Exodus 32King James Version (KJV)
32 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord.
6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people:
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.
16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.
19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
Last night at work I saw this. Evidently, Paula White is hawking "Prayer flags" that supposedly have been "Blessed" by Donald Trump.
There's two small problems with that. #1 Donald Trump is not religious so far as I can tell, and #2 Prayer Flags and the use of them are a Chinese Traditional religion, Hindu and also Tibetan Buddhist/Traditional religious practice, not a Christian one. (The picture above is of Chinese traditional prayer flags in the Quilan Mountains in China.)
I know, I know...details...details...but who cares. Profit!
As my friend Aaron says, I've probably already put more thought into it than they have.
Then I saw this...
In the interest of not dirtying up my blog I'll link to the article rather than post the picture, the short version is that awhile back a retired New York (City) Police Department officer was photographed in the back of a boat, completely naked and humping away at a recently caught dead shark.
Right there with ya, Moses, right there with ya. Hold on, take a deep breath, I'll get the broom and dust pan...
Oh, forget it. This crap is ridiculous.
Now, I don't care if Buddhists in China and Hindus in India have prayer flags. That's their customs and they're observing their religious or traditional beliefs and that's absolutely nobody's business but theirs. I'm certainly not going to worry about it.
But please, go ahead, show me in the Bible where the words "Prayer" and "Flag" ever appear in the same verse, much less the same sentence. It's the weekend, I've got ALL day, I'll wait.
While we're at it, I don't really care what other people do with their bodies...but almost everybody I've ever met would agree that bestiality and necrophilia are disgusting and wrong.
For that matter, why did I push a stack of glass racks out into the break room at work so I could stack the cups on the cup rack, only to be immediately bombarded with (from all 3 TV's being as they were on the same channel) ads for "Adam & Eve.com" a website that sells sex toys...AND I WAS AT WORK! Had I brought my laptop to work, got on the internet with it and gone to that website to buy something I'd be in violation of the Casino's internet policy AND their sexual harassment policy! I could get FIRED! (...And yet, this crap is just fine on TV?) For the record if ya'll wanna buy sex toys go ahead. I don't care. When I've had a girlfriend or when I was married (and after that but still kind of involved with my ex-wife) I bought some. It's OK. BUT I DON'T WANNA SEE THAT STUFF WHEN I'M AT WORK! It's inappropriate in a professional setting.
Yet it's on TV. (The cashier, who is a Christian, and I the old former conservative who's getting too old for this crap, briefly commiserated about "Why do we have to put up with this?)
Why is this tolerated?
...And what does any of this have to do with the Bible verses posted above?
Money. That's why.
Gullible people buy unbiblical, unnecessary and just plain WRONG faux-religious articles because they've been sold a gold-plated load of just-plain-bullshit about politics and religion and the intersections thereof, and people who probably don't know the Quilan Mountains exist or are located in China don't know or care what the actual religious or theological significance of a prayer flag is, or that it doesn't relate to Christianity in the first place...but that it does relate to the kind of Shamanic and Traditional practices that the Church often historically (wrongly, in my view, but whatever) tried to stomp out whenever it could.
American pop-Christianity is loaded with this kind of fakery, and I spent much of this day discussing these matters (and to a great extent, this post) with a Facebook-friend who lives in Uganda, whose main concern right now is raising money to buy a water pump to irrigate a small patch of farmland that his United Methodist church (Lugala United Methodist Church, somewhere near Kampala) owns so the congregants can grow fruits and vegetables more efficiently to feed their kids.
Priorities, huh? For the total cost of six of those useless prayer flags, a church in Uganda would be able to irrigate its gardens better, have more food, maybe even sell some extra produce and raise money for whatever hard-working African people (for whom $100 is a LOT more money than it is to me) might need.
