What Man/Woman/It Blesses Is Not The Same As Blessed By God

Blessings have always confused me. Growing up, I watched as priests blessed the shrimp fleet by sprinkling holy water from a bridge as the shrimps boats passed under, and I wondered what was really happening in heaven as this went on. Was power going out of the priest or the water and showering protection in the boats, or was it on the men? 

And what about our favorite southern expression, "Bless her/his/other heart"? A Pulmonologist friend of mine heard someone saying that as their family member was in ICU on a ventilator and commented, "Bless his lungs!"

I like to look at these situations in this way: are people bestowing the blessing, or are they asking God to bless whatever it is that they would like to get a little boost from above?

Healthy lungs probably are a blessing from God.

A safe voyage is probably a blessing from God.

But is a rainbow crosswalk celebrating and promoting homosexual behavior a blessing from God? Well, in Canada's Diocese of Niagara they want it to be. From Anglican Samizdat ,

"In the spirit of blessing everything that has nothing to do with Christianity, The Reverend Jody Balint, rector of St. James and St. Brendan’s Parish, Port Colborne has bestowed her ecclesiastical benediction upon the town’s new rainbow crosswalk; in the hope that all who step on it become a little gayer."

Priests bless a lot of things, but some of those things are not blessed by God. 

How can you tell? 

READ THE BIBLE! If something is condemned, it ain't blessed by God. Humans can bless it all they want, but don't confuse us lowly pewsitters and try to make us think otherwise. Something about millstones comes to mind.

When I was a teenager, I had a record titled, "D-DAY Plus Twenty that chronicled the landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944. On it was this song which sums up my skepticism about certain blessings.

                                                                          Bless 'Em All!

Hell Fire and Millstones

This Sunday's reading is from Mark 9:38-50 and includes many a stumbling block for revisionist preachers,

John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell,  And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

‘For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’

I once listened as a revisionist priest expounded on Jesus picking up a little child as being a sign of how he would break convention by handling an unclean thing (he claimed that children were among the unclean), and then he proceeded to ignore the rest of the reading.

That is one strategy used by revisionists, ignore what does not fit into your worldview. 

Another thing they try is to say that Jesus didn't really mean "hell" as we think of hell. 

I don't see how anyone can profess that Jesus is Lord when they deny his authority and put their own in its place.

Revisionists are hanging their own millstones around their necks. 

 

Episcopal Organization Pushes To Change The National Anthem

I used to be a member of an Episcopal parish where the rector had removed the American flag from the building and never was heard a discouraging word. After the war in Vietnam, most young priests (many of whom avoided the draft) came out of seminary harboring anti-American attitudes and were decidedly unpatriotic. These people are now a good part of the ruling class in the Episcopal organization (TEO), and guess what? They are going after the National anthem next,

(ENS) At its most recent meeting in June (2021 ed.), The Episcopal Church Executive Council passed a resolution supporting a bill introduced earlier this year by U.S. Rep. James Clyburn that would make “Lift Every Voice and Sing” the official national hymn.

“I see this resolution, and this attempt in Congress, as a way to accept – on the part of this whole country – an offering of an important poem and song to all the American people, just like Black Episcopalians offered this song to The Episcopal Church,” said Byron Rushing, the vice president of the House of Deputies who sponsored the Executive Council resolution, at the meeting. Though the resolution passed, it prompted some debate about whether it was appropriate for a secular nation to have a national hymn – especially in light of the church’s efforts to counter rising Christian nationalism.

"Rising Christian nationalism"?  Who are they kidding? Themselves I think. 

A few weeks ago I got this invitation from the official lobbying arm of TEO to an, 

Upcoming Event: Lift Every Voice and Sing: A New National Hymn

Fri, Sep 17 at 3:29 PM
Lift Every Voice and Sing: A New National Hymn
September 30, 11:30am – 12:30pm EDT

The Office of Government Relations and the Office of Black Ministries invite you to join us for a live virtual event to celebrate the history and legacy of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and urge the passage of H.R. 301 to make this uplifting, unifying anthem our new national hymn. Over the course of the hour, you’ll hear from faith and government leaders including:

Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry
Congressman James E. Clyburn
Rev. Canon C.K. Robertson
Byron Rushing, Vice President, House of Deputies

And more!

