Saturday, January 21, 2017

Freedom of Religion and Speech



Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Your Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven

Your Will Be Done on Earth as It Is in Heaven

Your will be done on earthQuite often I've heard people pray, "Your will be done!" And by saying this, they turn the matter over to God's predestinating everything, and wash their hands of it. Is this what Christ meant when He taught His followers to pray? I don't think so! When He said, "Our Father in heaven, may Your name be kept holy, may Your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," He was bringing heaven down to earth!

Christ wants us to ask our Heavenly Father for three things to be brought about on earth, just as they already are in heaven. Today the majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians are celebrating Christmas, the Incarnation of our God, Jesus Christ, as a human being born on earth. And as we partake of His life, His Body and Blood, we also should become co-incarnations of God on this earth!

Let's look at it this way:

Our Father in heaven:
1. may Your name be kept holy,  \
2. may Your kingdom come,        > on earth as it is in heaven!
3. may Your will be done        /

How do we go about this task of 1) making God's name holy, 2) bringing His kingdom, and 3) carrying out His will... on this earth? When Christ ascended up into heaven, He left His Body on earth... that's us, the Church, the Body of Christ. I suppose that God could have instantly taken people up into heaven the moment they believed in Christ and were baptized. We are left here on earth, however, to incarnate Christ, to keep God's name holy, to bring about His kingdom, and to do His will - right here on earth.

In my Hosken-News blogs of 5 June 2016 and 18 June 2016 I wrote on "Seek the Welfare of the City", a phrase the prophet Jeremiah used when he told the Jews in Babylonian exile not to just sit there wishing they were "in heaven" - back in Israel, but rather to marry, have sons and daughters, and contribute to society right there in pagan Babylon: to "bloom where they were planted." In the same way, we Christians must not be "so heavenly we're of no earthly good" - not be so totally wrapped up in church activities that we have no time or energy left for anything else, but rather be involved as responsible citizens of the society where we live.

In the phrase "seek the welfare of the city" the word "city" in Greek is "polis" from which we get the word "politics" and "political" - so to seek the welfare of the city must necessarily mean to take an active part in the political process. But many Christians shy away from politics because it's corrupt, it's swarming with bribes, immorality, drunkenness, etc. Why? Precisely because so few Christians are involved in politics!

For the secularists and leftists, everything is political, including religion. Their worldview dictates that every aspect of life, every social institution including the church, should come under the control of a supposedly benevolent state. So this is why we as Christians must "seek the welfare of the city" - the polity we live in, because if we don't, we forfeit control over everything, including our religion.

When the Pharisees sent people to try trapping Christ with the trick question, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" - that is, should we participate in the corrupt, oppressive Roman government? He answered - "Show me the tax money." They brought to him a denarius. He asked them, "Whose is this image and inscription?" They said to him, "Caesar's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:17-21). There is a clear distinction between what belongs to government and what belongs to God. Many Christians stop with that, focusing only on what belongs to God. But there's a little word "and" in the middle! We are to both give attention to what belongs to government and give attention to what belongs to God.

Throughout history a struggle has been going on between civil authority and religious authority. The context of the above passage in Matthew ch. 22 is about marriage: first Christ gave the parable of the wedding feast, next He was asked about paying taxes, and then the Sadducees asked him about marrying and re-marrying. The issue of marriage is today a battleground area, a struggle between civil and religious authority. When Jesus Christ was on earth, rules about marriage were pretty much left up to the local customs.

But today the state's administrative agencies promulgate rules to the citizenry - including religious authorities and believers - that contradict their beliefs about abortion, marriage, birth control, who can use which public bathrooms, etc. These rule-making agencies are unelected, in effect they are legislating without the consent of the governed. Ever since FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society (he called it "the New Deal on steroids"), the administrative state has mushroomed into a huge, unaccountable fourth branch of government. While he was a senator, LBJ also had the "Johnson Amendment" passed that threatens churches with the loss of their tax-exempt status if their pastors preach about political candidates, which has caused most Christians to be afraid to speak up about their Christian convictions. Here's what Fr. Hans Jacobse writes in "The Administrative State Has Changed Our Culture." about the administrative state (read the whole article!):

But more insidious than the obvious and old-fashioned corruption of the system is the way that it corrupts our culture and our national character. The post-election hysteria shows how a large segment of American society has become infantile, addicted to entitlements and identity politics, utterly dependent on the state, and incapable of imagining how to arrange their lives without it.

