Gone!

     I just spent the last week in Mundelein and Vernon Hills in Illinois and came away with an odd feeling.  I saw maybe eight black people the entire time I was there and several of them were employees of restaurants and stores I visited.  I saw plenty of Asians and Hispanics but almost no blacks.  It felt creepy, a whole group of people suddenly just gone.  I live in the Deep South where African Americans have a heavy and very visible presence.

     During my alone time during the week I read Cracking the Bible Code by Jeffrey Satinover.  One of the prime movers in the Torah Bible Code movement was Rabbi Michael Dov Ber Weissmandl,  who spent the last years of his life pursuing the codes.

     The more obvious historical significance of Rabbi Weissmandl is his role in at least being able to delay the extermination of the Jews of Slovakia by bribing and deceiving numerous Nazi officials.  It haunted him the rest of his life, but, ultimately the rabbi was not able to save even his own immediate family.  In total, over six million Jews were murdered.  It was as if the entire Jewish population (about 5.2 million in 2009) of the United States were missing.

     The near absence of black people reminded me of the sudden disappearance of the Jews from Europe.  There and then suddenly just gone.  

Good Ideas for a Christian Life

1. Know when to shut up.

2. Know what's going on around you.

3. Stay away from church politics.

4. Maintain an impeccable personal morality.

5. Learn the difference between being judgmental and practicing discernment.

6. Learn about church history.

7. Don't give your son some sissy baby name.  It'll be cute when he's four months old, but it'll be a boulder on his back when he's an adult.

8. Learn about non-Christian religions.

9. Don't stay in a church or denomination unless you can support its teachings.

10. Hold others to a high standard and then live up to that standard yourself.

The Jesus Christ Show

     The Jesus Christ Show  is a syndicated radio program produced weekly in Los Angeles.  The host of the show is Jesus Christ, portrayed by the show's producer, Neil Saavedra.  Jesus answers questions from call-in listeners in a soothing voice, seemingly with the authority and confidence which Jesus would project.  All the advice is biblically based on Jesus' teachings and parables.

     In the wrong hands this could become sacrilegious and even blasphemous (Jesus as Dear Abby) but it seems to be a real attempt to stay within the confines of biblical Christianity.

Yom Kippur

     Yom Kippur (Hebrew: Day of Atonement) begins at sundown.  The day is the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar.  Fasting is practiced for the entire twenty four hours and numerous activities are proscribed, including bathing, anointing with oil, and sex.  Any religious vows made in the prior year between individual Jews and God are annulled.  The day is devoted to prayer, fasting, atonement, and reconciliation.   

Christian Fellowship

Don't let yourself become disconnected from your Christian friends or from your church.

"Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." John 15: 4.

Another Light Bulb Joke

How many Masons does it take to change a light bulb?

That is a third degree secret.

Film Comment: The Greatest Gift

     In The Greatest Gift (1942), Bartholomew, a juggler (Edmund Gwenn) who is traveling to a fair in which he is to perform, becomes sick and is taken and nursed back to health by a group of kindly monks at a remote monastery.

     The monks are busy making gifts for an upcoming ceremony to honor the Virgin Mary.  The destitute juggler wants to participate in the offerings to the Virgin but the only things of value he possesses are his juggling pins, which are ridiculed as totally unacceptable by two of the fathers (Hans Conried and Lumsden Hare).  Bartholomew decides to give Mary a different gift.

     Protestants will be bothered by the Mary worship and the ending of this film is truly hokey, but it makes a valid point.  What God wants is not our things; what He wants is us. 

  

Book Comment: The Rise of Benedict XVI

     Allen, John L., Jr., The Rise of Benedict XVI.  The Inside Story of How the Pope Was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 2005)

     John Allen is a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and is the Vatican analyst for the Cable News Network and for National Public Radio.  His book details, almost minute by minute, the events leading up to the death of Pope John Paul II and the subsequent election of Joseph Ratzinger as the 265th Pope, Benedict XVI.

     Allen believes that the main thrust of Benedict's papacy will be directed against the "dictatorship of relativism," the belief that objective truth does not exist.  Benedict has declared relativism to be "the greatest problem of our time."

