My Open Response to Spencer

I apologize.  This is a very long post.  But, it has been stewing in me for a day or so.  Last night, I danced around my bedroom yelling at the walls discussing this with my wife.  Just ask her.  I was a craaaaazy man.

Anyway, some background.  This post was posted by a blogging friend of mine.  He made some really great points and exposed a sick practice.  Then, a gentleman by the name of Spencer began to comment on the post.  You'll see what Spencer argues for and what other responders said to him.  His final comment, which I have copied below is what caused me to desire to write this response.  But, it was too long to put in a comment on a blog post, not to mention, some of the points are generally important.  Some names you see and comments and posts I refer to can be found at the original blog post.

Spencer's last comment:

"I have clearly showed you from the Scriptures how God clearly established man is the head of the woman, and you have denied that. If 1 Cor 11 does not mean what it says, what word should God have used if he wanted to tell you that the head of the woman is the man? Apparently, saying that directly is not good enough for you. How does Gen 1:27 in any way shape or form prove that men and women are equal? It says that he created them male and female, and you are inserting your presuppositions into the text to prove what you want it to mean.
You have also denied the importance of the OT in your doctrine. Whenever Jesus was asked a question in the gospels, what was his response? “Have ye never read”? and then he would refer back to the OT. Yet your line of reasoning does not allow for this. You deny the relativity and imperativity of the OT on NT Christians. Yet this was the essence of Christ’s ministry himself. He preached from an OT. It was the only Bible he had. The Bereans in Acts 17 were said to be searching the scriptures to see whether those things were so (after hearing the preaching of Paul and Silas). What scriptures were they searching? The Old Testament. There was no NT around. So your very premise goes against the tenant of the NT.
There was a comment made about how the passage in Gen 3 had nothing to do with Eve taking authority from Adam. Yet that is beside the point, and something that I never said. The point is, Eve was deceived, as the Bible clearly tells us. Adam was not deceived. The Bible also clearly tells us this. There is a difference there, and to deny this difference between men and women is to close your eyes to scripture.
Jesus also tells us in Matthew 24:38 “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,”. Note the phrase “marrying and giving in marriage.” Who did this? It was the fathers. Who started this practice? The Lord himself. He gave Eve to Adam, and Adam himself believed and confessed this: Genesis 3:12 “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” In essence, it appears quite evident that you have quite an issue with the order God has ordained in creation. If you cannot accept the fact that God has ordained Christ as the head of every man, and man to be the head of the woman as Scripture clearly tells us, you have an issue with the Lord, not with me.
Also, the history and track record of our nation is against what you are saying. The rampant divorce rate in our country today has nothing to do with parents jumping into their children’s lives and trying to control them, but with the exact opposite. Young people following your advice to a T and cultivating rebellion within themselves and running off and doing as they please. I do not deny that there are parents out there who misuse and yea even abuse their authority, but the majority of parents in our culture and nation today are doing the exact opposite and we are seeing the fruits of that today. Your teachings would have been thrown out as nonsense 100 years ago with saved or lost people. Encouraging young people to throw off their parents and do as they please once they hit 18 is found nowhere in the pages of Scripture. You find no one in the Scriptures that ever did such a thing and was blessed by God. We see an example of this in Gen chap 34 where Jacob’s daughter Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land and disaster struck and her brothers were furious. What Scriptural examples do you have to support your case? I have yet to see any scripture in your arguments. You have put forth your own opinions and held them as absolute truth without any scriptural basis for it, and used abuses of the truth to prove your case. This is very unsound reasoning. Matt 15:9 and Mark 7:7 do not address or support half of the opinions you have stated here"

My response, in which I break out Spencer's phrases and respond to them:

Spencer: “I have clearly showed you from the Scriptures how God clearly established man is the head of the woman, and you have denied that.”

Spencer. Saying the word “clearly” more than once does not convince anyone.  It merely turns them off to your argument.  Nobody likes a boaster, no matter how correct they might be.  Also, you have to look at why you are saying “clearly” more than once and at all – your arguments have been summarily deposed, one by one.  Then, you go on to spout more jargon, proof texting, and verses that are severely taken out of context.

Rather than you taking my word for it (because obviously you don’t take anyone’s word for anything unless they pound the text and quote chapter and verse) let me go to your Scriptures.

Spencer:  “If 1 Cor 11 does not mean what it says, what word should God have used if he wanted to tell you that the head of the woman is the man? Apparently, saying that directly is not good enough for you. “

You were given a good rundown of 1 Corinthians 11 by Kristen, and Erika Martin was going to chime in and give you a clue, as well.  The funny thing is that the exact same passage (key word – “passage”) that you used to prove your point actually disproves your point.  And see…that’s one of your main problems.  It’s called proof texting. 

What is proof texting, you might ask?  It’s pulling a small point out of a document that makes a conclusion that the document did not make and resting your case on that small point.  This is a classic approach to the Bible for all cults and aberrations.  

In this case, you keep referring to 1 Corinthians 11:3.  But, you can’t remove that verse from the whole passage.  If you do, it seems to prove your point.  If you take a closer look at what Paul (who is a man in Christ, just like any man in Christ, able to make mistakes, incorrect conjecture, be culturally biased, and ignorant of the future) was saying, you will agree with what Kristen said to you, which you deny she did by saying that she said 1 Corinthians 11 does not mean what it says:

Kristen:  “Look again at the passage in 1 Cor 11 about "man" being the "head" of "woman." Read the whole passage, in context. The passage is all about the sources or origins of things. "Head" here means "origin." Man is the origin of woman because she was taken out of man-- but Paul mitigates any assumption of superiority that that might entail by insisting that ever since, woman has been the origin of man, through childbirth. But, Paul finishes, God is the Origin of all of us.”

And Spencer, make sure you keep reading all the way down to verse 16.  Paul says there that if anything causes contention, stop it!  Now isn’t that funny?  If Paul’s words were the commands of God, which you claim they are, then wouldn’t we HAVE to obey them all, and stand on them regardless of disagreement?  Also, you have to see the cool stuff that Paul said about us being judged by one another.  It’s actually quite satisfying.

