Two thoughts...

Sorry to all 3 of my readers out there; life has been insanely busy as of the last 2 months. School has restarted, I'm working part time now, my sweetie-pie has relocated to Los Angeles (and I've been helping her get settled, find work, find a place to live...not to mention realize daily how selfish and stupid I am...doh!) and I've been generally going nuts. SO, here's two thoughts for today that at least qualify as the first post in a long while:

1. Very little reveals the depravity, ignorance and wickedness of man as much as the Internet. I've gotten suckered a little into quick online debates over the past 2 months and I am consistently amazed at how people don't seem to ever really wand to discuss things for the sake of gaining understanding but instead only seem worried about telling your their opinions (USUALLY IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS SO YOU KNOW THAT THEY ARE SERIOUS) and then communicating to you that by disagreeing with them, you are a corn-fed Iowa idiot with no right to live.

Beyond that, it's amazing how rude and ignorant people can be (myself included) when one adds "anonymity" into the debate. If they don't know you, they can insult away and not be worried about it. It's even amazing how bad "Christians" get on the internet. Romans 3:10-18 is quite vividly illustrated by the conduct of people on the Internet.

2. The word faith movement is horrifyingly wicked. Yesterday, I went to a certain word faith church on Sherman way in Van Nuys that I wasn't sure about. I had heard that the pastor was "kinda" evangelical and that the church was "pretty okay". Well, I was almost shocked...almost. (I've learned to expect the worst when people describe a church as "kinda" okay!) I'll skip the worship critique (which was why I was there; evaluating a worship service in a church other than my own for a class) and simply comment that people who expect God to grant them pay raises and health because he owes it to them live lives that are utter torment. There was a time in the service where we had to pray with some people around us and I got to pray with a sickly elderly woman and a young couple. The woman wanted us to "claim" a healing for her and the young man whirled himself into a frenzy for around 3-4 minutes, getting louder and louder. She didn't get healed and sat down quite discouraged, and I felt so sad for her and so angered at the false teachers that she was sitting under.

Beyond that, the pastor preached on 2 Chronicles 20 and I was sickened at his handling of the scripture. He took a story of God's covenant faithfulness and twisted the text to instead say that "everyone has their own song in them, and when you learn to sing your God given song, you'll free the Lord to work in your life." (based on verse 22 being the central verse of the passage). The pastor made the scripture become an allegory for "overcoming struggles in your life" in an effort to redeem some meaning out of the old story (he made a distinct point of commenting on how it was an "old story" that still had something it could teach us).

I hate the word faith teaching, and I really hate allegorical (and sometimes covenantal) hermeneutics that hack and slash the scriptures or find a different meaning in a passage, depending on what day of the week it is. ARGH!

Okay...that was like 3 or 4 thoughts. Oh well. Time for lunch! Until Next Time,

The Armchair Theologian