I wonder how many Americans really would take a chance on trading all this fake, stupid pop-culture and pop-religious fake garbage for the genuine effort to actually follow what we say we believe and help out a bunch of African kids who just need more vegetables and stuff? I quite wonder how many people would set aside the cheap grace, fake righteousness and sheer tribalism of Americanized Christianity and do what the Lord actually commands of us? How many would follow His Word and set aside even a little to help the disadvantaged? If half the people in just my small city gave a dollar that most of us wouldn't miss...those people could get themselves all type of stuff to make life better for everybody.
What are the odds? Even though the average person would probably find that they derived more emotional satisfaction from doing such a thing, how many would actually have the guts to do it, to stand on the faith they say they believe?
Well, my Twitter feed today has been aflame with all sorts of stuff about President Trump giving the Commencement speech at Liberty University in Virginia...and the stuff he and the other speakers have said.
The odds are not great. Trust me...and the answer is, only the people for whom that's their natural inclination anyway...and that's the problem.
When you make even being a decent person, much less following your own claimed beliefs optional, a lot of people just won't DO it.
They'll probably put more work into convincing you they do it than actually doing it would even take.
The kind of fake-religious garbage that caused Jesus to become angry and make a whip of cords to drive the money-changers from the Temple is not just thriving...complete with all the same kind of silly bullshit that Jesus Himself railed against back in the day...it's the only kind of Christianity indeed, I think the only religion that is actually growing in the United States of America right now.
Even the kind of Fundamentalist Christianity on which Liberty University is based is withering and dying here, or being overtaken by the kind of Prosperity Gospel false teaching embraced by Paula White and nominally claimed by Donald Trump. Mainstream Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, etc. etc. all are hanging in there, and some are even doing alright...but no belief system holds the spotlight right now like good old fashioned money-soaked American Calvinistic Protestantism...ESPECIALLY in its current debased Prosperity Gospel Pentecostal form (Actual believers in Reformed Theology are quite rare, and I say this as somebody who frequented online Christian forums for years) where the main (if not only) "Sins" appear to be being gay, having an abortion, not voting for the Republican Party and (apparently) not worshiping Donald Trump. That leaves an awful lot open. We are on track to soon have a Christ-less Christianity, that celebrates Godless capitalism and doesn't even know the children of Lugala UMC exist, or read the Book that says we should help them.
Actually...we're closer to attempting to realize Ayn Rand's vision of John Galt replacing the Sign of the Cross with the Sign of the Dollar than we are to reaching for Ronald Reagan's vision of America as a Shining City On A Hill.
...And that too, was a vision inspired by the Bible, even though Reagan wasn't all that religious.
Rand's vision, by contrast, was (as Chuck Colson called it) an "Idolatry of self and selfishness, that places Man at the center of a Godless world, where self-satisfaction becomes the moral purpose of his life."
I know from life experience and being aware of how the world works, which of the two visions helps me more. I know which inspired me...and which I view as an obstacle that threatens my future. I'm hardly an orthodox believer in anything...Christian influences I can't shake aside...and I reject Ayn Rand and her Godless, selfish Atheism...
...Even as so much of American Christianity rushes to embrace it.
When you start out being taught the Truth...especially, I think, if you're given the choice to follow or not to follow...at least some of it will stay with you.
Sometimes it does that whether you want it to or not. All these years later I really can't explain it all.
It's hard to know the Truth, that's what tells me those rushing to support the way things are, don't. Their way is easy. All they want...is more. Meanwhile, I'm fine with what I have. I know people for whom life would be a lot better if they had just the equivalent of one of my paychecks.
We're in some deep shit, people, but keep at it. Work, for the night is coming.
We can do better, but it starts with each of us putting in whatever efforts we can, all of us.
Maybe, if you meet one, ask a Ugandan about what's really important in life.
Chances are good you'll hear a lot about farming and Jesus. You'd have to go all the way back to my Grandpa's generation to get that here.
Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it. ~Matthew 7:13 (NIV)
No comments:
Post a Comment