Spencer:   “How does Gen 1:27 in any way shape or form prove that men and women are equal? It says that he created them male and female, and you are inserting your presuppositions into the text to prove what you want it to mean.”

Let’s not even address that question, but move on to the rest of your “do what I say, not as I do” statements and proof texting habits.

Spencer:  “You have also denied the importance of the OT in your doctrine.”

I’m guessing you’re going to have to clearly explain the clear definition of “denied”, “importance”, and “doctrine”.  I’m pretty sure, if you’ll peruse the comments above, you can see that I specifically mentioned the Old Testament and its purpose in the Christian faith.  Let’s insert the word “law” in the place of the OT, though I know that will be unacceptable to you (based on your gross misuses of the descriptive which you say proves the prescriptive… We’ll chat about that in a bit).  The law was our schoolmaster to point to one reality and one reality only – that we were incapable of keeping it.  If we were, why would God have set up a system of sacrifice for EVERYONE’S sins and not just the naughty peeps?  Probably because he knew His standard was pretty high – if we broke one law, we broke the whole law.

Jesus made this point very clearly in talking about a few of the commandments.  He said, “You people think that you are just not supposed to kill your brother.  But I say, if you even hate your brother, you have killed him.”  Jesus said, “You think you’re pretty good because you haven’t committed adultery, but I say to you, if you even look upon a woman and lust after her, you have committed adultery.”  Gothard and his ilk in patriarchy look at these words and say, “See!  We have to be super dee dooper holy!”  If that were the case as we read Matthew 5, we would have to then also pluck out our eyes, as Jesus said.  In his whole sermon in this text, we see that Jesus started it off by saying that he hadn’t come to dump the law, but to fulfill it.  Then, he tells us that pretty much only perfect people can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

 

But, if we break the whole law by breaking the least of the commandments, how can we be perfect.  Answer – Christ fulfills that perfection in us.  It is quite revealing when later he answers the pesky Pharisees testing question about the greatest commandment by saying the whole law can be summed up by loving God with your whole being and loving other people as yourself, Matthew 22.  Paul reiterates this to a degree in Galatians 5, though he leaves out the part about loving God.  He doesn’t need to say that because he knows he is talking to those who are already in Christ and most likely assumes they do actually already love God with their whole being.  A few sentences later, he challenges them to be led by the Holy Spirit.  How can you be led by the Holy Spirit unless you love God with your whole being?  So, the implication was there.

 

Spencer:  “Whenever Jesus was asked a question in the gospels, what was his response? “Have ye never read”? and then he would refer back to the OT. Yet your line of reasoning does not allow for this. You deny the relativity and imperativity of the OT on NT Christians. Yet this was the essence of Christ’s ministry himself. He preached from an OT. It was the only Bible he had. The Bereans in Acts 17 were said to be searching the scriptures to see whether those things were so (after hearing the preaching of Paul and Silas). What scriptures were they searching? The Old Testament. There was no NT around. So your very premise goes against the tenant of the NT.”

Your conclusion here is one of the sickest, most twisted misrepresentations of the words of Jesus Christ I have ever heard or read.  First of all, the people that asked the questions were VERY well versed in the books of the Jewish Bible.  This was not literally the OT as we know it today, but that is a minor and mostly unrelated point.  So, being that they were well versed, why would Jesus need to tell them how to live based on the OT as you say by inserting the word “imperativity”?  They already KNEW the law and more.  They didn’t need it to be quoted back to them to tell them that they weren’t doing it well enough!  

The fact is, Jesus would use this wording to tell them another area of the law that would disprove what they were trying to prove. Now why would he do that?  Was it because he wanted to show these externally holy people that they needed to do more in order to be more holy?  I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case because it was followed by the words, “But I say to you…”  Look at Matthew 19, the most holy passage of a patriarchy group.  The passage on divorce.  You’ll see that exact formula of conversation used there.  Jesus used the OT AGAINST the Pharisees and the “perfect” people of the day. His point was not to pile on another round of laws for them to follow, but to clearly prove to them that the law was un-followable by man.  To say otherwise is to cheapen the very reason that Jesus perpetually bore our sins at the cross.

As to the Bereans.  I’ll mention again that they did not have the OT, as we have today.  It was whatever the Jewish Scriptures of the day were.  And, what was the message that Paul and Silas brought to them?  The message of the Gospel.  So, what were the Bereans searching their scriptures for?  Proof.  The proof would have been the prophesies of the scriptures.  Proof of the coming of Christ.  Proof of his life, death, and resurrection.  Proof of their need for Jesus Christ.  Paul was a very learned man and knew his scriptures well.  He most likely commended them like any teacher would commend his students for doing due diligence rather than just blindly accepting his word.  And that fits quite nicely into my point about the purpose of the OT – to point us to Christ and reveal who, what, and why he was and is and will be.

Spencer: “There was a comment made about how the passage in Gen 3 had nothing to do with Eve taking authority from Adam. Yet that is beside the point, and something that I never said. The point is, Eve was deceived, as the Bible clearly tells us. Adam was not deceived. The Bible also clearly tells us this. There is a difference there, and to deny this difference between men and women is to close your eyes to scripture.”

So, here it is Spencer.  You’re accusing one person of presuppositions and then doing it yourself.  You’re making the point that a woman gets deceived and a man doesn’t, by the way the story of Adam and Eve was narrated.  Are you really serious?  Are you trying to say that a man is never deceived and that is the difference between a man and a woman?  Really?  So, Adam took the cranberry and chewed on it but he wasn’t deceived?  Adam’s punishment was that he now had to leave the garden, as did Eve, and work very hard, by the sweat of his brow.  Why would he need to be punished?  What sin did he commit?  After all, if he was not deceived but Eve was, what would God need to dole out consequences for?  Is there some probability that Adam sinned by disobeying God?  God said don’t and Adam did.  Who cares if an ant brought him the raisin!!!?  He still ate the pickle!  And so did Eve.  They both took part in this sinful act in their own way.  That proves nothing about the nature of a man or woman’s sin.