     Benedict is not alone in this belief.   

Will Power

I want to do good,

I want to do right, 

To do what I should

Sometimes costs me a fight.

The Old Man is strong,

He wants his own way,

Though I struggle along, 

He fights me to stay.

My will can be weak,

Old Man may prevail, 

How I will defeat him, 

I sometimes can't tell.

Then, when I think

I can no longer fight on,

It comes in a blink,

I have the Will of the One.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, their religious beliefs, or their actions.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Elizabeth Fairburn Colenso: (b. 1821, New Zealand - b. 1904) Missionary, school teacher,  and Bible translator in New Zealand.  She was fluent in Maori and Mota.  Her husband, Anglican missionary, William Colenso, was fired by his missionary society employers for infidelity (he fathered illegitimate children by two Maori women) and Mrs. Colenso continued in her missionary activities without his involvement. 

William Colenso: (b. 1811, Cornwall - 1899) Printer, botanist, author, explorer, politician, Anglican missionary to New Zealand.  He was a cousin of John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal.  Colenso was fired by his missionary society employers for infidelity (he fathered illegitimate children by two Maori women) and his wife (see above) carried on her work without him.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: (b. 1772, England - d. 1834)Poet, intellectual, lecturer, pantheist.  He translated German works into English.  His understanding of Christianity was that it is primarily related to ethics.

William the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine:  About 909 or 910 he founded the Benedictine monastery at Cluny, France.  The ultra-pious Cluniac rule of order was adopted by about 600 other monasteries.

James Warren Jones: (b. 1931, Indiana - d. 1978) Pentecostal social activist, founder of Wings of Deliverance Church which became the People's Temple Full Gospel Church.  On 18 Nov. 1978 he led 913 of his followers in Guyana in a mass murder-suicide by poisoning.

 

Another Light bulb joke

How many Gaians does it take to change a light bulb?

None, they think it should remain in it's natural state.

Navaratri

Navaratri: This Sanskrit word literally means "nine nights" and is a movable holiday (the dates change based on lunar cycles) which this year occurs from the 19th to the 27th.  The holiday is a festival of dance and Shakti worship.

Rosh Hashanah

     Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown. It is a day of memorial and of judgement.  God judges each person based on their deeds performed in the preceding year.

Special prayers are recited and the shofar (ram's horn) is blown.    

Christian Friends

     Find a Christian friend, or friends, who sharpens your mind and makes you think about weighty things.

"As iron sharpens iron,  so one man sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17

The Genealogical Value of Tracing the Historical Development of Religious Denominations: Part 2

     Many of today's religious denominations have gone through highly contentious time, with multiple mergers, splits, mutinies, power battles, excommunications, shunnings, relocations, etc. Each splinter group usually declared itself to be correct and the true church and took with it as many of the group's historical documents as it could.  Lawsuits over property and documents produced court records, another source of information about the groups and their leaders and members.

     Organizational records may include payroll information, property rental and purchase documents, tax records, employment records, records of disciplinary actions, chains of command and job descriptions.  In the case of religious groups all of the above will be included as well as records of the personal type (births, marriages, deaths, burials, consecrations, ordinations, etc) which we more commonly associate with genealogy.  

     When individuals shifted their allegiances from one religious group to another, their church-held vital genealogical records usually weren't shifted with them and stayed with the parent group.  The records may now be stored in the archives of the original body (which may or may not be in their original geographic location.

     If you know the dates when organizational shifts occurred, or the approximate dates when your ancestors moved from one group to another, you may be able to infer the likeliest place to begin searching for a particular record.  Early public records are often spotty and incomplete, or even totally lost due to floods, fires, or wartime rapacity.  The only official record of the marriage of your great-grandparents, who lived in California, may be located in church archives in Florida for a group which originated in Minnesota.  

The Genealogical Value of Tracing the Historical Development of Religious Denominations: Part 1

     The same principles used in preparing and interpreting genealogical descent charts can be applied to organizations (ie. churches, religious denominations, businesses, political movements, etc).  It is possible to trace persons as they followed their leaders from place to place, because, wherever the leaders went, the followers, and often, the group's organizational records, accompanied them.  Sometimes, especially in the case of contentious splits, the records were left behind when the move occurred.

