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.

Taking Our Politics Back to Jesus

Our efforts built on a different foundation other than Jesus will not stand.

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Casual interracial couple having an argument in a terrace
depositphotos Image ID: 125978174 Copyright: klublub

I am torn with mixed emotions as I watch my social media news feeds well up with agitating statements from pole to pole. The inauguration and the women’s marches have set my social media world on edge – or rather edges. Polarization is the structure and substance of our modern discourse.

In the middle of it all are my brothers and sisters in Christ, dividing over the same issues that divide the country. We feel compelled to take sides, to hold up our own partisan signs, to signal where we stand and to look around to see who is standing with us.

That we seem to be lining up in the same fashion as the rest of our world has me feeling uneasy. Are we no different for the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus than the world around us who finds no need of a Savior and no palate for a Lord?

Have we been born again, born of the Spirit, born from above? Or have we simply adopted a layer of adornment that we have put over the worldviews we already have?

I ask these questions for myself as I put them on paper. I am asking these questions for all of us who profess Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

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Are People Responsible for the Earth?

There is an irony at play today in regard to the way Christians see the world and the prevalent way modern westerners see the world.

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Photo by Randy Schoof
Photo by Randy Schoof

There is an irony at play today in regard to the way Christians see the world and the prevalent way modern westerners see the world. Modern westerners largely believe that human beings are affecting climate change and are arguing that we must change the way we do things because we are breaking the world.

Christians may or may not believe in climate change and may or may not believe that we can affect climate change, but Christians believe that human beings broke the world because of sin, because we rebelled against God, because we are flawed.

The irony is that modern westerners don’t believe in sin. They don’t believe in God or that we are opposed to God in our nature. They don’t believe that people are fundamentally flawed. They don’t believe that we are responsible for the brokenness of the world.

Race: Building Bridges in a War Torn Country

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Are we counted among the bridge builders? Or are we bridge burners?

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Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s legacy lives on in his son. He says here in the video above that he is a bridge builder, as a swarm of journalists try to get him to burn that bridge. I am deeply impressed with admiration for his response.

If you haven’t watched the video yet, please watch it.

We live in a sharply divided nation that is polarized on many issues. Race is just one of them, but race is one of the most visceral and difficult of the issues we face. Dr. King preached a message of love and unity in a world of hatred and disunity. In some ways the world is little different than it was when he was alive.

Modern secularists believe that mankind has advanced as a species, and we have technologically and in many ways, but some things are no different now than when we…

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Trump, the Prosperity Gospel and Truth

We are warned on the one hand that many will be deceived by those who come with power and signs and wonders. On the other hand, we are warned not to speak against the Holy Spirit who moves with power and performs signs and wonders.

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(c) Can Stock Photo / jkraft5

I posted an article about the dangers of the prosperity gospel and the spiritual advisers to Donald Trump who preach it.[1] Somebody responded that we can’t understand them unless we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. This got me thinking.

I can understand where my friend is coming from.

I came to Christ in the living room of a charismatic Methodist insurance salesman. It was a sense of the miraculous that drew me to God, along with the message itself. I went to a charismatic church for two (2) years in college and (6) six years after college. I attended charismatic and Pentecostal churches for years after moving to Illinois. I am familiar with the baptism in the Holy Spirit.[2]

But we need to be careful here.

Continue reading “Trump, the Prosperity Gospel and Truth” →