooperation. On top of all that, the less atheists know about Christianity, the easier it is for them to find reasons not to believe.

Some atheists think that if you go to church regularly, you are a Christian, and if you don’t, you are not. I don’t know where that idea comes from. Christians should go to church, but attendance has no bearing on whether or not you’re a Christian. Some atheists think that you have to be good to be a Christian, and that if you’re a well-behaved atheist, you are just as well off as a Christian, with regard to eternal life. Clearly, Christians should be good, but you can behave pretty badly and still be a Christian. And if you think being good buys you eternal life, that’s swell, but Christian doctrine contradicts that notion very clearly. No Christian denomination says you can work your way into heaven. Only heretical post-Christian sects say that.

Being a Christian isn’t like belonging to AAA. It’s not like you get a card and pay dues and therefore belong. That kind of thinking may apply to some denominations, but it’s not universal. Overall, the church isn’t an earthly organization, like a bar association. You belong because you have faith. And hopefully, you try to behave in a way that reflects your faith. And you should have a personal relationship with God, which you maintain by prayer and study. I guess it’s a very hard thing to understand, from outside.

I can tell you another thing. If you want advice on how to be a good Christian, one of the best ways to get it is to disagree with an atheist. They are extremely generous with instruction. It’s not the greatest instruction available, because a lot of it is completely wrong, and most of it is motivated by self-interest, and very often, it’s just an attempt to manipulate you. Sometimes they’re right, though.

If you’re curious about Christianity, my advice to you would be to avoid judging it by the behavior of believers. Sooner or later you’ll see a Christian give someone the finger, or you’ll see some other act or attitude that is inconsistent with the Bible. Bishop Desmond Tutu once told people he disagreed with to go to hell; that had to be a dark day for the church. Human beings will always let you down, and I am a human being. The point of believing isn’t to become as wonderful and perfect as I am.

The depressing thing about all this is that I have never succeeded in persuading a single person to become a Christian, but it looks like I have pretty decent luck turning people into atheists. I must be an even worse Christian than I thought.

Help a Nervous Dad

Aaron’s daughter and niece are leaving for Jerusalem, where they will spend a year studying at Jewish seminaries. Say a prayer for their safety.

Torturer of Countless Christians

I watched part of Gladiator while eating dinner. And it made me think of Marcus Aurelius.

When I went to my first college (I was in Obama’s class at Columbia, two years before Obama transferred in), we had a compulsory class called Contemporary Civilization, in which we read authors like Macchiavelli and Epictetus. I don’t think Marcus Aurelius was on the list. I wouldn’t know, because I read virtually nothing. I felt bad about that tonight. After all, Hannibal Lecter referred to Marcus Aurelius, and he was a very smart, albeit fictional, guy.

I grabbed a copy of the Meditations, which is the book Aurelius wrote. It seemed to espouse such wonderful values; I had to marvel that a pagan could be so moral. Maybe I had been wrong to skip all those classes.

I got on the Internet and checked him out. And here is what I learned. Under his reign, persecution of Christians increased dramatically, and they were often tortured to death. Some of the more popular methods included putting Christians on iron stools which were then heated over fires, and throwing them into the arena to be torn apart by hungry predators. And sometimes various tortures were inflicted consecutively, until the victim died and ruined the festivities.

Marcus Aurelius was an evil man. He didn’t have a particle of compassion, as we know it. He considered himself moral, but he wasn’t troubled by human suffering. So much for Ridley Scott’s version. I shouldn’t be surprised. Mary Poppins wasn’t real, either.

Marcus Aurelius wasn’t even a good pagan. He didn’t believe in an afterlife. No wonder he didn’t think suffering was significant. It doesn’t really matter how much pain you endure, if in the end, it’s fleeting and has no lasting repercussions.

I can’t understand why the Romans hated Christians so much, but then I can’t understand why leftists hate us, either. A lot of misguided priests and pastors are hardcore leftists.

I don’t see any reason to finish the book. This man was clearly a hypocrite and maybe a bit of a psychopath.

He Didn’t do so Bad, for an Amateur

I did something I hate to do, today. I marked up a Bible. I know the Bible is a tool, and you have to mark it up if you want to make good use of it. But the notion of defacing books makes me uncomfortable.

I was reading the book of Proverbs, and as usual, I thought to myself how great it would be if I didn’t have to read the stuff that wasn’t particularly useful. Proverbs is full of valuable things, but not everyone needs every verse. For example, I don’t plot against the righteous and seek to pull them down to the pit. I don’t even know where I’d find a pit in my neighborhood. And I don’t have diverse weights and measures. You can’t be guilty of everything that is condemned in Proverbs. You would be busy all day, every day.

I decided to put a little box around every verse I thought was helpful. Now when I read Proverbs, I can avoid re-reading the things that take up time but don’t carry much benefit. I was thinking I might take an online version, do a cut-and-paste job, and create my own tailored edition.

Of course the big down side to this is that I would lose all those verses that confirm my greatness. For example, I would no longer be able to say, “oppressing the widow? I never do that! I’m fantastic!” Instead, I’d have a book full of reminders of all the reasons why I’m a hopeless idiot.

It would be a lot like having a wife.

I think it was a good idea. I have been reading the book of Romans and then comparing it with The Jewish New Testament Commentary, and the going is incredibly slow. The chapter 11 commentary goes on forever. I needed something with a faster pace, to keep me from going crazy. Now I have it.