     When individual church congregations dissolved, the records sometimes ended up in the possession of individual families who had been prominent in the church.  One example of this is the Presbyterian Record Book of Carolina Church, 1837-1845 (Coosa County, Alabama), which was carried to Sibley, Louisiana by the Graham family.  The final home of this book became Louisiana Tech University, in Ruston. 

     The level and nature of document retention varies greatly from group to group.  The smaller, more congregational, religious groups may have kept no information at all.  Others will have a mixture of local and denominational record keeping.  A few of the more highly structured denominations will have at least copies of almost everything collected into one central archive.

Part 2 of this article will be posted tomorrow.

 

Chastity

     Don't name your daughter Chassidy, Chasitee, Chasity, Chazzidi, Chazity, or some other weird misspelling of the word.  Names have meanings and aren't just meaningless sounds. The name is Chastity, look it up.  It is a compliment.

_____________________________________________________________________

Check out the Christian Meanings of Names blog in the blog list below.

A Jehovah-Agnostarian

What do you get when you cross an Agnostic with a Jehovah's Witness?

I don't know, but when he knocks on a door he's not really sure he believes in doing it.

Religious Place Names

Pomona, California, USA:  Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards.  The name of the goddess comes from the Latin word "pomum" which means "fruit." 

Trincomalee, Sri Lanka: From "Tirukonamalai," Tamil for "lord of the sacred hill."  

Braganca, Portugal: For the Celtic goddess, Brigantia.

Luang Prabang, Laos:  From "phra bang," Lao for "delicate Buddha."

Sacramento, California, USA: This is the Spanish word for "sacrament" and ultimately derives from the Latin word "sacrare," which means "to consecrate."

Book Comment: New Religions

     An extremely interesting book you may wish to check out from your local library is New Religions. A Guide, edited by Christopher Partridge.  This is a knowledgeable guide to the new 

religious philosophies which sprung up in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.  You may never have heard of George Gurdjieff, Anton LaVey, Helena Blavatsky, or Alistair Crowley, but each of them had a profound influence upon the development of Twentieth Century history.  These and many other religious figures are profiled.

Partridge, Christopher, ed., New Religions. A Guide.  New Religions, Movements, Sects, and Alternative Spiritualities (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

New Name for This Blog

     I have renamed this blog Saints on the Loose! to be a better reflection of the stated theme: that Christians should be, and are, present in every nook and cranny and that Christians should, and do, excel in every field.  http://saintsontheloose.blogspot.com

"... to all the saints in Christ Jesus ..." Philippians 1:1

"Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." Acts 28:31

     "Ακωλυτωσ," (akoletos) the final word of the Greek book Πραξεισ (Acts), means literally "unhindered."

Links

     Check out the links list at the bottom of this page.  One of the main themes of this blog is that Christians should be, and are, at the forefront of every legitimate human endeavor.  I have collected links to an eclectic group of blogs and websites which illustrate this belief.  I welcome suggestions for other links. 

Another Light Bulb Joke

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?

Two.  One to change the bulb and another to mix the drinks.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, their religious beliefs, or their actions.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Jerome Jean Louis Marie Lejeune: (b. 1926, France – d. 1994) Fench pro-life Catholic pediatrician and geneticist.  He developed the technique of matching the pairs of human chromosomes (the karyotype) and discovered that a link exists between certain chromosomal abnormalities and Down’s Syndrome (three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two) and Cri du chat Syndrome (deletion of 5P).  He was a friend of Pope John Paul II who appointed him to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.  He has been proposed for sainthood by the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in France.

Muhammad Ali Kazim-bey: (b. 1802, Iran - d. 1870) (aka: Alexander Kasimovich Kazembek) Muslim convert to Presbyterianism, philologist, orientalist, historian.  He was fluent in Russian, Arabic, Azeri, Turkish, English, and Hebrew.