The event will also feature a musical performance of the Lift Every Voice and Sing. Stay tuned for more! 

Remember that in 1982, TEO added this Hymn to its Hymnal (#599), and here are the lyrics, some of which doom its chances as a national anthem with some of our fanatical "separation of church and state" crowd unless the last verse is deleted (like they do to our current national anthem).

Lift every voice and sing

Till earth and heaven ring

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on till victory is won

Stony the road we trod

Bitter the chastening rod

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died

Yet with a steady beat

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered

Out from the gloomy past

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

God of our weary years

God of our silent tears

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way

Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light

Keep us forever in the path, we pray

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee

Shadowed beneath Thy hand

May we forever stand

True to our God

True to our native land

Our native land

Presiding Bishop Curry probably fails to hear in the second verse the cries of those babies slaughtered by abortions over the past four decades since the hymn was put in the Episcopal hymnal.

"Felt in the days when hope unborn had died..." 

"We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered..." 

I do think the melody for #599 is easier to sing, but that is not enough justification to take away from our collective memories,

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave,

O'er the land of the free,

And the home of the brave? 

 That part always gives me goose bumps when we sing it.

I guess as we creep into a future in which have given up our freedom, and we have lost our courage, Francis Scott Key will have a new answer to his question, and that will be the time for a new national anthem because his version will be too painful to sing.

The Revised Common Lectionary Doesn't Like Strong Language

 The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) used in many Episcopal parishes often splices and dices the Holy Bible for untold reasons. I have speculated that this is done to make the Bible less offensive than it really is. 

This Sunday's reading from James 3:13-4:3,7-8 gets the cut. Verses 4-6 of Chapter 4 are missing except in the version provided below. The purged verses are highlighted in red.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. 

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

4 Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? 6 But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
   but gives grace to the humble.’

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Apparently, the editors don't want the pewsitters to think they are adulterers, something that most everyone is in the Lord's eyes. 

The Church that shies away from the strong language of the Bible will not last.

ELCA Lutherans One Up Episcopalians

The Evangelical Lutheran Church Church (ELCA) has played a new card in the "most progressive denomination" game. I think a transgender bishop trumps a homosexual bishop any day, 

From Premier Christian News came this report,

A US pastor has become the first openly transgender person to be installed as a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Earlier this year, Rev Meghan Rohrer was appointed as the bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod to serve a six-year term leading one of the 65 synods, overseeing nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and Nevada.

During the installation service, Rev Rohrer said: “My call is ... to be up to the same messy, loving things I was up to before.”

The Lutheran and Episcopal church are the only two Christian denominations in the US that allow transgender people to become clergy.

"I step into this role because a diverse community of Lutherans in Northern California and Nevada prayerfully and thoughtfully voted to do a historic thing," the bishop said in a statement.

"My installation will celebrate all that is possible when we trust God to shepherd us forward."

Rev Rohrer, 41, was the first transgender person to be ordained in the ELCA in 2006 and the first to lead a church in 2014.

Bishop Rohrer, who prefers to be referred to by the pronoun "they", is totally unknown to my Lutheran friends, most of whom shrug and express total apathy to the news. Others have no problem with a transgender bishop, and I have not heard a single person saying that they are leaving the denomination.

Ah. ignorance is bliss.

Ignorance however can be hazardous to your spiritual health. 

In the race to the bottom, with this move the ELCA might have just nosed ahead of the Episcopalians... for the time being. 

No one can tame the tongue

This Sunday's reading from James 3:1-12 contains wise advice for all of us from politicians to bishops, to priests, and to lowly pewsitters.

"Not many of you should become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits."

"How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh."

I come from a long line of people who have trouble taming their tongues. Most of our problems came from saying what we think before we thought things through causing offence to those around us. 

While no one can tame the tongue, I know that when I was younger, I had a habit of using expletives when I messed up, especially in sports just like my Dad, but when I accepted Jesus as Lord and prayed that he take this sin away, He did! 

