Old News or New News?

Disrespect for American Flag at Montebello High.







Pictures came from Michelle Malkin's site.

Are our schools teaching it's students proper respect for the flag of the country they live in? I am sure there was day in America when this would not have been tolerated, protest or not.

Things Not Seen In American Church Services?

The following is from Reflections on Life in Benin.

Sunday Morning Musings from Africa

Things I observed at a church service this past Sunday in Benin, West Africa that most people probably did NOT see at their church service in America:

1 - one of the sincere worshippers, on her way up front to present her offering at the table, reached inside her bra and pulled out her contribution

2 - more than one of the congregants made change as they presented their offering

3 - at the conclusion of the holy sacrament, the communion presider shook out all the cracker crumbs on to the dirt floor of the thatch worship facility so that the couple of baby chicks hanging around the doorway could come in for a quick bite

MORE HUMOUROUS COMMUNION OBSERVATIONS OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS IN BENIN:

- At a relatively new church plant, the one presiding over communion was in charge of making sure the glass of wine was kept full as the congregants journeyed to the front for partaking; I watched carefully as he made sure the glass never got below 3/4 full. I was watching with interest as I saw the line come to an end; yet he continued topping off the glass (in Benin, we use the real stuff for communion). Sure enough, while only two baptized believers remained, the cup ranneth over, so when the last finished, an almost full glass remained. Unsuspecting of his next move, I was rather surprised that the wine guy didn't try and pour the remaining back into the bottle; but rather, with total abandonment of everything-sacrilege, he "downed the hatch", slapped the glass on the table and headed back to his seat with a big smile on his face!

- A regular observation is one where these amazingly talented African Christian women will take their place at the communion table, bouncing a crying baby tied around her back, meanwhile holding another who is latched on nursing, with one hand free to grab the cracker and wine! Takes multi-tasking to a whole new level!

- At another church plant, it was the congrgation's first Sunday to worship together. I was pretty new, too, and was not as confident yet that I wouldn't make a cultural error one day that'd get me kicked out of the village. So I sat in silence and laughing to myself when I noticed from where I was sitting that a fly had landed in the communion cup (we are also one-cuppers). No one knew what to do. There was a fear of disrupting the holy wine, and as well a conscious perception that pouring out the wine would be too costly (one Sunday's offering is not sufficient to cover the cost of the communion wine). So until one older unpretentious man finally reached in with his dirty farmer fingers and plucked out the pesky intruder, everyone else simply picked up the glass, trying their hardest to turn the cup to where gravity would pull the fly away from the point where their lips would sip the wine. It was probably the funniest moment I'll always remember.

Rockin' Randall
Missionary - Benin, West Africa

BBQ AD

This ad was in a local newspaper this week.

BBQ for weddings?

AP News Bits on Iran and Uranium

'Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time... ...President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said'.

'"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.'

'Ahmadinejad said Iran "relies on the sublime beliefs that lie within the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals."'

The Second Coming

A web page that appears to be associated with the Seventh Day Adventists has a Flash presentation that illustrates what scripture says about the second coming (click here).

This was brought to my attention by my father-in-law.

It was interesting reading the Seventh Day Adventists Fundamental Beliefs page, particularly item numbers 25, 26, 27, and 28. The page had a copyright claim at the bottom or I would have posted them here. However, I included some phrases (paraphrased) which I found interesting and somewhat different than my current understanding of end-time prophecy. The added emphasis is mine.

At Jesus' return, the righteous deceased will be resurrected, and together with those living who are righteous, will be glorified and taken up to heaven, not so for the unrighteous, they will die.

...death is a state of unconsciousness for all people.

The millennium, a thousand-year reign of Christ... ...During the mellennium the rest of the dead (the wicked) will be judged; the earth will be void of human beings and utterly desolate. Earth will be solely occupied by Satan and those under his dominion (his angels).

K-Fish <><

More Mormons and Christians

See previous post Mormon Muslim or Christian for the conversation leading to this post.

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So that everyone understands, I am not accusing individuals [who are Mormon] of not being christian persons because of their specific religious affiliation. Only God knows a man's heart and whether or not He lives in it and if His kingdom is established in that person. If Jesus knows a person as a believer in Him and as His follower and they are living a different life as a result of that, then I would definitely say they would be a 'christian person', perhaps maybe even a Christian, denomination or affiliation is of no consequence at this point.