Amin al-Rihani: (b. 1876, Lebanon – d. 1940) (aka: Amin Fares Rihani) A Lebanese Maronite Christian who wrote the first English language Arab-American novel.   He was a proponent of Arab nationalism.

 Waymon Lawrence Tisdale: (b. 1964, Texas – d. 2009) Professional basketball player, jazz bassist.  He was elected in 2009 to the National Basketball Association Hall of Fame.

Clovis, King of the Franks: (b. ca. 474, Frankish Kingdom – d. 511) Clovis was an able but ruthless and cruel leader who overthrew the Arian King Alaric II.  Tradition says he was converted on his deathbed by his wife, Clotilde.

A stupid and careless life

     Don't live a stupid and careless life.  A stupid and careless life leaves damage in its wake and almost always ends in a stupid and careless way.

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5: 15-16.

Modalistic Monarchism

     Noetus, who was probably from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey), fl. 180-200, taught the doctrine of Modalistic Monarchism, which said that Jesus was really God the Father, so that it was really God the Father who was born, lived, was crucified, and died.  The teaching was declared to be heretical.

     Modalistic Monarchism found its ultimate expression in the teachings of Sabellius (fl ca 215, in Rome).  His doctrine, known as Sabellianism, taught that the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Father are the same being in three different manifestations, in effect denying the humanity of Jesus.   Sabellius was excommunicated at Rome, but his doctrine spurred the clarification of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

Dynamic Monarchism

     In my post yesterday on The Green Pastures I mentioned Dynamic Monarchism, which held that Jesus was merely a man into whom the Divine Christ (Holy Spirit) descended at Jesus's baptism.  Some Dynamic Monarchists denied that Jesus possessed any of the divine nature.

    The first important Dynamic Monarchist was Theodotus (fl 190 CE, in Rome), a tanner from Byzantium (modern Istanbul, Turkey).  He was excommunicated as a heretic by Bishop Victor of Rome (189-198).

Film Comment: The Green Pastures

     The Green Pastures (1936) is a highly controversial film which is often accused of being racist and demeaning to blacks.   (I believe it is nothing of the sort.)  Several countries banned it upon its release and many theaters in the United States refused to show it, for widely varying reasons.  Modern conservative Christians may be bothered by the film's seemingly Dynamic Monarchist Christology.  (I believe that is reading the film too literally.)  

     The premise of the film is that God ("de Lawd," portrayed by the wonderful Rex Ingram) and his angels are all uneducated Southern rural black people, as is everyone else on Earth after de Lawd creates it.  The biblical stories illustrated in the film are the Creation, Noah's Ark, the choosing of Israel as God's Special people,  and Moses leading his people from bondage.  The New Testament is avoided altogether until the final smile by the unchangeable and omnipotent Lawd when he decides how he's going to set everything straight without violating his own nature.

     The big name actors in the film (Rex Ingram, Oscar polk, George Reed, Eddie Anderson, Abraham Gleaves, Myrtle Anderson, and Frank Wilson) seem to have taken this film very seriously.  The story is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, written by a white man, and the all-black film was made with an all-white crew.

     Somehow this film transcends its origins.   The society which made it was flawed, not the message.  God is in total control of the universe, His angels are His faithful servants, God is graceful and merciful and loves and is loved by His children, and He values each one of us as if we were the only one.

Hallelujahs

     Hallelujah (Hebrew = "praise (present imperative mood, indicating a command, a wish, or a permission)  + Ya(weh). "

     Lauren Spears, a veterinary missionary in Cochabama, Bolivia, tells of a Mexican friend who told her that the locals in Mexico call believers "Hallelujahs."  This delighted her so much that she declared, "I want my life to plainly state that I am a Hallelujah, nothing more, nothing less."

     Paul said, "... be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Ephesians 5: 18b, 19.

Walk-on-by Culture

"We live in the walk-on-by culture where if you see things, you don't get involved ... if you do, you could get stabbed, get maimed ..."  Mark Tonderai, director of the film, Hush (2009).

Another light bulb joke

How many anarchists does it take to change a light bulb?

Just break the thing!