That’s like walking into a room and seeing a man and a woman sitting in separate chairs.  The man is slumping and the woman is sitting straight as a pole, then walking out and saying that all women sit straight as a pole, and men are lazy.  Unfortunately for you, the next chair over, some guy was actually sitting straighter than the woman and the woman you saw from the back was actually on her third transvestite surgery to attempt to become a woman after being born a man.  You see…conjecture.  Assumption.  The narrative does NOT prove an underlying definition of all humanity.  

Spencer: “Jesus also tells us in Matthew 24:38 “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,”. Note the phrase “marrying and giving in marriage.” Who did this? It was the fathers. Who started this practice? The Lord himself.”

Wow.  I don’t even know where to start.  How about here…(sorry, I’m jumping up and down yelling here and bumping into my 12 foot ceiling, so you’ll have to forgive my caps.)  THESE PEOPLE WHO WERE MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE WERE THE EVILDOERS THAT GOD KILLED IN THE FLOOD!!!!!

Whew!  Ok.  I’ll settle down a bit now. You see, Spencer, your proof texting is getting worse as you move forward.  The fact was, Jesus was making a quick narrative of the time of Noah to describe His second coming.  His narrative was simply this: everyone was going about their own business with no idea what was going to happen next, and then the flood came.  They knew about the flood because Noah told them as we know about the coming of Christ because He told us.  But, we will be going about our business with no idea He is coming and then He’ll just come.  You cannot twist a simple summing up of what the pagans (who God killed in the flood because they didn’t give a crap about God) were doing as proof that a father needs to give away his daughter.  Do you really want to base your theology on what evildoers did, who God killed for being evildoers?

But, we don’t even need to go that far into the passage to disprove this point.  Your proof text was simply “marrying and giving in marriage.”  Your conclusion was that it was the fathers giving in marriage (not to mention the odd conclusion that God ordained this practice…we won’t even go there because this proof text can’t even begin to conclude that).  How do you know this from those words?  Couldn’t it be that male and female were both marrying?  Maybe they were marrying pigs and horses.  It could be that the mothers gave away their sons.  Maybe the brothers gave away their sisters.  Maybe the kids gave their parents in marriage after the fact.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  You see.  You can’t prove anything from those five words.  But, what you CAN understand is that Jesus didn’t give a rat’s rear end what exactly they were doing but rather that they were just living their lives with no idea the hour the flood would commence.  Read this passage for the true joy it is – the realization that at any moment, our Christ will come back.

Spencer: “He gave Eve to Adam, and Adam himself believed and confessed this: Genesis 3:12 “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” In essence, it appears quite evident that you have quite an issue with the order God has ordained in creation.”

 

So I pray for a car and God gives it to me.  What does that prove?  What order am I supposed to get from that?  I give my wife a gift that she asks for.  What order does that prove?  My daughter gives me something I requested.  What does that prove as pertaining to the order of things.  I’m not following you here.  But, I think its obvious that that is because you are using the single word “gavest” as your proof text in this case.  It has no meaning whatsoever as to your general point you are trying to make.

Let me make a point from this passage, and I think my point will stand up better than yours.  But, that’s only my opinion.  Test it.  Maybe Adam was just acting like a kid, trying to squiggle out of a bad situation, knowing he had done wrong.  So, what does he try to do here?  Squeal on Eve and then blame it on God!  “After all God, you gave her to me.  If it hadn’t been for that stupid act of meeting my request, we wouldn’t BE in this situation now, would we God?”

Sort of turns the tables on your argument.  I think that, if we wanted to use this verse as a proof text to conjecture the way a man is, in all of history, is that all men are lying snakes and will do anything to weasel out of a poor situation.  Even biting the hand that feeds…er…created them and even disposing with a backhanded slap, the woman of his dreams.  But then, that wouldn’t fit into your worldview about the women having the greater tendency toward sin now, would it?  Please!  Lay off of Eve already.  That narrative is dead.  Adam and Eve were both equally at fault.  God didn’t care how they got to the sinful state.  He cared that they actually were sinful.

Spencer: “If you cannot accept the fact that God has ordained Christ as the head of every man, and man to be the head of the woman as Scripture clearly tells us, you have an issue with the Lord, not with me.”

Now THIS is a softball.  First of all, we’ve dealt with 1 Corinthians 11:3 already so we’ll move on to your phraseology about dealing with the Lord rather than you.  You used the word “clearly” again.  You cannot do that!  It makes it quite clear that you have clearly lost your argument.  And the fact is, you are saying that YOU are right.  Why?  Well, if we have to take up an issue with the Lord that you so “clearly” laid out for us, then you have put your Spencer stamp on it.  Thus, for you to say we need to take it up with the Lord is to say the following:  “I’m done with you knuckleheads on this subject that I am 100% correct on.  Thus, you need to make sure that God brings you to my conclusion as well.”  I’d rather speak to the person that is spouting false truths than try and figure out which god I need to pray to only to discover that that god doesn’t exist. 

Spencer, we are to wrestle for the faith.  So wrestle.  Don’t punt.  And when you are proven wrong, admit it.  I know there are many people in your organization that will look badly upon you if you question things.  The formulas are so easy and yet there are so many of them.  It will get tiring and then where will you go?  Back to the people who tell you that being tired in the Christian life is a sin?  The Christian life is…well…let’s see what Jesus says.  “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Yep.  So refreshing, freeing (read Galatians), and frightening at the same time.  It’s frightening because, when you’ve lived a structured and guilt-ridden life for many years, trying to learn to live with no rules is hard!  I know.  Many people ask me for the rule book on how to live free in Christ.  But, by the very definition of freedom, there is none.

Spencer: “Also, the history and track record of our nation is against what you are saying. The rampant divorce rate in our country today has nothing to do with parents jumping into their children’s lives and trying to control them, but with the exact opposite. Young people following your advice to a T and cultivating rebellion within themselves and running off and doing as they please. I do not deny that there are parents out there who misuse and yea even abuse their authority, but the majority of parents in our culture and nation today are doing the exact opposite and we are seeing the fruits of that today. Your teachings would have been thrown out as nonsense 100 years ago with saved or lost people.”