This infantilization is exactly what critics of the administrative state have long warned would result. Well over a century and a half ago, Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned how such a state might come to America, which, as other European observers noted, still lacked a state along European lines.

As a sympathetic critic of American democracy, Tocqueville also noted that our democratic passion for equality might produce a new kind of despotism. He prophesied that it would be “more extensive and milder and it would degrade men without tormenting them.” Modern democracy would produce “not tyrants, but rather tutors … I will call it administrative despotism for lack of a better name.” Many today call it “the nanny state.”

The government would provide the vulgar, material pleasures that democratic men seek. It would be “absolute, detailed, regular, far-sighted, and mild,” like a parent who wanted to keep his children from growing up, to “remove entirely from them the trouble to think and the difficulty of living.”

Here's another excellent article on the same topic: LBJ vs. the Nuclear Family. Today the majority of us are kept sedated and docile by our daily doses of sugary drinks and snacks, deep-fat-fried chips and fries, sex and violence on TV and cable, profanity and anarchy in the pop songs and videos, and the droning on and on of the state-approved "news" that is curated and massaged to mold our brains into accepting more and more government "benefits," actually thought- and behavior-control, forming us into compliant, dependent drones, and forcing the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family. And most of us are happy to keep it that way, happily clicking away on our TV remotes and smartphones, buying into this new virtual reality.

This is not the way to keep God's name holy, to bring His kingdom on earth, and to do His will on earth!

What shall we do about it? We must not continue sitting on our couches, chirping like twits on Twitter, and clicking away "Like, Like, Like" in FakeBook's fake reality! We must first of all repent of wasting our time and indulging ourselves in the sweet and savory delicacies proffered us by the administrative "nanny state" and its technological wizards that are taking over every area of our lives, including that which belongs to God. Then we must reorient our lives around Christ's teachings to love our neighbors, not just in words but in deeds - to offer our time and efforts to care for the needy, the sick, the elderly, the orphans and widows.

Thousands of people have seen my notices in these newsletters and my posts on social media about our free courses for training how to do this. Do you know how many people have enrolled in my latest course? None! Null! Zero! Zip! Zilch! Why? Is it too boring, not sexy or thrilling, to read lessons, chat with other students and answer questions? No, it can't be that: FakeBook, TV and videos are even more mind-numbingly boring! Or is it that we are so addicted to the sweet treats and salty snacks of the world that we simply can't break loose from its captivating power? Here's one last call: Learn To Serve The Poor, Sick And Elderly - I'll stretch the enrollment deadline to Sunday midnight, January 8, 2017.

We really need to repent - to fall down on our knees before God and cry out - "Forgive me, Lord, for filling my belly with the husks that the pigs eat! Father in heaven, I'm sorry that I haven't been helping Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth, just like it is in heaven!" Then we must get up off our knees, get up off our couches, and get moving! We "should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance" (Acts 26:20b). Start DOING the works, the actions that Christ commanded, not just thinking nice thoughts about them or saying, "Nice sermon, preacher!" Will you do this?

YOU CAN ALSO READ THIS at my Hosken-News Blog, and write your COMMENTS there!

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, December 25, 2016

The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us


A star appearsJust over 2,000 years ago the most amazing event in human history occurred: the God of the universe became incarnate - took on human flesh - and became one of us! In contrast to the many legends of ancient gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, this event actually took place in time and space. It is tied to real, historical political figures: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king" (Mat. 1:1) and the reign of "Caesar Augustus... when Quirinius was governor of Syria" (Luke 2:1-2).

I emphasize this because "Without the Incarnation, there is no salvation." If God did not actually come into human history in the form of a human baby born of the Virgin Mary, we cannot be saved from our sinful nature and from death unto eternal life in communion with God. Of course, it is not enough to merely agree with the historical fact of God's Incarnation in Jesus the Messiah: the devils also believe this as a fact, and they tremble in fear of coming judgment. It is also vitally necessary to believe in Him, in the sense of placing our complete trust and hope in Him. But the historical facts are necessary in order for our faith to be anchored in the material reality of His birth, not in a myth or fable. There seems to be a conscious effort in recent decades to link the Christmas Story to the modern myth of Santa Claus with his elves and reindeer, and with Frosty the Snowman, that children are eventually told is just fairy tales. But there was a real Sankt Niklaus and Kris Kringle ("Christkindl" or "Christ Child" in German), it's just that these stories have been greatly distorted into myths.