Not Fond of Tents

Since beginning my practice of observing the Sabbath, this may be the first weekend when I didn’t feel completely prepared for it. Yesterday I beat the garage into shape again, and it would have been great to devote today to other areas in need of organization. I have parts for shelves I haven’t put up. I have a sick pest tree I need to chain to a bumper and rip out of the ground. I also want to try my ant remedy on the bees. I know bees will slurp down sugar water if you give it to them, and I’ve been annihilating ghost ants successfully with a syrup of sugar and boric acid, and I think I would be smart to put a dish of it up where the bees can find it. But it’s Sunday. I have other obligations.

Almost every Sunday, I think a little about things I could be doing. Trips to the gun range. Barbecuing. Fishing. Contacting radio stations about the book. But this weekend is worse than usual. Doesn’t matter; Sunday is Sunday. I’m going to behave.

I’m not sure how strict to be. I’m not bound by all the Jewish commandments. I don’t get hysterical if I find myself running an errand in the car, or buying something I need. But I want the main purpose of the day to be clear.

Sometimes I just plain get tired of reading the Bible and so on, and I do something else for a couple of hours. I don’t think that’s a problem, although I won’t do anything business-related.

I’ve been reading more of Brother Andrew’s books. I’m very impressed by this man, but I can’t help suspecting that his version of Christianity may be too demanding for most believers. Or maybe I misunderstand his message. On the one hand, he talks about giving without reserve, and he encourages former Muslims to stay in countries where they are likely to be martyred (some of them are already dead), and he writes about crossing borders with contraband Bibles in plain view in his car. On the other, he seems to have had a fair number of Christian friends who led normal lives and didn’t live in tents. I can think of more than one who were well-off, although some of them lived modestly in order to support evangelism and charity. And he seems financially secure, personally. His organization has a big, reliable income, as it should. He lives in a house, not a cell. The president of Open Doors makes $135,000 per year, which is a reasonable but substantial salary.

It is possible to be overly proud of your faith, and of the things you do because of it. It is possible to show off, as a Christian, and to hold yourself up as an extreme example for other people to follow, when in reality, they’re probably doing fine already. It’s a danger that has to be considered. You don’t want to be a fat worldly slob who only pretends to believe, and who never denies himself anything. But poverty is bad, and being martyred is only a good thing if God demands it, and the super-righteous can be extremely tiresome and hypercritical.

One of the things that drove me away from the church was the constant repetition of the claim that if Christians didn’t have perfect lives, it was because they weren’t doing it right. TV evangelists said this all the time, and the message made its way into a lot of churches. If you were sick or poor, or if your family was a mess, you weren’t praying enough. Or you weren’t praying the right way. Or you weren’t giving enough. Or you were giving enough, but with the wrong motive. Or you were giving enough, with the right motive, but you were giving it in the wrong way. Or you weren’t claiming what you wanted and “maintaining your confession.” Or there was sin in your life! Apparently, God only helps people who are totally free of sin. When God failed to back the somewhat heretical promises of the TV evangelists, they had more defenses than O.J. Simpson, and they all boiled down to, “It’s your fault.” What they really meant was, “We want to keep taking your money so we can live in luxury beyond Solomon’s wildest dreams, so keep blaming yourselves and writing those checks.”

I have no doubt that some people are called to lead lives of austerity and deprivation, but there were plenty of Jews and Christians in the Bible who had good jobs and lived in nice homes. And you can’t call yourself to be an apostle or a martyr. It doesn’t work that way. And making Christianity overly burdensome discourages other believers, so it’s counterproductive. That’s especially true when the person making religion burdensome is a hypocritical TV evangelist with his own jet. “Keep cutting coupons and patching your kids’ clothes, so my Gulfstream can have a better home theater.”

It’s hard to know where to draw the boundaries. All I know for sure is this: you have to be in the world, but the world shouldn’t be in you. I suppose that if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll know which earthly things pose a danger to you and which don’t. For example, some people can be warped by modest wealth, and others can have millions and be uncorrupted.

I want to be clear; I would never compare Brother Andrew to the TV guys. Not based on what I know now. I started out writing about him, and then I went off on a tangent.

Anyway, the books are good reading.

Free!

Here is another cool thing that redeems the Internet. I have written about online Bibles. Well, it turns out you can listen to an audio version. The people at Bible Gateway have posted an audio edition of the New International Version, read by someone named Max McLean. You can find it at this link. They also have other versions.

It’s really neat. Reading the Bible is great, but there is a special value in hearing the words. And sometimes hearing is just more pleasant than reading.

I looked into audio Bibles at Christianbook.com, but the problem with their NIV is that there is no software interface that allows you to pick the verses you want to hear. You have to use fast-forward and rewind. That’s bad.

Still, it’s great to see technology used for a worthwhile purpose.

More

Now I’m confused. One DVD reviewer says you can’t skip to the chapters you want, and another reader says you can.

Impending Tragedy

The cable news says some guy took off in a stolen plane, and that he’s flying around in Virginia, threatening to commit suicide by crashing in a populated area. Send up a prayer that he changes his mind and lands safely, and that no one is hurt.

Thanks

For the last three weeks or so, I’ve been highly distracted by a personal issue, so blogging and book publicity have suffered. But it looks like that is over with for the moment–probably for good–so hopefully I’ll be able to get back to doing what I enjoy. Thanks for your prayers. Don’t let anyone tell you they don’t work.