With that in mind, let me explain where I am coming from about the question of Mormons being Christians. Now we are talking about churches or denominations, not individuals. Christian churches in the mid-west consist of your Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, etc type churches. They say they are christian churches and have for decades, because most of them have roots born out of the Reformation (protestant christians). These christian churches say the Mormon church is not christian mainly because they have doctrine that goes beyond the Bible and they turn to more than the Bible for direction and authority in their life. Some of the battle cries of the Reformation were 'the bible alone', 'justification by faith alone', 'the cross alone' to name a few. I know when we were growing up, we mormons did not call ourselves christians. I did not even know what a christian was other than it was someone who went to a different church than the one I grew up in. But here recently the family started using the word Christian in their speech and email about themselves and I just wondered why and when that had started.

To clarify another point, when I say 'a Bible believing Christian' I am refering to a 'bible alone' believing Christian which would make a distinction between groups or churches.

As for my statements of belief presented, I presented it so that there would be an understanding of what I think as I understand the writings in the bible to present concerning how a person goes to heaven versus what you said the Qur'an said about all good people go to heaven. It should be clear I don't think being good has anything to do with whether a person goes to heaven. (What is good and how good is good enough?). I also wanted it to be clear that I believe the Bible, the Bible alone, as the holy God-inspired, every verse is translated correctly (it is inerrant), authority in my life. I thought this was an important aspect to share as part of my belief foundation (so readers would know where I was coming from) because the Mormon church says it only accepts the KJV bible "insofar as it is translated correctly". Previous Mormon church leaders have written about how the Bible is subject to translation error and imply that it can't be trusted as a solitary source of doctrine. I disagree with that.

'"He [Joseph Smith] stands alone as a source of doctrine," says Dallin H. Oaks, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles [high ranking LDS church leadership] ...' ('The Mormon Odyssey', Oct 17 2005 Newsweek)

'Because of Mormonism's unique theology, some of which challenges early Christian creeds, many Christian denominations don't consider the LDS Church to be Christian. "There is no rightful claim by historic Mormon doctrine to the name Christian, because they deny almost every one of the major fundamental doctrines of Christendom," says Norman Geisler, founder of the Southern Evangelical Seminary.' ('The Mormon Odyssey', Oct 17 2005 Newsweek)

Mormon, Muslim or Christian?

Okay, the following post came from a family blog, where a relative of mine (a nephew maybe) posted the following thoughts:

"The main reason that I was unsure about the war in Iraq was that I was afraid of the course that it would set and the fact that I was worried about the possiblity that the war begun in Iraq would spread to many other nations. I believe that there is no solution to the current problem in the middle east. I believe that we should try as hard as we can and do what is right in the middle east to bring peace. I believe that the issues facing the middle east are not only political in nature. I believe that a far more powerful force is to be found in the religious ideology of those involved. The jews, The Christians and the Muslims will have conflict in the future because of those different belief systems. As the as-Mahdi Army militiaman said, now to them we are Jews. "Amongst them we have placed enmity and hatred till the Day of Judgment. Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief." - the prophet Muhammad."

"I respect every man and his religion and I even think that Muhammad was a very good man and that the Qur'an in full of wonderful passages encouraging peace and love and unity. The Qur'an teaches that no matter what religion you follow as long as you are a good person you will go to heaven.

"There is also a great deal of hate and many statements in the Qur'an that can explain why those who focus on that small part of the book can be driven to feel justified in deliberatly killing innocent people and themselves at the same time. The Jews and Christians are refered to as "Infidels" in many passages. The idea of Holy war or war against not only nations but Religions as well is not a new idea for Muslims. In india many years ago the major religion was Hinduism and then the Muslims came in and killed many of their leaders and spread the religion of Islam throughout india. In many nations that are composed of a majority of Muslims there is little tolerance for other religions or belief systems (Such as women's rights) I do not condemn or hate the religion of Islam and I also realize that the messages at it's heart from the prophet Muhammad is the source of many of the problems we face today. I also want to share my opinion that Muhammad was only reacting to the times in which he lived. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I believe that the true Church of Christ was not on the earth in 570 A.D. (Having been lost even in America by 421 A.D.) I believe that Muhammad was a very good man who was only reacting to the behavior of the Apostate Jews and the Apostate Christians who both claimed to speak and act for God but in truth were misguided and wrong."