Luke's Gospel begins with the story of an angel announcing to Zacharias and Elizabeth about John the Baptist's conception, birth, and ministry, also anchored in human history: "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness" (Luke 3:1-2). John the Baptist's ministry signaled the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New Covenant: he was both the greatest of the Old Testament prophets and the messenger who introduced to his followers Jesus as the Messiah.

The miraculous conception of Jesus the Messiah is recorded later in the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel:
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this; for after his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, intended to put her away secretly. But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She shall bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins." Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, And shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;" Which is, being interpreted, "God with us" (Mat. 1:18-23).
Why is the historical fact of the Virgin Birth of Jesus important? Because if Jesus was not conceived of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, He could not be the Son of God, but merely an illegitimate child of a teenage girl who "got in trouble" by some young man, perhaps by a Roman soldier. The Pharisees accused Him of this very thing: "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God" (John 8:41). Thus we must emphasize the purity and holiness of the Virgin Mary in order to protect the Incarnation of God our Savior.

The Evangelist John addresses this issue indirectly in the same chapter 8, giving us the story of the woman caught in adultery:
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the midst, they told him, "Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What then do you say about her?" They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her." Again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle. Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, "Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?" She said, "No one, Lord." Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more" (John 8:3-11).
These days some who call themselves Christians will bring up this story of the woman caught in adultery as an excuse to be "caring" and "loving" and "accept diversity," but they ignore Christ's summary of this event: "From now on, sin no more." Certainly, we should be forgiving, but that implies there are sins to be forgiven. Today I was reading in the book of Zechariah, one of the last of the Old Testament's prophets: "Behold, the cover of lead was lifted up, and there was a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah basket. The angel said, 'This is Wickedness;' and he threw her down into the midst of the ephah basket; and he threw the weight of lead on its mouth" (Zech. 5:7-8). This seems to be quite a strange prophecy: what does it mean? The context in previous chapters is the Temple in Jerusalem, the Old Testament equivalent of the Church, and the worship in it.

The Apostle John who wrote the above Gospel, also wrote the following in the book of Revelation: "I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works" (Rev. 2:20-22). And...
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her sexual immorality." He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of sexual immorality of the earth. And on her forehead a name was written, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. 17:1-6).
Jude, the brother of James, wrote of similar distortions of the Gospel, as follows:
Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all transmitted to the saints. For there are certain people who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, perverting the grace of our God into unbridled lust, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn't believe. Angels who didn't keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, having, in the same way as these who have given themselves over to sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire (Jude 1:3-7).
The Greek word for "sexual immorality" is "porneo," from which we have the cognate words "pornography" and "fornication," but it also has wider meanings including adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality - all forms of sexual deviancy. In contrast with these descriptions of sexual immorality that distort the grace of God into unbridled lust, the Apostle John wrote what is clearly a description of the glorified Virgin Mary as a symbol of the Church, the Body of Christ, Who came forth from her womb:
A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child. She cried out in pain, laboring to give birth. Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. His tail drew one-third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God, and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her one thousand two hundred sixty days. There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war. They didn't prevail, neither was a place found for him any more in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Rev. 12:1-9).

Have you ever watched the movie "Gremlins"? It starts with a nice, fuzzy little animal with instructions to keep it away from bright lights and water, and not to feed it after midnight. The teenager who receives this "gift" promptly breaks these rules, and the cute, furry creature quickly spawns into little monsters that multiply into more and more monsters, finally destroying the whole town. There's a saying, "All art is didactic" - the artist, author or screenwriter aims to teach, to communicate a certain message. In this case, it's when the passions are fed and watered, they soon grow out of control and destroy both the individual and society.

All this is to say, "Without kenosis there is no theosis." St. Paul describes the Incarnation as "kenosis" - the Greek word for "self-emptying" as follows: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn't consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:5-9). Only if we empty ourselves of our passions and lusts as He did, can we become purified, sanctified and glorified as He is, and "become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4).


The Apostle Paul further wrote to his disciple Titus, whom he had installed as bishop of Crete: "For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior [Jesus, which means 'Yahweh saves' in Hebrew] and his love toward mankind appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:3-7). Jesus, God our Savior, has appeared in the flesh! If we have abandoned our various deceitful lusts and pleasures and received baptism, the washing of regeneration, we are justified by His grace, and become inheritors of the divine life!