This is a fine narrative but it does nothing to prove anything.  It merely tells us that you are aware that mankind is inherently sinful.  Nothing more.  You make a few assumptions, but then that is expected because your theology makes assumptions every day.  Your accusation that advice to flee spiritual bondage and evil acts by men and women is akin to “cultivating rebellion within themselves and running off and doing as they please” is very revealing to everyone that you are spouting jargon.

Spencer: “Encouraging young people to throw off their parents and do as they please once they hit 18 is found nowhere in the pages of Scripture.”

There you go again.  It is obvious that you look at leaving ones parents as doing as one pleases. First of all, let me ask, “What is wrong with that?”  I do as I please as a father, husband, man, wicked awesome employee, and wannabe writer.  My wife does as she pleases.  She pleases me and I please her, we please our children, we please others, and we please ourselves.  OOOO!  Bad!  It’s naughty to please ourselves!  Right?  Um…well…if half the Christian life is summed up by Jesus Christ words, “Love others as you love yourself,” then for me to not please myself means that I shouldn’t then please others.  So, in doing all of this pleasing, we please the Lord, don’t you think?

I’ll finish this part by saying that I wouldn’t listen to anyone who tells someone to throw off their parents at 18.  But don’t be fooled into thinking that I am agreeing with you.  I am merely stating that parents are not to be used until adulthood and then tossed away like a spent shell casing.  They are to be honored.  But honor to me looks and feels much different than the formulas you regurgitate.  Honor is not blind obedience until any age of release.  No, we are individuals in Christ.  Equals as adults.  We have no master but Jesus Christ.

Spencer: “You find no one in the Scriptures that ever did such a thing and was blessed by God. We see an example of this in Gen chap 34 where Jacob’s daughter Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land and disaster struck and her brothers were furious. What Scriptural examples do you have to support your case? I have yet to see any scripture in your arguments. You have put forth your own opinions and held them as absolute truth without any scriptural basis for it, and used abuses of the truth to prove your case.”

Wait!  Don’t stop!  Keep going buddy!  As long as we’re using the story of Dinah to prove your case for women staying under their parents authority (which in a weird way, this seems to prove that Dinah needed to stay under her brothers authority) we need to take the whole story literally, as well.  What did her brothers do after Dinah’s lover requested, AND WAS GRANTED, marriage?  Seriously…we COULD stop there.  If it is a father’s job to protect his daughter from evil hanky panky men, why would Jacob agree to a marriage betwixt Dinah and her rapest (which we get from the passages inference)?  After all, Jacob was deceived by his sons motives and went along with the plan only to later realize that his sons were idiots and would bring the wrath of the land upon him.  If this is how fathers are supposed to act in giving away and protecting their daughters, this isn’t exactly choice meat for your arguments.

But, let’s not stop there.  If we are supposed to look at the fact that Dinah’s brothers were pissed that she had gone out into the land and had been raped, as proof that women should stay under the protection of their fathers, then we also need to make allowance for what Simeon and Levi did later.  They deceived the people of the land to be circumcised and when all the men still had a grip on the gauze, doubled over in pain, they killed them all.  Would you stand on that principle?  Seriously, Jacob told them they were morons and what did the blokes say?  “Do you really want men doing that to our sister?”  And the passage ends.

One more thing about this.  Do you think a rapist is not at fault for his heinous act against a woman?  After all, you put the blame of Dinah on her own head, rather than the bloke who raped her.  Her brothers were pissed, according to you, based on her going out from under the protection of her father.  That’s ludicrous.  If that is what you believe, I fear for your daughters, if you have any.  To look at a woman who has been raped and say it was her fault for defrauding the man in his mind and laying none of the blame on the man is filthy.  It’s pure evil.

I’ll tell you what I take away from this story.  A man lived in a land where they didn’t have the high standards of Jacob’s family.  They probably had sex with women more loosely than Jacob’s family did.  So, when he saw Dinah, he naturally took her in and had sex with her.  She must have been very beautiful and loving because the Bible says his soul was smitten with her.  The love story (though much messier than your utopian definition of love stories) almost finished with all parties involved quite happy until a couple of losers messed it up.  Dinah was almost wedded and Jacob almost had some very rich friends with shared wealth.  Pure evil on all sides and yet it could have been a good ending.  Looks to me like this is more a story of mankind being total screw-ups than a definition of how we should treat each other.  Open your mind Spencer.

Spencer: “This is very unsound reasoning. Matt 15:9 and Mark 7:7 do not address or support half of the opinions you have stated here.”

Huh?  Matthew 15:9?  Seriously, what?  Was that a parting shot? Because, if it was, it was the worst proof texting I’ve ever, ever, ever, ever, ever seen.  Jesus was talking to the Pharisees!  He was telling them the same narrative as he always told them.  “You hypocrites.  You think you’re all that in following all my laws, but you worship me in vain.”  You only referenced the very last part and expected us to think that we worship God in vain because the verse said it.  Huh?  Doesn’t make much sense.

Oh.  And proof texting?  It goes for not just the whole passage, the whole chapter, the whole book, but it goes for the whole Bible itself.  The Bible is a message in itself.  If a theology is derived from a smattering of versed pulled from odd places but disagrees with the Bible as a whole, well then, yeah….you get it.  I know you do.

Funny.  I just read Mark 7:7.  Same issue. 

Spencer.  YOU are the Pharisee.  Read your Bible.  Please understand I say this with deep yearning in my heart for you to see the light.  You are so strong in your convictions that I fear for not only your freedom in Christ and the currently unrealized joy and true relationship with God that you can have, but for all those that you have put under your authority.

I will be praying that God reveals His truth to you with such a measure that you cry uncontrollable tears of joy when you think of Him.  

Finally, if you want a good book on the subject, read “A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the Christian Life” by Don and Joy Venoit with Ron Henzel.  ISBN: 0974252808.

Love ya buddy.  Hope to see you on the other side some day.

Authorized KJV Only Through the Eyes of Kellogg's Corn Flakes

The year was 1894.  A man stood at a pot of boiling wheat kernels.  He had been working day and night at a simple task.  The president of the United States of America had issued a decree, requiring this man to create a breakfast cereal that was the alternative to the only available breakfast gruel of the period - Quaker Oats Oatmeal.