Now, this didn't seem to work with many of my other faults... yet.

 

The Church in Wales Votes For SSBs

The Church in Wales, a member of the World Wide Anglican Communion, met recently and agreed to conduct same sex blessings (SSBs) of same sex "marriages".

I have been following the downfall of the Church (from henceforth, Organization) in Wales for several years now thanks to the Ancient Briton (AB) blog. The Organization had already elected a partnered lesbian bishop so it was expected that SSBs were to follow. 

The Organization in Wales had already shrunken to insignificance before SSBs as noted by AB, 

"The Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted the annual update of regular church attendance figures but based on previous trends less than 0.8% of the population of Wales would regularly attend Anglican Sunday services."

The trajectory is identical to what happened to the Episcopal Organization in the U.S. In Wales, the bishop's abandonment of theological rigor for the shifting sands of culture makes me wonder if they are simply following the Episcopalian model, 

"In his keynote address as President of the Church’s Governing Body, its senior bishop Andy John urged the Church to look for God in the changing world and respond to new challenges. He warned that organisations failing to adapt to changes ran the risk of 'fossilization'."

That's like the dodo calling the emu a fossil.

Tossing Holy Scripture aside, these bishops claim to be following a new Gospel delivered to them personally that blesses homosexual sin, 

"Sounding like a Taliban spokesman claiming every deed to be the will of Allah the bishop (of St Asaph) said, 'I will not betray them, not for any price in this world or the next because I believe it is the will of Christ.'"

Let us pray that the price he has to pay in the next world is not as harsh as the Bible suggests. 

 

Was Jesus Outsmarted?

 This Sunday's reading from Mark 7.24-37 contains a stumbling block for some.

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’

Some argue that the Syrophoenician made Jesus change his mind by out smarting him. As if we could do that. Therein lies the stumbling block. I look back at Job who, in the final chapters, dared to question God only to find out that although he was considered a righteous man, in the end God is Supreme and Job repents for being but a man. 

Who thinks they can out smart the Lord Almighty?

Louisville Medical School Expels Pro-Life Student

It has gotten to the point in the U.S. that you can get kicked out of Medical School for being pro-life. I am glad that I did my stint back in the age when men of iron roamed the halls of the hospitals. The story is from the Christian Post, 

A four-year medical student has filed a lawsuit against officials at the University of Louisville School of Medicine (ULSOM), accusing them of discriminating against him over his pro-life activism.

Austin Clark of Louisville filed an amended complaint last week in U.S. District Court against ULSOM President Neeli Bendapudi and 13 others after being expelled in July 2020. Clark, who formerly headed ULSOM’s Medical Students for Life group, accused the officials of harassing and eventually expelling him in retaliation for a 2018 pro-life event he hosted. The 2018 event featured Alex McFarland, a noted Christian apologist and author, speaking about the origins of life in the womb. The event was considered controversial by many students and faculty.

The complaint alleges that from the 2018 event until his 2020 expulsion, Clark was frequently harassed by professors who allegedly verbally assaulted him. The complaint also alleges that he was arbitrarily given a failing grade in internal medicine even though he claims to have earned a passing score. The lawsuit calls for Clark to be reinstated and accuses the school of violating the First and 14th Amendments. 

The University of Louisville has ties to the abortion industry, as physicians at the state’s only abortion clinic, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, are also professors at the university. "These documents suggest that the only remaining abortion clinic in Kentucky is being run as an official or quasi-official arm of the University of Louisville’s Medical School," stated the foundation's spokesman Martin Cothran at the time, as reported by WDRB. "Not only is U of L involved in the abortion clinic’s activities, but the clinic operates, for all practical purposes, as an extension of the Medical School’s program."

The university maintained that the EMW clinic and the school are separate entities, noting that programs for students and faculty simply involve training in which abortion training was optional.

I hope Mr. Clark wins his lawsuit and that the ULSOM pays a hefty fine, but what I really want is for the hard hearted baby killers teaching abortion methods to young medical students (who should be learning how to save lives) to turn to Jesus and repent of their evil ways.

Let us pray...