"I offer my belief that the truth was restored to earth in it's fullness through the prophet Joseph Smith and that those truths contain the answers. Our Father in Heaven, Allah, loves all of his children and commands us to do the same. As Christians I believe that we are called upon to love and forgive all of the people of the earth and to work for their greatest happiness, freedom and good whatever it is. I am given comfort in the hope and faith that the Son of God, Jesus Christ will return to the earth to save the just and righteous in every nation and religion and destroy the wicked in every nation and religion. My greatest hope is to be found among those, in the words of Muhammad, "who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness"."

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I left this reply to his post on the family blog:

"I'm confused. Is my relative a Book of Mormon believing Mormon, a Holy Bible believing Christian, or a Qur'an believing Muslim? I would think he could only be one of the three.

For the record, I am a Holy Bible believing Christian, who believes that it is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ that I am saved and no other way. Not by being good enough, not by being religious or having religion, or by knowing it all. Jesus paid the price for my sin, plain and simple, I accept that. He saved me from eternal damnation in a sinner's hell because of what He did. There is not a single work (including self righteousness) that I could ever do as a human being on this earth to save myself, get myself into or earn my way into heaven, save to believe in Jesus. There is not any other name under Heaven by which I can be saved, for no man goes to the Father (not Allah) except by Jesus.

As a Holy Bible believing Christian, I believe the Holy Bible (the Scriptures), both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct. Having said that, this immediately will cause me to reject any teaching by any other man, any other book, or any other 'prophet' that does not line up with the Word of God (The Holy Bible).

That, my friends and relatives, is why confrontation between religions is a sure thing. Everyone thinks their teaching or religion is correct and if it's different than your's or mine, well then, we have a problem. One of us has to be wrong.

Bible believing Christians embrace the Bible as their solitary single source of truth because not doing so opens the door to not having an authoritative standard by which to judge or discern things by. Christians believe the Bible is the 'acid test' of truth, not prayer. If someone presents a teaching or a theology or a prophetic message to me that I can't prove out in the Bible, I don't turn to prayer to figure out if it is truth. I either reject it as a falsehood or I don't embrace it as part of my theology.

It is interesting to me, when I was growing up, we Mormons never called ourselves Christians. But a few years ago, I discovered that Mormons were in fact doing that now, and after researching it, found that this started back in the early 80's in church writings presenting reasons why Mormons were Christians. What was the purpose of that? If you start looking really hard at the theology of Protestant Christianity (aka Christians) it is so much different than that of Mormons it doesn't make sense. If Mormons are oranges and Christians are apples, why does the Mormon church want the world to see them as apples when they are oranges? Muslims aren't trying to call themselves Christian, yet many of them believe Jesus (Christ) was a great prophet, a good man. If they are pears, they are pears, they are not trying to be apples.

Anyway, that was my two cents worth.

I have been on both sides of the fence, Mormonism and Christianity, and on the surface they seem very similar, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, the doctrines are very different. What appears to be the same belief on both sides is very different when you analyze it and dig deep into the theology behind the belief.

My greatest hope is Jesus and what He did on the cross when He shed His blood for me, giving His life for me, so that I might have eternal life.

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Upholding/Enforcing Our Laws

As most of us know, when a person is elected or appointed to an office of PUBLIC TRUST, he or she vows or affirms that he or she will uphold the laws of and defend the state or country in which the person holds office.

My question is this: Have the laws of The United States been broken by not enforcing the immigration statuets that are on the books? My point is that by not enforcing the statuets that we have is the cause of having the large numbers of illegal immigrants that are now in our country. Should those in authority be held accountable for this gross violation of our laws?

What are your thoughts?

Death (and those left behind)

Hebrews 9:27

"And as it is appointed unto men once to die,..."

For some reason I have been pondering on this verse for several weeks. I don't think I knew anyone who had died recently in our area. So I can't figure out why, "Why is this verse on the hamster wheel exerciser in my brain?".

But then last Friday, a man I know came to my work place looking for someone to help him make arrangements for his wife, who had just died. He was taking it pretty hard and wasn't in his right mind at all. She was sick for some time, but still it is sad. We will miss his wife: she was a sweet lady!

I will be pall bearer tomorrow along with several co-workers. I don't remember ever doing this before.

Now I wonder, what will become of the husband? They were married a long time.

Psalm 89:48

"What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah."

1 Corinthians 15:54, 55, 56

(v54) "...Death is swallowed up in victory." (v55) "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (57) "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."