The problem with Quaker Oats Oatmeal was that it did not conform to the tastes of the political leaders of the day.  Oatmeal was readily available and thus did not have an "I'm manufactured in the United States of America, under the decree of the honorable President" air about it.  This was necessary to maintain the governmental structures that our founding fathers had so carefully crafted. A new alternative with that stamp would keep their citizenry in line, as well as send the message to the rest of the world that this form of government had its merits, founded in the most basic lifeblood of mankind - the breakfast cereal.

So, here stood this one man, working up a sweat, trying different ideas, scribbling notes on a few rough sheets of paper, consulting his hordes of experts, and taking each creation to the Oval Office for approval.

On this fateful evening, his aunt called.  This woman was his favorite relative.  She lived in the south and had many a story about post-war colonial America.  This man left the kitchen and joined her in the parlor to catch up on family news and events.  Time flew by as they spoke.  At one point in the conversation, a young employee came up to this man and whispered in his ear.  He informed him that the pot of boiling wheat kernels was, in fact, still boiling, and what should he do about it.  Realizing his error - the fact that he needed to have paid careful attention to the time the boiling began, the size of the bubbles on the surface, as well as the rate of effervescence on the bottom of the pot - this man jumped up and went back into the kitchen to remove this errant test and throw it away.

He quickly noticed that the wheat kernels had softened considerably and when rolled, ended up flat as a silver dollar.  Then, when dried, the "flakes" became a crunchy, full flavored, treat.  After a bit of fine-tuning, Kellogg's Corn Flakes were ready for presidential approval. And approve he did.

This was exactly what the president was looking for.  All of his reasons for this project would be realized once the world got their hands on this American wonder.  And he was right.

Kellogg's Corn Flakes swept the world.  Quaker Oats Oatmeal became a distant second choice for all those persons that broke their nightly fast in the morning.  Even so, oatmeal, especially this brand, was still well loved and used by many.

It didn't take long for the copycats to come out of the woodwork.  Companies like General Mills created their own version of breakfast cereal in the form of a small doughnut of oats.  Kellogg even introduced a new cereal called Rice Krispies in 1929.  Small and less well known cereal companies began popping up all over the world with their own cereals, sometimes a version of the original Kellogg's Corn Flakes, at other times, cereals that reflected the region's tastes, while staying true to the founding principles of what made a good cold cereal - crunchy and full flavored.

Then, Kellogg took a hit.  High sugar content cereal was introduced into the market by a competitor.  Almost immediately, the world took notice.  Children began clamoring for this new phenomenon and parents responded.  Kellogg's Corn Flakes' share of the market began to wane, and wane quickly.  Something needed to be done.

 A small contingent of the American Strict Diet Society formed a Kellogg's Corn Flakes Only Chapter.  They published a document in 1932 extolling the benefits of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, even rejecting the new Rice Krispies.  The group then began to proselytize this concept to all who would listen.  Their message, as a group, was very exclusionary and their tactics would cause two hard reactions - religious acceptance or vehement rejection with a raised eyebrow.

The Kellogg's Corn Flake Only Society, as they now had separated from the ASDS due to their hard line, gained a following that still exists under many different names today.  Their message found its way into the culture of humanity and the legalistic approach to the morning meal is part of an unquestioned dogma in many families.

A quick Google search will reveal that the above historical record is pretty much a load of crap.  But it does illustrate the point I am about to make:

The Authorized King James Version of the Bible was ordered to be written by King James I of England.  He needed a translation that fit the dogma of the Church of England while making sure that the authority of the clergy was preserved.  Yes, let me repeat:  ...while the authority of the clergy was preserved! (Daniell, David (2003). The Bible in English: its history and influence. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300099304)

Another point that needs to be made is that ALL 47 members of the team that worked on this translation were also members of the Church of England.  Can anyone say "agenda".

Here's my question to you: How is it that the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, which was ordered written by King James for the Church of England by the Church of England to promote the Church of England and furthermore, to persist the teachings of the Church of England, does a contingent of Christianity swear by the version's authenticity, correctness, and even singular reliable theopneustos?  The irony is that pretty much ALL of those groups that preach the KJV Only doctrine are 'separationists'.

Think about it over a bowl of Captain Crunch.

Walking in Pipestone

I wrote this piece back in my college days.  It was written as the final paper for a single credit walking course.  We were supposed to write a research paper about why walking was beneficial.  Being that there were 44 students in the class and the professor was pretty much just out of high school, I decided that I would write something different.  Something that would wake her up in the middle of reading 44 boring explanations of why walking helps your heart rate increase for thirty lousy minutes.  What a nap!

I got an A.  Later, I received a card in the mail with a huge thank you for doing exactly what I expected to do - make her day.

I hope you enjoy it and get a real sense of the town of Pipestone, Minnesota.

*****

Walking in Pipestone

Every morning, without fail, I wake up and get dressed. Ok. Maybe “wake up” is a bad depiction of what really happens. I really just crawl out of bed and listen with great envy at my wife’s heavy and even breathing. She sounds so comfortable. Under those covers was warmth. The makings of a twenty-five hundred dollar bed.

We used to sleep on a $349 mattress, purchased from a dealer with a trailer he pulled behind his rusty Chevrolet that belched blue smoke as he backed into our driveway. It took a year to get the exhaust smelling fabric to smell remotely like Febreze. Then, after that year was up, a good night’s sleep was spent rolling into the middle of the bed due to the collapsed spring system. Something about the cheapness of the bed seemed to naturally translate to the quality, as well. 

Not to mention Kristine’s – that’s my wife – back. Sleeping in a fly-by-night excuse for a bed will do that. So, much to the delight of the thumb twiddling expensive material air-bed salesman, we bought a good bed. Now, here I am, sitting on the edge of it, debating whether to complete the stand-up routine, or fall back into the bliss and enter the world of dreams again. 

Usually – and I say usually with either a grain of salt, or a slightly noticeable wink – I would unbend the knees and head for the shower. There is nothing like a warm forty-five minute shower that will increase your water bill. This fact alone keeps me jerking awake at least once a month. But, at this moment, who really gives a rip about a lousy water bill? I’ll deal with that when it comes. No matter that it seems to consistently increase with each proceeding month. I blame it on the kids taking extra baths every day. I’ve seen them! I really have!