How does this happen? Again, St. Paul wrote: "We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be partakers of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin" (Rom. 6:4-7). Baptism is becoming united with Christ, sharing His divine nature!

As St. Athanasius wrote, "God became man so that man might become a god." Christ took to Himself our sin-deformed human nature, yet without personally sinning, so that He could confer on us sinful humans His divine nature. Christ's "divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue; by which he has granted to us his exceedingly great and precious promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust" (2 Pet. 1-3-4). The word "partakers" in Greek is "koinos" or "communicants" - receiving into our own bodies the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.

So there you have it: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us - the Incarnation of God the Word, Jesus Christ, is the beginning of our salvation. From that very beginning, the Evil One drove King Herod to try to destroy this future King, the hope of all mankind. And throughout history Satan has been trying to deceive the Body of Christ, the Church, by tempting Her to commit all sorts of abominations in the name of "freedom" and "tolerance." These evils must be rejected so that Christ "might present the Church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:27).

When the Wedding Feast of Christ with His bride, the Church, takes place, will you be a partaker of that glorious event?
Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, December 10, 2016

The Elephant in the Room

The Elephant in the Room


the elephant in the roomIn the last two essays we've been considering the question - "Is perfection possible, and if so, how much?" And the answer was - "Just barely!" In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord Jesus Christ said - "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Mat. 5:48) and "Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it" (Mat. 7:13-14). When someone asked Him - "Lord, are they few who are saved?" He said to them, "Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able" (Lk. 13:23-24).

So... what's the elephant in the room? What are the unspoken and likely unconscious assumptions in our minds when we hear such sayings of the Lord? Perhaps we say to ourselves - "Oh, that's really not possible in today's world!" or "No problem, I've got it made!" The former implies that I'm out of luck, there's no way I can live up to it. And the latter implies that I may think too highly of myself, that I'm one of God's very special people. Where do these ideas come from?

As I wrote in the 12 Nov. issue of Hosken-news, Romans 5:12 is the key verse: "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, in that all sinned." When St. Jerome translated the original Greek New Testament into the Latin Vulgate, this verse became: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned" (1899 Douay-Rhiems Catholic Bible). Note "in whom" (masculine pronoun) vs. the Greek - "in that" (neuter pronoun).

The neuter pronoun is just one letter in Greek, but either Jerome's knowledge of Greek wasn't that great, or he held a prior belief that it *must* refer to Adam, but in any case, he rendered it as "him," and This One Letter has changed the West's dominant theological system! Based mainly on this verse in the Latin Vulgate, St. Augustine developed his doctrine of original sin and guilt passing on from Adam to all men. And even though most modern Bible translations including the modern Catholic Bible have corrected this translation error, the Western doctrine of original sin and guilt in all of us has remained.

St. Augustine built his doctrine of predestination mainly on this verse. If I'm guilty of Adam's original sin but God's grace is not intended for me, I'm predestined to damnation, the situation is hopeless - there's nothing I can do about it, I'm out of luck, I can never be perfect. But on the other hand, if God's grace is intended for me, I'm delivered from original sin, predestined to be one of God's elect, I've got nothing to worry about: no matter what I do it's OK, I've got my ticket to heaven! What's wrong with this scene?

First and foremost, this doctrine stating that God chooses to predestine the vast majority of mankind to burn in hell for all eternity has become the primary reason for doubters rejecting the whole idea of God: it is the main cause of atheism in the West. Who would want to believe in such a malevolent deity? How many millions of people today have become atheists because of this false dilemma? The flip side is that if I think I'm one of the elect, one of the righteous, then everything I do is righteous: many who call themselves Christians behave worse than unbelievers because of this self-righteous, false notion.

Secondly, because both the damned and the elect are predestined to their eternal fates, they have no choice in the matter, so they are freed of moral responsibility. How can I responsible for my actions if I have no choice but to do evil? How can I responsible for my actions, on the other hand, if I have no choice but to believe and go to heaven? Thus the doctrine of original sin making all mankind guilty, and the follow-up doctrine of predestination actually demolish the idea of sin: nothing is either right or wrong, good or bad, because moral responsibility does not exist. We are merely animals that follow our natural instincts. So these two doctrines are self-contradictory, they collapse upon themselves.


