Category: Faith

America’s Changing Melting Pot

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The population of America is a changing landscape. What are the implications of that for us? What are the implications of that changing landscape on the immigration controversy that is going on?

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So here’s a thought, but first, consider these statistics:

In 2016, in 26 states, the number of non-Hispanic whites who died was greater than the number of non-Hispanic whites who were born in those states, according to an analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau that was released last week. The 26 states were a diverse group in terms of geography and demographics, from Maine to Alabama to California. Nationwide in 2016, there were 0.98 births for every death among non-Hispanic whites, a rate lower than that of blacks (1.71), Asians (3.87) and Latinos (4.88).

I have seen numbers like these before on a national scale. We are tottering on the edge of population regression. People get married less, marry later, have fewer children, and these factors contribute to our population decline – at least among white Americans. Most European countries are well beyond us in this population regression cycle.

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Sin, Salvation and Righteousness – God’s Plan for Us

Getting into some detail on basic principles of the Christian faith that yield rich and deep truths for the believer.

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I set stage for this blog with the question, What is Christian Salvation and Why Would Anyone Want It? If you haven’t read that blog first, you might want to take some time to read  it. I set this piece up with my own story, but I am no different than anyone else who has encountered the God of the Bible and the salvation that He offers.

In this piece we will get into some detail on the meaning of salvation, sin that poses the problem for which salvation is the solution, and righteousness, which is, perhaps, more misunderstood than the other two.

To begin with, salvation means, generally, “preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss”; theologically, it means “deliverance from sin and its consequences” according to Google. Righteousness means, generally, “the quality of being morally right or justifiable” according to Google.

These definitions are simple and easy enough to understand generally, but they have very specific and nuanced meanings in context of faith that belie the richest and deepest of Christian truths.

Continue reading “Sin, Salvation and Righteousness – God’s Plan for Us” →

What Is Christian Salvation and Why Would Anyone Want It?

What does it mean that salvation is a free gift? What are we saved from? Why is it freely given?

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One of the simplest and most fundamental principles of Christianity is that salvation is a free gift. It is nothing that we earn. God gives salvation to us freely.

A closely associated principle is that righteousness is nothing that we achieve. God attributes righteousness to us freely. Again, we don’t achieve righteousness; God considers us righteous when are rightly related to God.

These words, salvation and righteousness, are among the most basic of Christian principles. These words are used with a great deal of presumption that everyone knows what they mean, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

What is salvation? Why should we want to be saved? Saved from what?

Righteousness may be even more misunderstood. Are we talking about moral superiority? Self-righteousness? Holier than thou?

I will try to illuminate these very central ideas to the Christian faith in this blog. Few things are more central to Christianity than the idea of salvation and righteousness.

My own experience may serve as a good example of what these terms mean and how they apply to Christian faith. Though I was raised Catholic, and went to church every Sunday with my parents, I was not a “Christian” in the sense of having a personal faith and relationship with God before the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. I had read the Bible (for the first time in a college World Religion class), and I assumed there was a God, but I had no personal connection.

Continue reading “What Is Christian Salvation and Why Would Anyone Want It?” →

Separating Caesar from the Church

Some thoughts on the church and state and the state of American Christianity.

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Everyone has a hierarchy of values. Whatever is at the top of your hierarchy of values is your God, says Jordan Peterson. Although he hesitates to call himself a Christian, he has a good understanding of the Bible and its positive impact on society and people, individually. This particular statement rings with the purity of truth.

Jordan Peterson has been much in the news and was recently interviewed on the Unbelievable? podcast with Justin Brierley. The topic was: Do we need God to make sense of life? The atheist psychologist, Susan Blackmore, was his counterpart. The podcast (linked above) is worth a listen.

Jordan Peterson also claimed in the course of the discussion that the first pronouncement of the ideal of the separation of church and state came from Jesus when he said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)

Modern Christians (many American Christians anyway) view the modern emphasis on the separation of the church and state as a bad thing. A common assumption seems to be that the “wall of separation” between the church and state is a way for politicians to keep Christians out of politics and to keep politics from the influence of Christians.

What do you think?

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Suicidal Nation

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What is going on in our modern, American world? School shootings and suicides have risen precipitously over the last few decades. Where is the meaning and purpose that we need to sustain us? It seems to be getting lost, drowned out in our clamorous, busy, preoccupied and spiritually vacant lives. Though we enjoy access to knowledge, comforts, pleasures and riches like no generation on earth has ever experienced, it seems our lives are more vacuous than ever.

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LOS ANGELES – SEP 11: Anthony Bourdain at the 2016 Primetime Creative Emmy Awards – Day 2 – Arrivals at the Microsoft Theater on September 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, CA

I recently read an article in USA Today by Kristen Powers in which she cited a statistic that suicides are up 30% since 1999. In the article, she quotes an author who says that “despair … isn’t always caused by our brains. It’s largely caused by key problems in the way we live.” I don’t know if there’s any research or professional opinion to back that up. The author is a journalist who wrote a book. That doesn’t necessarily make the author an expert. Still, I personally think there is some merit to the point.

Kristen Powers went on to assert her opinion that “we are too busy trying to ‘make it’ without realizing that once we reach that…

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