Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

Rabbit Holes from Age to New Age

Truth matters. I could ignore the truth of gravity, but I do that to my own peril. The same is true of spiritual matters.

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From the Steven Bancarz YouTube channel

I have never been into New Age religion. I swerved close to it at one time. I was intrigued by Buddhism and tended toward Eastern religion in college before I became a Christian.

New age philosophy was also intriguing to me in those days, though I didn’t have a label for it. Buddhism has made for a good entre into New Age religions in the west, but my path took a turn away from New Age philosophy and Eastern religion a long time ago.

I have been a student of religion since I took a world religion class in college. For what it is worth, I have never thought that scientific truth and religious truth were incompatible, but I have never felt that one necessarily leads to (or excludes the other) the other.

Further, it seems self-evident that all truth is harmonious. Any contradiction between the science and religion, or one belief and another, is likely due to an errant interpretation of one or the other, or both.

Science deals with the realm of the natural world, matter, energy and all the things that we can touch, feel, measure and quantify. Religion deals in the metaphysical. Metaphysical reality is no less true for being hard to “grasp” (physically). Beauty is no less “true” than gravity, but they cannot be approached in the same way.

We all put our faith in something; though materialists don’t want to believe that. A materialist is someone who believes simply and only in the natural, material world and science, which reveals the truth of the natural world. So they say.

The materialist puts his confidence in the premise that nothing exists but for the time, space, matter and energy and entrusts himself to that proposition. Such a statement, ironically, is a metaphysical one for which the materialist can provide no scientific proof.

Such a premise and commitment to it is belief and requires faith as sure as anyone who believes in a god.

Truth matters.

I could ignore the truth of gravity, but I do that to my own peril. My disbelief in gravity at some point is likely to get me into trouble, and it might land me in the hospital.

Spiritual truth matters as well, though it is much more difficult to grab hold of for obvious reasons. So I am attracted to people who are able to reach some clarity in the realm of spiritual truth, like Steven Bancarz, a former expert in “spirit science”.

Steven Bacarz was the owner and editor of the Facebook page, Spirit Science and Metaphysics. He wrote for the largest New Age website on the Internet. Steven’s website was so successful that he had 150,000 to 200,000 views every day and “was making a killing off of ad revenue”.

Then, he terminated the webpage and now advocates a different way. He describes his “journey down the rabbit hole” that led him into the New Age movement and his change of direction in his own words in the following video:

Continue reading “Rabbit Holes from Age to New Age” →

Following Jesus

Jesus, the one who says, “Come, follow me” is our hope, not a set of rules or philosophy to live by.

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Male reading Bible
Depositphotos Image ID: 61118525 Copyright: 4masik

One of the more iconic things Jesus is recorded to have said is, “Come follow me!” We read those words or similar words over and over in the Gospels. According to Wikianswers, Jesus talks about people following him at least 23 times in the Gospels. He is noted to have asked specific people point blank to follow him about a dozen times by my count.

Following Jesus is so much of a primary theme in the Gospels that even today, 2000 years later, we talk about people “following Jesus”. People identify themselves as “followers of Jesus”. The idea of following Jesus, therefore, is central to Christianity and what it means to be a “Christian”. The idea is so ubiquitous in our western society that we might even take that phrase for granted, forgetting the significance of it.

The unique significance of the idea of following Jesus is, perhaps, best noted by looking at people in the non-Christian world. As I was writing this and thinking of the examples of the areas where we see the idea in operation, starting with the Gospels and extending to the way Christians refer to themselves today, it dawned on me that non-Christians don’t seem to use the same phrase in referring to Christians.

What does it mean to a non-Christian to “follow Jesus”? Continue reading “Following Jesus” →

Wealth, God and Ananias & Sapphira

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Depositphotos Image ID: 8644150 Copyright: jalmeida

This is the third in a three part series on wealth and relationship with God. In the first part, we looked at the story of the rich young ruler. He was self-reliant, self-righteous and saddened at the prospect of parting with his wealth and following Jesus. In the second piece we looked at Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who responded joyfully to Jesus’ invitation to stay with him and offered, without prompting, to give half his wealth to the poor and payback four times what he took by fraud from people.

We have considered that God knows our hearts, and His knowledge of the rich young ruler and of Zacchaeus made a difference in how Jesus related to them. We have considered that our relationship with God does not depend on how many commandments we keep, how much we give to the poor or what we can do to earn God’s favor. We can’t be good enough, and we can’t do enough to earn God’s favor.

God’s favor is freely given to those who freely and genuinely receive Him. Eternal life isn’t earned; it is wholeheartedly received.

With the third story, we face some sobering truth. The stakes are high. The story of Ananias and Sapphira[1] shows us that our heart’s condition is not only important, it is ultimately a matter of life and death. Pretense leads to death; while genuineness of heart leads to life.

Continue reading “Wealth, God and Ananias & Sapphira” →

Wealth, God and Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

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In the first installment of this three part series on wealth and relationship with God, we looked at the rich young ruler who was self-reliant and reacted with sadness at the prospect of being asked to sell all he had to give to the poor and to follow Jesus. We aren’t told what the rich young ruler does in response to Jesus’ challenge. What would you do?

I’m afraid I don’t truly know the answer to that question, if I am being honest with myself. It’s not as if Jesus has confronted me with that question in person. If Jesus is talking to me and telling me to do the same, I am not hearing His voice. Has He challenged me to do that same thing and I have ignored Him or refused to listen?

These are questions we can’t just brush aside or take lightly if we want to follow Jesus. A servant cannot serve two masters; we cannot serve both God and money at the same time.[1] One must yield to one or the other. In this second part in the series on wealth and relationship with God, we will look at the more heart-warming story of Zacchaeus the tax collector.[2]

Continue reading “Wealth, God and Zacchaeus the Tax Collector” →