But the teaching of the Eastern Church doesn't suffer from either of these defects: even though original sin has weakened human nature and made us prone to sin, we still have free will and can choose to resist temptation. The many mentions of "perfect" and "perfection" in the Scriptures are not meaningless, they're very meaningful for us. Here are just a few of them:

"Having been made perfect, He [Christ] became to all of those who obey Him the author of eternal salvation" (Heb. 5:9).

"Therefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on to perfection -- not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God" (Heb. 6:1).

"For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever Who has been made perfect" (Heb. 7:28).

"God having provided some better thing concerning us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect" (Heb. 11:40).

"Therefore, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:1-2).

Do you see the pattern emerging here? Christ had the same weakened human nature as we have, He was tempted in every way just as we are, but without yielding to sin. He attained perfection: "having been made perfect." So we are urged to "press on to perfection," "let us run with patience the race."

Life isn't easy, it's a constant battle against the temptations of the lusts of the flesh (sexual sin, gluttony, drugs, alcohol), the lusts of the eyes (greed and coveting), and the pride of life (ego, status). Christ endured to the end, and so can we: "But he who endures to the end shall be saved" (Mat. 24:13).


Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Perfect People: Possible But Improbable

Perfect People: Possible But Improbable

Christ has perfected usHow is it possible that Christ has already made us perfect, as Hebrews 10:12-14 shows here? In Revelation 13:8b we read - "...the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world." The sacrifice of Christ took place in eternity past, because He is One of the pre-eternal Trinity. So Christ the God-Man is both outside of time as God and inside time as man, thus His work of perfecting us has both an eternal and a temporal aspect.

In our last article - "Are Perfect People Possible?" - I quoted "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48) and "Follow after peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). How is it possible that Christians can be perfect, how can we fulfill these commands to be perfect and holy?

St. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8-16 on striving to become perfect:
"Yes most assuredly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for Whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed to His death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don't regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
St. Paul wrote that he was not already made perfect (in the human dimensions of space-time), but he was pressing on to take hold of what Christ had already (in eternity) taken hold of: Paul's perfection. This also explains the "predestination/free will" paradox: Christ as eternal God knows all those who are predestined for salvation, perfection, and sanctification; but we mortals are limited to space-time and cannot know the future, therefore we must freely choose to "press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

From God's eternal point of view, there is predestination; but from a human point of view, there is free will and moral responsibility. As a Protestant might say, "God is a Calvinist, but we are all Arminians." In Hebrews 12:25 the Apostle Paul wrote - "See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused Him Who warned on earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven." Humanly speaking, it is possible for us to turn away from Christ, just as it is possible to turn toward Him and follow Him. Let's look at some examples:

In the Early Church, after Emperor Constantine had legalized Christianity and then made it the official state religion of the Greco-Roman Empire, some Christians saw a weakening of the fervor that Christians had exhibited during times of persecution and martyrdom. So they literally forsook everything and followed Christ. At first, these early monastics led a solitary life. Pachomius the Great, an Egyptian soldier in the Roman Army, was baptized 314 in the year as soon as he completed his military service, and immediately started to practice the ascetic life of self-denial.

Soon he withdrew into the desert under the guidance of a spiritual father, and after ten years the Lord spoke to him, saying that he must form a monastic community. Thus was born the first "cenobitic" (from "koinonia") monastic community, just after Christianity was legalized. The "rule" of St. Pachomius became the model for founding documents of many later monastic communities. St. Pachomius worked miracles, and saw visions of holy Angels, and foresaw the day of his death.


Another early saint was Benedict, born in Italy in the year 480. "When he was fourteen years of age, the saint’s parents sent him to Rome to study. Unsettled by the immorality around him, he decided to devote himself to a different sort of life." He first fled to the desert and became a solitary, but after ten years a group of disciples formed around him, eventually growing to over 3,000 monastics in several monastic communities. He wrote the "Rule of St Benedict" that became the model for most monastic communities in the West. He "was granted by the Lord the gift of foresight and wonderworking. He healed many by his prayers. The monk foretold the day of his death in 547."

These two saints lived during the first millennium of Christianity when Christians in East and West formed one united Church. Tragically, after the Great Schism in A.D. 1054, the Christian faith continued to fracture into the tens of thousands of denominations we have today. Each has a portion of original Christianity - some have a large slice of the pie, others just a tiny sliver. If only they could put together all the pieces of the truth, we could again form one true Church.