I prepare myself for the shower which consists mostly of convincing myself that it is the right thing to do. Bed beckons with fingers stronger than stalactites hanging from Minnehaha Falls. I am just about ready to jump in the shower when a few additional cobwebs escape the confines of my left nebula and I realize that I have promised to walk, jog, or run every morning. Taking a shower and then doing the deed wouldn’t be very algorithmic. In fact, this process may have the effect of doubling my water bill due to the need to repeat the shower after the exercise routine.

So, walk I do. I put on weather appropriate clothes and leave the house. On any particular day, I inevitably wear the wrong clothes. Too much, too little, too hot, too cold, you name it, I wear it. I consider this horrible fact part of the misery of forced exercise. As long as it is a miserable thing to do, why be comfortable doing it? I know it’s good for me so I must suffer. For example, if my plan was to get all hot and sweaty while working out, comfort would be doing it in the buff. But, that is not acceptable in our society, not to mention my wife would kill me and the mayor I respect would have me run out of town. I think I would still respect her after she did that, as well. So, in my misery I go.

The same thing happens every morning. The Chinese man with the limp is in his driveway looking at his car. I race by, say hello, he says hello, bows halfway to the ground, I smile and wish I was that polite, and then forget the whole process happens as I look ahead to the next sights, sounds, and smells. Speaking of smells, my run would be much easier if it wasn’t for the grease dumpster outside of the Coborn’s store. Taking a breath of that causes me to cough violently, sending bloody phlegm to the pavement, splattering on the walls of historic Pipestone. I have left half the contents of my alveoli on that grocery wall at times sans the cilia. Life is great in a small town. 

I walk, jog or run past the ugliest recreation building a town person will ever see. It is so ugly it doesn’t even have the dignity of being capitalized. It has tile on the exterior that makes you think of a bathroom that your old great-grandmother used to bang on the door of, in which sat your grandfather, yelling that he was having trouble going, when you really knew that he was sitting there, getting a red derriere, reading the latest Lutheran Monthly, which probably exhorted the virtues of telling the truth.

The recreation building was seriously spruced up a year earlier with the addition of an extra patch of asphalt right in the middle of the lot. The city had sent their best alderman down to inspect the lot and he concluded that the lot was a bit potted. Once the determination had been made official at not one, but two city meetings, the funds were appropriated and the brother of the local sheriff brought in his skeleton crew and patched it up. This made the lot look like a true hospital chopper launch pad, greatly increasing the potential value of the property. I jog on, thinking that someday, just once, I may paint a big white ‘X’ on the patch. But then, I’d probably be caught – small town and all.

The next six or so blocks are dotted with homes that are decorated from the seventies. The type where you can tell what generation the owners are from. Their steps are covered in that green mini-golf course carpeting. Only, it’s so fake and shiny that it looks like you tied a bunch of produce twist ties together and called it a step. Also, during the Christmas season, the big lighted candles come out of storage. Decorations that you haven’t seen at Macy’s for decades appear in full force symmetrical fashion. Symmetry is a must. A house must look like you lost your color sight and ended up on the set of the perfect Leave it to Beaver episode. One blade of grass out of place and it’s a “Dear…can you tell Beaver to cut the lawn? That’d be nice dear.”

I turn onto the main thoroughfare through town. The one where the town deputy cruises at the exact same time in the morning. I end up waving to him just to score some points and not be written a ticket when he stops me once a week. It usually works. I buy him coffee at the local diner on occasion. If you thought Governor Blagojevich was a rotten liar, cheat, and a thief, you outta see a small town cop get drunk on coffee and doughnuts. It’s a sight to see. All town budgets could be balanced and school systems would run as smooth as a woman on Metamucil if only the glaze on a doughnut had not been invented. It is this substance of purity, this delectable melted sugar that starts the flavor at the tip of the officer’s tongue and ends up with a slightly bitter end, that brings down most petty officers of the streets. Keep a few Medicare Drug Plan replicas around and you’ll be ticket free for life. You’ll just hate yourself.

I shrug off the horrid thoughts and run past the house of the Amway Sales/Seventh Day Adventist Preacher’s house. The wife’s name is Aquarius but I just call her Horoscope for short. I look at the way they tore apart their house and then pieced it back together to make it a form of ancient American architectural art. It is one of the many – and arguably the best – bright spots on my walk. The legend goes that one day, the wife was washing her laundry in the cantilevered wash room and the room just fell away from the house. She counted her lucky stars as she had just backed up to fill the dryer which was not included in the fall-off. Neither was her Taurus in the drive. She also didn’t have cancer. Her good luck was…ok, enough of the horoscope jokes! She’s fine.

I arrive home, take a shower, and get on with my day.

Best Joke of the Day

Listening to Click and Clack on Car Talk this afternoon, I heard this joke:

The lawyer stood over the plaintiff and asked him to answer his question.  "Did you or did you not tell the patrolman at the scene of the accident that you were fine.  In fact, your exact words were, I'm fine!?"

The plaintiff began to speak.  "You see, I was loading my favorite donkey, Bessie into my trailer that morning..."

"I asked a yes or no question.  Did you say I'm fine to the patrolman at the scene of the accident?!!", the lawyer retorted.

The plaintiff kept going.  "I got Bessie into the trailer and began to drive down the road."

The lawyer cut the plaintiff off again and turned to the judge, begging him to make the plaintiff answer the yes or no question.  The judge, now interested in the donkey story told the plaintiff to continue.

"Thank you, your honor.  As I was saying, I was driving down the road and was crossing an intersection when this big semi blew the stop sign and  broadsided me.  I ended up in one ditch and Bessie in the other.  I was pretty hurt but heard Bessie groaning and moaning on the other side of the road.  The patrolman arrived and looked at me but also heard Bessie.  So, he went over to the other side of the road to check on her.  I heard him looking around and then he shot her to put her out of her misery.  Then, the next thing I knew, here he was, standing over me, holding his gun and asked how I was doing.  What the heck would you say???!!!"

