greetings!
i hope this finds you right where God wants you for that is truly the best place to be. it's friday morning and i have a few minutes so wanted to share a little of what i'm processing right now.
beware progress in world mag 2.27.10, p62 talks to the idea currently in vogue that islam will mellow as christianity supposedly mellowed after the crusades..
..to what extent is 'moderate' islam possible.
current thinking 'arises from a worldview that looks at ideologies thru the lens of 'progress' or 'evolution', shaped by a kind of darwinism...underlying presupposition is that human societies evolve as time passes, progressing and becoming more humane and more advanced.
thruoughout the whole medieval period the idea of reformation was prestigious and many reform movements chased after this ideal. reformation meant going back to one's roots. for medieval christians, a reformed christianity meant being more Christ-like, more apostolic and mor pauline. the wealthy st. francis read jesus' words about giving away one's possessions to feed the poor, so he followed this teaching and many flocke..the franciscans were founded as a reform movement. st. francis mas a radical reformer. he was not inspired by a vision of making christianiy more moderate and progressive. what moved him was a desire to follow the Jesus of the gospels.
the european reformation - so often invoked in comparisons with islam today - was driven by a desire to reform christianity a second time, taking it back to its roots. it sought to move ahead by going backwards. the reformation was not a 'progressive' movement in the modern sense, but one which sought to 'regress', renewing the example of Christ and His apostles.
..according to the core meaning of 'reformation' - a return to one's roots - reforming islam would mean making it more muhammadan. an islamic reformation would produce a religion which is closer to the quran and above all, closer to the example and teaching of its founder..as it happens, such a movement has been underway for more than 100 years and is in full swing today. it is what we knwo as islamic radicalism...and has produced the global jihad movement, the push for shariah revival and reimplementation of the caliphate. this is what a desire to revive the example and teaching of muhammad has led to.
..reasons why renewing the example of muhammed leads to islamic radicalism..one is that muh combined within himself the offices of king, judge, general and religious leader, thus unifying politics, law the military and religion. to follow his example means creating a theocratic political order, where the laws of the land are controlled by islamic theology...second..is that many of the harsher elements of islamic law - such as death for apostates, stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, enslaving one's enemies and killing nonbelievers are firmly grounded in muh's example..
interview with wafa sultan, a woman who an interview which involves an imam on the television network al jazeera made a stir in the islamic world. 'the host asked me to sum up my thots. he gave me two minutes. i began to speak and the imam interrupted again. i said to him in arabic, "shut up. it is my turn".'..a first in public islamic history?
sultan uses words like brain washed to describe the power islam exerts over the people who live under it ...islam uses fear to control people. "you're not allowed in the islamic culture to ask, you have to take whatever is taught without any questions. you aren't allowed to leave islam, to convert to any other religion"..
of islamic women who will not talk..'does she know how muh treated women? how can she explain that muh married a 9 yr old girl when he was 54? how can she explain that muh forced his son to leave his wife for him and he slept with her the very same day (he) beheaded 800 men in one night and slept with a jewish woman sophia the very firest night he killed her husband, her father and her brother?
..after 9.11 i was free to say whatever..
..i believe more muslims are leaving islam than people becoming muslim..
article on iraq p. 65..at recent british chilcot commission..2 hour testimony of annclwyd, a member of parliament who headed a british human-rights group and has traveled to iraq since the 1970s..'in 1985 they told us of 44 (iran-iraq)war objectors in the abu ghrib (prison)..bodies were drained of blood before execution...then came the campaign, the genocidal campaign against the kurds and there were thousands we were told who were arrested..including 300 children..there was a report..that iraqui forces delivered 57 boxed of dead children and each dead child wqas drined of blood and their eyes gouged out..' clwyd recounted the practice of taking and killing children, then returning their bodies to their families and charging the parents with their deaths; the discovery via recovered identity cards of offical rapists in the saddam hussein regime; first-hand visits to mass graves containing 15,000 or more corpses. she told of the iraqis certainty that saddam planned to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) leading up to the 2003 invasion, as mother bought out stores of deapers after learning they could be used in the absence of gas masks to protect their children from a chemical weapons attack..