But the pursuit of holiness did not completely die out. Seraphim of Sarov, who lived in the 18th century, even as a child was twice miraculously healed from illness, and had visions of angels and of Christ himself. At age 18 he entered the monastery of Sarov. At age 27 he was ordained as a hieromonk (priest-monk) and served the Eucharist every day for a year. Then he withdrew further into the wilderness, where bears, rabbits, wolves, foxes and other wild animals came to his hut to be fed from his hand. He once spent 1,000 days on a rock with his hands lifted up in prayer.

A disciple of his named Motovilov came to him one cloudy day in the winter. When asked the meaning of the Christian life, St. Seraphim said - "It is necessary that the Holy Spirit enter our heart. Everything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but prayer most of all, which is always available to us." When Motovilov asked how he could know the Holy Spirit, he answered - "We are both now, my dear fellow, in the Holy Spirit." It was as if Motovilov's eyes had been opened, for he saw that the face of the elder was brighter than the sun.

In his heart, Motovilov felt joy and peace, in his body a warmth as if it were summer, and a fragrance began to spread around them. Motovilov was terrified by the unusual change, but especially by the fact that the face of the starets shone like the sun. But St. Seraphim said to him, "Do not fear, dear fellow. You would not even be able to see me if you yourself were not in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Thank the Lord for His mercy toward us." He went on to explain that this gift was not only for monastics but for all Christians who seek the Holy Spirit with all their hearts.

Another great saint is John of Kronstadt. Born in 19th-century Russia, he lived into the early 20th century. He also had the gifts of healing and foreknowledge. A married priest, he served the Eucharist daily, ministered to the Imperial Family, and foresaw the fall of Russia into atheism a decade after his death. He formed houses for the poor and sick in St. Petersburg, visiting them, praying for them and even giving them the shoes off his feet in the dead of winter. You can get The Aim of the Christian Life by St. Seraphim of Sarov and My Life in Christ by St. John of Kronstadt at our website www.Discover-Original-Christianity.info/literatura.htm.

As St. Seraphim told Motovilov, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the life of sanctification is the aim for all Christians, not just for priests, monks, and nuns. As St. Paul wrote, "to the church of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (1 Corinthians 1:2). But not all will make the effort, "because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:14). we must make every effort, we must strive for holiness, as St. Peter wrote - "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble," (2 Peter 1:10).


Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Are Perfect People Possible?

Are Perfect People Possible?


(description of photo)We've heard - "Nobody's perfect" so many times, that we finally begin to believe it. We believe that it's impossible for people to be perfect. And when someone says - "you're just perfect!" like in this photo, we think they're just blowing smoke.

But what did Christ teach us? "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). How should we understand this command of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Some translations render the word "perfect" as "mature" in other New Testament texts, but that doesn't make sense here: our heavenly Father isn't merely mature, He's perfect. And that is what we're supposed to strive for, by God's grace. Humanly speaking, without Divine help, perfection is impossible, and perfectionism - striving for perfection by our own efforts - can cause serious psychological problems. But with the Holy Spirit working in us and sanctifying us, making us holy, perfection is possible.

Romans 5:12 is the key verse: "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, in that all sinned." When St. Jerome translated the original Greek New Testament into the Latin Vulgate, this verse became: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned" (1899 Douay-Rhiems Catholic Bible). Note "in whom" (masculine pronoun) vs. the Greek - "in that" (neuter pronoun).

The neuter pronoun is just one letter in Greek, but either Jerome's knowledge of Greek wasn't that great, or he held a prior belief that it should refer to Adam, but in any case, he rendered it as "him," and This One Letter has changed the West's whole theological system! Based mainly on this verse in the Latin Vulgate, St. Augustine developed his doctrine of original sin and guilt passing on from Adam to all men. And even though most modern Bible translations including the modern Catholic Bible have corrected this translation error, the Western doctrine of original sin has remained.

Are the universe and mankind essentially good, or inherently evil? This is the so-called liberal vs. conservative argument, but there are actually two sides to the conservative viewpoint. What are they?