A Letter to My Wife

I dedicate this to Delores Ashworth - a true friend and sister.  You were like a loving grandmother to me and my children loved your smile.  You will be missed.

To my bride,

Today, at 9:15 AM, I learned of the death of one of my friends at work.  This woman was a very loving person who always had a smile and a laugh for any one of my dumbest jokes.  She brought doughnuts in on occasion for the whole office.  Her love of sailing, her husband, Mike, children, and of course, life in general, was an inspiration to me.  Her marriage was long lasting, appeared strong, and very warm and loving.

Yes, her marriage.  I saw you in her.  Her passing made me realize that it may have been a while since I let you know how important you are to me.

I love you.  From the day we met and spoke for hours under that rainy tent in Duluth, Minnesota, you have been the best conversant in my life.  I love talking to you.  Though we only get to now, after 9PM, I still enjoy every second I spend with you.  At times, I may throw a fit, due to my inner childish maturity, but when I come crawling back to reality, you are always there, waiting for me.

You have taught me the beauties of the simple things.  Brushing your hair, scratching your scalp, the neck massage, a small supper after your classes at midnight, the walking in the park with our arms around each other, straining to get closer and closer, cursing the heavy clothes between us, which, if removed, would still not be close enough, the fake shivering when you want to be wrapped in my arms, and laughing at the same stupid humor, over and over again.

You have watched me believe in a very restrictive religion and then open up to freedom.  Though it may scare you, you are ready to study and bring me to an understanding of how you see things, meshing it together with mine, making a beautiful, long lasting life together.  We have worked with varying parenting ideas and have realized, by your conclusions, that they all fall pathetically short of any goal.  Your desire to be more than a mother and wife and be loved by your children deeply, has moved me to desire to help them get there.

You have watched my struggles in that department and have prodded me with suggestions that we have re-molded, together, to make a workable and awesome life for our family.

The pleasure you find in your new career makes me deeply happy.  Even if you decide to throw it all away for something else, I still relish the fact that you are seeking your heart's desire and flying free as a bird.  Your dreams are becoming my dreams as mine are yours (unless I get all goofy with them.).  You have been impressed, sometimes feigning impression, every time I come up with a new idea.  Your excitement lasts for exactly the right time, dying away when the fire goes out in my eyes.  We work well together.

In short, you are the completion to my life here on earth.  The woman of my dreams.  My friend.  My lover.  My companion.  My equal.  My superior.  My loving healer of long felt wounds.  The salve for my sore soul.  You are my wife. 

I love you.

Should I Obey My Pastor?

I am very sorry for the length of time since the teaser was posted.  I videotaped a segment of random thoughts on the matter which was summarily vetoed by my wife.  She had some excellent points of contention which I now see as quite important to the discussion.  Also, my camera died in the middle of the edited version so I have resorted back to writing, which is good, because I forgot to shave last month and my radio face might scare off reasonable and needy individuals.

Now, let's get to it.

Let me start out by making a very controversial statement.  A pastor is unnecessary.  Not wrong, just unnecessary.  You will understand what I mean by this as you read further.

We have a direct relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  We need no mediator or guide for our spiritual walk between us and Christ.  Put another way, my relationship with God is mine alone.  That's it.  Pure and simple. 

You ask: "What about being led astray?" "What about teaching and exhorting and guiding, etc.?"

The short answer is.  That isn't your problem.  If that makes you bristle, you need to look carefully at what you believe about the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives.  If you think that God is so powerless to change a person's heart and guide that person's spiritual life, then you are putting God in a very small box.  A box that, when opened, will reveal to you that you are free to not worry about such things.  If I am "led astray," whatever that means, then God will bring me back - and here's the kicker - or not.

On teaching, exhorting and guiding, among other wonderful things that a follower of Christ can benefit from, I am perfectly able to allow those things into my own life for assistance.  Some people desire a deep understanding of theology.  To navigate that themselves, while possible, can be confusing, depending on their level of intelligence.  Bringing others who have gone ahead of them into their lives through whatever means, can be a great help.  On the other side of the spectrum, if that is what this is, is a person who loves God and desires nothing more than a relationship with Him.  They are no less than the great theologian. 

Again, the help is good, sometimes great, but unnecessary, and many times, a hindrance, clouding your mind with fluff.

Let's look at it another way.

There is no hierarchy with God.  No one is superior to me.  No one is inferior.  No matter where our walk is, we are all accepted as sufficient before God because of Jesus Christ.  This means that one person's word and direction has no greater weight than how I view my spiritual path.  After all, I have the Holy Spirit to commune with.  If another man, built up as an earthly pastor, tells me that I need to do something, and I disagree, it should not be done.  Point, blank, and period.  We can reason with each other about the fruits of the action, which is very healthy and encouraged in the Bible, but ultimately the decision is between me and God.

We're here to serve, translated in simple terms - love.  Not to command.  We have no authority over any other person, spiritually.  None.  Their walk is their own.  If they desire my input, so be it.  If not, again, so be it.  To put myself in charge of a person spiritually removes the individuality each one of us has with Christ, inserting me between that person and Jesus.

Let's explore the main Scripture verse that is used to "prove" that a pastor should be obeyed.

Hebrews 13:17 (NKJV): "Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch over your souls, as those who must give an account.  Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you."

A large problem with many of our traditions and sacred cows is that verses like these are lifted from their context and, in isolation, prove a point that the author was not trying to make.   So, whenever a single verse is quoted, jump into the Bible and read the entire chapter or the entire thought, which may be more than or less than the chapter.  Whatever you need to do, find the context.

Reading the whole chapter, we see that the author was listing many random thoughts about how we should live.  The chapter is in no way speaking about a leader of a church (not to mention, WE are the church, no church building defines us, another topic entirely), let alone obeying that leader. The assumption is being made that a pastor is included in the imaginary list of those who rule over you.