..clwyd, pressed by the panel for her own views, said of the invasion, 'i felt myself ther was no other option'..
on a lighter note i went to the district 1 bball semis to see souderton, already qualified for the state tournament, lose to last year's pa state champion, pennwood by about 22. pennwood may not be quite what they were, i don't know, but i am thinking they have a real shot at winning the state again. souderton is the best they have been during this last 4-5 year run where they have become a consistently good and every-year -impoving team. this year they have all senior starters so it will be very interesting to see what will happen next year. i'm thinking they have a possiblity of winning the first 2 games at states thus beating their best to date of winning the first round game two years ago. we will see...
now almost monday afternoon with 15 minutes left a finally read (world mag, 3.13.10, p80)..'peruvian economist hernando de sotl polar, who describes the 'tremendous conceptual error' of his country's leaders in these words...'the assumption that, in anurban society swamped by migration, a ruler can know everything that is goin on in the country and that a new social order can be built on this presumed knowledge...in such a society, with millions of people whose specialization makes them interdependent, with complex systems of communication etween producers and buyers, creditors and debtors, employers and employees, with a constantly evolving technology, with competition and a daily flow of information from other countries, it is physicllly impossible to be familiar with and directly run even a small fraction of national activities..it is not rulers who produce wealth; they sit behind dests, give speechies, draft ersolutions and supreme decrees, process documents, inspect, monito and levy, but they never produce. it is the population that produce..
desoto's breakthru book was the other path (1989). he wrote it at a time when a maoist terrorist group, shining path, seemed close to taking over peru. de soto saw in 'property' not the enemy of the poor but their greatest economic hope: the poor needed togain clear title to their land and homes so they could use that property as collateral for loans that would allow them to become entrepreneurs. in the other path de soto celebrated peaceful entrepreneurial disobedience. peruvian powers tried to lock up markets..desoto praise street vendors who disobeyed regulations and expanded informal trade. peruvian powers tried to lock up public transportation..desoto praise drivers in their vans, station wagons, and mini-buses who disobeyed regulations and got people to work. leftist ideologues favored governmental redistribution. de soto praised the initiative of those without homes who moved onto uninhabited and unimproved land.
the worldwide evidence is that big government redistributes wealth to bureaucrats and hurts the poor. people get rich not by investing labor or capital in productive enterprises but by gaining political influence. businesses begin competing not to serve customers but to build ties with bureaucrats. political efficiency becomes more important than economic efficiency...in the redistributive state, the enviable capacity to be generous with other people's $ is an invitation to corruption..government is a mechanism for sharing a fixed stock of wealth among the different interest groups that demand it..the redistributionsit ethos does not acknowledge that wealth and resources can grow..and that even the humblest members of the population can generate wealth..
christianity and liberalism - j. gresham machen
paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. very different is the christian ideal. paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas christianity is the religion of the broken heart.
we do not mean that the characteristic christian attitude is a continual...crying of 'woe is me'. nothing could be further from the fact. on the contrary, christianity means that sin is faced once for all and then is cast, by the grace of god, forever into the depths of the sea.
note: the last statement would seem to be partial at best, misleading at worst. as stated it was my belief for a long time, possibly until i started having an ongoing relationship with my blessed Savior. before that time salvation was no more than some completed transation in the past. though i professed to know God, looking back i possessed little if anything of what i would call a vital relationship. i lived as if on automatic pilot, though i worshipped a deistic god who had set things in motion spiritually by rescuing me from hell and whom i no longer needed (professedly yes, but in my heart no). i'll take it on in from here god until You do Your thing again by taking me to heaven when i breathe my last. one of many huge gaping holes in my spirituality was having NO conception of the power of sin over me and my constant living, nay SWIMMING! IN IT!!!
my understanding at present is that when God opens our heart to believe Him and turn our life over to Him, He saves us from the PENALTY of sin only. the rest of our earthly time He is progressively delivering us form the POWER of sin. it seems our norm should be a mixture of rejoicing in the position as eternal sons of God that is our present reality while at the same time, rightly, being in a continual state of brokenness over the power of sin still evident in the degree to which we are short of God's good and holy law which is a reflection of His immutable nature. who prays without ceasing? who does any command of God perfectly, all the time? blessed are the poor (not the normal word for not having enough but the intensive 'cringing, beggaredly poor') in spirit for theirs IS the kingdom of God...the sacrifices of God are not what little we do do but a broken spirit over how far short we far with continual regularity. paul speaks of this mix in various places such as having joy in deep affliction...joy is not a feeling but a settled understanding that 'all i need is You... love, dad
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