Origen, a second-century Bible scholar, wrote: "when he [St. Paul] speaks about sin, because of which death has passed to all men, he attributes the line of human descent, which has succumbed to this death because of sin. The apostle stated most categorically that the death of sin has passed to all men because all have sinned." St. John Chrysostom wrote in the fourth century: "Paul inquires as to how death came into the world and why it prevailed. It came in and prevailed through the sin of one man and continued because all have sinned. Thus once Adam fell, even those who had not eaten of the tree became mortal because of him." But St. Augustine wrote in the fifth century: "Everyone, even little children, have broken God's covenant, not indeed in virtue of any personal action but in virtue of mankind's common origin in that single ancestor in whom all have sinned."

St. Augustine wrote in Latin that without God's grace we are "posse pecare et non posse non pecare" (able to sin and not able not to sin). Only after receiving God's grace to we become in this life "posse pecare et posse non pecare" (able to sin and able to not sin), and in heaven "non posse pecare" (not able to sin). Both Martin Luther and John Calvin refined this doctrine further, into the idea of the predestined salvation of the elect, the predestined damnation of the un-elect, and total depravity - unregenerate mankind is totally depraved and incapable of not sinning, unable to do anything good; thus much of Protestantism has inherited this doctrine of total depravity from Roman Catholicism. You can read more about total depravity here.

But this doctrine of total depravity, the idea that for unregenerate mankind it is totally impossible to do anything that is purely good, that every action is tainted by sin, is not held by Eastern Christianity. Orthodoxy teaches that Adam and Eve's original sin has weakened human nature so that we all tend to sin, and are subject to death because of original sin, but not that we are guilty of Adam's sin and that we are incapable of doing anything good without God's saving grace. The idea that God chose some people to be eternally damned to hell fire is probably the greatest cause of atheism in the West: how could such a god exist?

Moral responsibility and guilt can only exist if one is capable of making a free, conscious choice to do evil. The prophet Ezekiel (ch. 18) wrote that children are not to be condemned for the guilt of their fathers. But if most of mankind is predestined to damnation because of Adam's sin, they have no moral responsibility or guilt because they had no choice, they were predestined before all eternity to go to hell. So this doctrine of our inheriting Adam's sin guilt falls apart.

We very likely know good people who do good works out of the goodness of their hearts. We are all created in God's image, whether we are Christians or Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus or atheists. And all of us, even atheists, are capable of doing good. Can a person go a minute or an hour or a day without committing any sin? If so, can that person go 48 hours, or 72, or 96 hours without committing any sin? Here's more on Christian perfection.

Even though the image of God in us is distorted, we should know right from wrong and are capable of choosing what is right. This is why Orthodoxy teaches that Mary committed no personal sins: she was capable of doing what is right, and with God's help ("Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you" Luke 1:28) she consistently chose the good. Thus the Eastern Church's teaching has no need for the Roman Catholic doctrine of her immaculate conception because she did not inherit Adam's sin and guilt. But because her human nature was weakened by sin and subject to death, she needed a Savior ("God my Savior" - Luke 1:47).

The Eastern Church teaches synergy, that we are capable of doing good, and are co-laborers together with God: He works in us, but we must work with Him. We are saved by grace unto good works (Eph. 2:9-10). This is not the heresy of Pelagianism, that we are capable by our good works alone to save ourselves. Salvation is the process of being personally transformed into the image and likeness of God, which is called theosis or deification, "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). A segment of Protestantism also emphasizes mankind's free will to choose: this is called Arminianism. You can read more about it here: Semipelagianism and Arminianism.

The teaching of predestination, based largely on Rom. 5:12, says that because God knows from all eternity who will be saved, Christ's atonement is limited to only the elect. But God loves all mankind, and "is not willing that any should perish" (2 Pet. 3:9). "He [Christ] died for all" (2 Cor. 5:15) Thus we understand that Christ's atonement on the Cross is for all mankind: "If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (2 John 2:1b-2). This is the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement.

St, Peter wrote that we should not conform to our former lusts, "but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior" (1 Pet. 1:15). And St. Paul wrote: "Follow after peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). When we consider these Scripture texts together with our first quotation, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48), we see that perfection or holiness is not only possible, it is what God expects of every Christian.

Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, October 29, 2016

What is the Problem with Usury?

What is the Problem with Usury?

usury is a crime against humanityFor the course in Christian Ethics that I'm auditing, we were asked to write our thoughts on chapter 7, “That which has been wrung from tears” of the book Usury, the Greek Fathers, and Catholic Social Teaching. It outlines some of the problems associated with usury. In the modern Western world the term “usury” has fallen into disuse, and as the above chapter states, “We are happy to pay 4 percent as long as we can get the holiday pillows that marketing experts tell us we need.”