Remember, in those days, this was a very hierarchical society.  There were clear master/slave definitions.  All governments were monarchical or autocratic, which usually demanded unquestioning obedience to allay potentially deadly consequences.  Today, we have hierarchical systems that are much more open to input from those that are being "ruled".  Our reaction to these rulers are, of course, going to be different than if they wielded absolute power over us, as they did in the past.  Love is demanded of us rather than blind obedience.  Our testimony is based on THAT and that alone.  Yes, much easier to fulfill that command of Christ in this modern age.  To foist a medieval definition on current authority figures is to give us unnecessary and tiring work to accomplish.

But, whether or not, the above definition of modern authority figures is true, or even if you plan to insist that we need to redefine those same figures as more than they are, we still have no basis in this verse to prove that a pastor is included in "those that rule over you.."

One argument for this "obey your pastor" ideology is that a pastor is the shepherd of the flock.  We won't even get into the arguments of who a person is supposed to obey when they are between churches or have no church to worship God in because they live in the Amazon rain forest.  But, let's explore this shepherd thing.

First of all, I don't mind being called a part of a flock.  That's what Jesus referred to us as to Peter after the resurrection.  But I DO mind being told I need another man or woman to shepherd me in my relationship with Christ and ultimately God.  Now, I'm not saying well learned individuals, mentors, or people who may disciple me, are unnecessary for my walk.  I've already made that point.  While these people are all well and good, they are still unnecessary for electrifying our minds and hearts to follow correct paths of truth.

What I AM saying bears repeating - that we do not need an earthly shepherd.  Someone to stand between us and Jesus Christ, guiding our spiritual lives and many times, requiring instant and unquestioning obedience, feigning the allowance of dissent and practical thinking.

Let's move down the chapter of random thoughts.  Hey!  Verse 20.

"Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, (there's that shepherd word, but let's keep going!) through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

Yep.  I slipped verse 21 in there because it really was quite important.  See, Jesus is the shepherd and HE is the one that will guide us and work all His good works through us.  This means that every tome written, every video shot, every blog typed (even mine), every historical record of every "great" Christian, is no match for my individual relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now, to the dark part.

Hebrews 13:17, taken out of context, allows guilt and manipulation at the hands of a "pastor" to creep in.  "After all, if I'm to rule over you and your soul is in my hands, then you'd better do as I say.  Your spiritual condition rests with me.  Go out from my authority and the wiles of the devil are going to get you.  Capiche?"

Yes.  Ripe for the picking.  And it is done from ultra-conservative churches to the swinging from the chandeliers, frothing at the mouth joints.

Let us keep in mind that we are following the true shepherd - Jesus Christ and Him alone.

If a "pastor" tells you to do something or requires something of you that flies in the face of loving one another or gets in the way of your relationship with God, ignore it, deflect it, tell him why, by all means.  We are to reason.  His response will be telling.  And yes, you are allowed to reason (gasp!) with God alone!  With yourself, your wife, your kids, your postman, your dog, and definitely the guy from China who reads your blog.

This is freedom in Christ.  True religion.  The diverse color world.  Enjoy it.

Pending Post: Should I Obey My Pastor?

I will be uploading a home chat I had with a camera on this subject.  Its not authoritative, but I deem it very helpful. I just need to get it approved by my wife first. Keep checking back...

4/12/2011 - Yes, I've been preparing this post off and on.  Also, I tried to shoot it with a Vivitar and it didn't work out.  So, I'll be typing it up very soon.  Thanks for waiting patiently.  I hope you all have done some studying on the subject in the meantime so a lively discussion can ensue henceforth.  Ok, enough of the crappy old English.

Who Is He?

In my Freshman year of college, I went to a Works Reading of Ander Monson.  The following essay was my critique of the man's presentation.  To this day, I respect him as a great writer.

*****

Quietly I sat, staring at the figure in the front.  He was surrounded by a murky yellow light as if the sun was trying to fight its rays into the depths of the auditorium.  Black holes in the ceiling told of luminescence once present but long forgotten, possibly burnt out from their incessant and yet pointless task of waking the sleeping freshmen from their heat-induced slumber. 

One would surmise that the warmth, coupled with a sparsely known writer from the Upper Hand would bear an unsuspecting soul into the halls of dreamless sleep only to be artificially jerked awake by the sound of a fellow student’s uniquely ringing lifeline to organized chaos.  During thick lulls of silence, my eyes would wander to the architect’s mastery – the illusion of a wall.

Ander Monson’s figure waved to the cadence of his Vacationland.  He smelled of women’s perfume, men’s cologne, dirty socks, old carpeting with rotting floorboards, an excess of hair gel or possibly spray, piping hot ink from the quickness of hundreds of pens, and an unusual but understandable splash of formaldehyde.  Or was that the excited crowd I was in, hanging on every word of advice – or non-advice – that emanated from his manufactured mouth.   Forcing the Professor to say the consonant ‘j’ lent a stronger appreciation of Fragments: On Dentistry. Having not read the King, I now have two-thirds less of a reason to delve.

            The topic of inspiration was on the mind of one fellow student.  Impressed, the tame lion inspired the crowd to work.  “Work hard and you’ll get better.”   

            One critic spoke of her mistrust of his poetry bringing a profound, yet confusing conclusion from Ander Monson – poetry can take on new wings from time to time and will transform itself within the life of the poet or more aptly, through those who read it.  When a soul comes across poetry, their life is a window to the meaning.  Each window is unique and the interpretation may bring in more or less warmth or no light at all. 

            Death came into the room from all corners.  It was laughed at, scorned, respected, internally wept over, guessed at, was wished for, and held at arms length.  From our invincible vantage point, death appeared to be a rodent, constantly irritating the ears of those who cared to listen, but no more.  It caused us to look at life in a new light, craning our necks to see the depth of electricity and abstractness.  We looked at life before death and enjoyed the randomness of it all.  Life for those who lived after death became more profound, resulting in well penned works.  A bridge was formed to cross the cavern of the unknown and yet it was still undefined.  We were just looking at it more intelligently.  The crassness of life made death look promising while keeping one ear toward the ground, the other toward bigger and better things, even if we were trapped in chain mail.

            I now understood the meaning of the dark light in the bowels of the campus – there was no meaning.  But Ander Monson stood there, giving us understanding of his mind, which, indefinable, gave us the definition of what our success as a writer would look like – alone in a room, laptop on the desk, staring at the screen…of the TV.