The card processing companies charge merchants 2% to 3% for debit card purchases and 4% to 6% for credit card purchases. Of course, these fees are added to the purchase price whether a person pays with cash or with a card. Invisible fees such as these drive up prices, but also greatly increase the money supply by the banking system creating “new money” each time a credit card is used, thus driving inflation. Even if one pays off a credit card in full within 30 days, “new money” is added to the money supply.

It also states “people with money to waste consider 'interest' to be a nonissue.” Because most people are motivated by immediate gratification, they ignore such hidden costs and inflation in order to satisfy their craving for the latest fashion, tech toy, or automobile model. But the long-term effects of consumer credit purchases are ballooning consumer credit debt due to compound interest and the devaluation of the U. S. dollar due to inflation.

Retired people who had what seemed like a reasonable amount of savings at age 65 might discover at age 85 that the buying power of those funds, even with accumulated interest, is perhaps one-third to one-fourth of what it was. Inflation destroys the buying power of retirement savings. As long as a person is working, he can hope that his wages will keep up with inflation. But retirees living on a fixed income do not have that hope. In spite of cost-of-living increases, Social Security payments do not keep up with inflation.

Today we consider as “usury” interest rates above what a bank would charge for a 30-year mortgage. Most people are aware that payday loans and overdue credit card charges can quickly multiply the size of loans, but few people understand the effect of compound interest on a 30-year mortgage at a nominal 5% interest rate. In the first six years of such a loan the borrower's payments are actually 74% interest, and the principal is reduced by only 8.6%. The banks and their investors get the lion's share of that money up front, while the dollar is still worth nearly the same as at the outset.

Then the home-”owner” (the holder of the mortgage actually owns the house) often gets a new job that requires moving to another location, so he starts the process over again, buying another house and paying 74% interest to the banks and their investors once again. Thus “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” What is the solution to this dilemma? What is the problem with usury?

The author refers to Ezekiel 18:4-9, which includes usury in the list of sins along with idolatry, adultery, robbery, judging unjustly, and neglecting or despising the poor. That is, usury is a sin. In Romans 13:8 we read, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.” I can remember as a child that my parents took this verse quite literally, and seriously considered whether it was a sin to take out a mortgage to buy a house.


In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Origen wrote, “In many cases, debt is equivalent to sin. Therefore, St. Paul wants us to owe nothing on account of sin and to steer clear of debts of this kind, retaining only the debt which springs from love, which we ought to be repaying every day.” (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture)

Debt is to be avoided if at all possible, and in the Old Testament charging interest from fellow Israelites was forbidden, as the author states referring to Deut. 23:19-20. In Deut. 15:1-2 we read, “In the seventh year you must declare a cancellation of debts. This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, for it is to be recognized as 'the LORD's cancellation of debts,'” clearly implying that a wise lender would not lend money for more than six years.

If we adapt these principles to today, we can say that six years should be the maximum length for loans, and the interest rate should be no more than the rate of inflation. Thus, if a person avoids all consumer debt by only paying cash for everything except housing, and buys a small condominium on a 5% loan, it could be paid off fully in six years with total interest of only 16%.

This would have the effect of lessening the increase of the nation's money supply, thus decreasing the rate of inflation. Then as his family grows, he could buy a somewhat larger home and pay it off the same way in six years. Repeating this again when the older children are approaching their teenage years and need more space, the third home is fully paid for by the time the older children are about to go to college, and the parents can afford to pay cash for their higher education at community colleges, eliminating student debt.

If these ideas were adopted by traditional Christians nationwide, it would greatly reduce the rate of inflation caused by banks issuing “new money” for mortgages and consumer debt. The nation could then focus on lowering the national debt. We as Christians should learn to live in moderation and within our means, shining as lights in a dark world, as a city on a hill for all to see and emulate. Then interest rates would fall because far less “fiat currency” is being created.

The usurious interest collected by banks and their investors would decrease, and they would be forced to find jobs that actually produce goods and services for society instead of living off of other people's labor. The seemingly endless cycle of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer would be broken, the poor and the middle class would escape debt slavery, once again moving up the economic ladder.

I've been developing these ideas for the last several years, and you can find out about them in more detail from my essay “Escaping Debt Slavery.”


Posted by at 1 comment:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)