Practical Christianity posts

Practical Christianity

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I don't know if I'll continue with this. I just end up making fun of seminary graduates and churchians. Shooting fish in a barrel.

Practical Christianity, Pt. 3

"Well, but there's this occult business. Being awake in the moment is occult business. I tried it once and some demons stole my pants and made me bray like a donkey."

This is actually your best protest. There is an issue of danger in all this. You put yourself on spiritual ground when you provoke your limits to be awake in the moment. Ground where the forces of light and darkness do battle. If you are not developed to the point where you can in the least degree handle it then you're better off not being there. Of course you are probably not regenerated by the word and the Spirit either.

I believe in a two-tier Christianity. Unregenerate self-identified Christians, and regenerate self-identified Christians.

If you are regenerate you will have a basic degree of ability to handle being in spiritual warfare, and being where spiritual warfare takes place. (In fact you won't have a choice in the matter, so you might as well take the initiative.)

Practical Christianity, Pt. 2

We're not able to be awake in the moment to the reality of the faith because our limits for that have never been extended to the point where that is possible.

As watchmen we fall asleep quickly. We aren't good watchmen because quickly upon taking our post we doze off and fall asleep. We make the effort, we climb to our post, so to speak, we set ourselves to watch, but our limits are so unextended that we quickly succumb to sleep.

So obviously to solve this problem we have to extend our limits. But to do that we have to provoke our limits. Which requires effort. And requires being in new territory. New spiritual territory. Not to mention new territory of seeing ourselves.

We have a lot of scared theologians and pastors these days talking about 'now/not yet' doctrine and warning of 'over-realized eschatology.' I know Reformed, Federal Theology to its core, and I've never felt comfortable with the 'now/not yet' doctrine. It always had an ad hoc feel to it to my discernment. Biblical doctrine is sound and complete. Anytime you get explanations that look partial and hesitant and ad hoc you are dealing with a lack of understanding. Eschatology is now. It's not future. And it is now complete. Not future complete. It is simple fear of being awake in the moment that is keeping this reality repressed and covered over in ad hoc language.

Of course in their lack of understanding they'll say, "How is glorification now?"

It's now in that we are dealing with higher aspects of time. Not linear time. In a real sense it is now for the taking. Once regenerated we're in the heavenlies now. Eschatology is vertical to the moment, not horizontal in linear time. Not some destination off in the horizontal, linear time distance. Yes obviously we are still alive in these flesh and blood bodies and while still alive glorification is not a complete reality, but we don't just exist in these flesh and blood bodies now, we are in a real way in higher realms now (or lower realms) and our development now, our sanctification is not constrained by some shallow materialist notion of ourselves and reality. ('Now/not yet' doctrine is being used to say: "No effort now needed, all is done in the future. As if physical death is the point of it all. No, we are kept alive after being regenerated for a reason. For many reasons.)

They will next say: "But we are instructed to behave the way the word of God tells us to behave. We just need to be in church and take the Lord's Supper and...then......you know, eat ice cream and such things."

Yes, but what are you reading in the word of God? What are you seeing there, and what are you not seeing (willfully or not)? You're not seeing the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself that tells you to awaken and love your enemies, both real time acts that effect our level of being awake in the moment. You completely pass over that. Your older peers in time gave passing mention of it (a Brakel for one), but you modern guys just pass over it completely. Actual teaching of our Lord and Savior and King Jesus Christ. You act as if it isn't there. And then you actually warn people with grave expressions of concern if anybody should be outrageous enough to see it and mention it. Basically you act the Devil's part. But moving along...

Practical Christianity, Pt. 1

The great enemy of the faith is the banality of our perception and experience of the everyday world.

If you happen to live in interesting times (as the Chinese saying ironically puts it) you're exempted. Most of us, though, are not waking up to a world where we are being chased by a crowd of Muslims with machetes.

So obviously part of the Christian faith is combating this banality of perception and experience of this everyday world.

This is difficult because it calls for self-motivated effort. It calls for directed effort regarding our very presence moment-to-moment.

We can no longer just sleepwalk through our average day allowing everything, every impression and thought and event to come to us, prodding us into action when necessary, yet us all the while residing in comfortable and easy sleepwalking. I.e. we can, as Christians, no longer rely solely on external shocks which keep us doing the minimum and surviving at the most basic level. Because with that comes the banality of perception and experience of the everyday world, which keeps the faith if not dead in us then subdued and overpowered.

Again, so obviously part of the Christian faith is combating this banality of perception and experience of this everyday world.

Example: the Mediatorial Kingdom of Jesus Christ exists now, in Heaven, where Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father. We, as regenerated by the word and the Spirit Christians, are connected to our King Jesus Christ and His Kingdom by the Spirit of Christ which is the Holy Spirit Himself. Right now.

As I walk down the street today, in all the banality of sidewalk and traffic and weather and mechanical thoughts and everyday needs, I have a King in Heaven I am connected to by His Spirit. Now. Right now. In this moment. At every step.

How do I perceive and experience this reality?

By being awake in the moment to it. (Which is not as easy or simple as it sounds.)

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving Day in America.

I now know what it is I saw all those years ago in the first 13 chapters of Gibbon's epic history: I saw man's fallen nature. Not in a moralizing sense, but in a real, worldly, biblical sense. That's why it had such an awakening effect in me. People go through life never seeing it; thinking man is inherently good and perfectible. In politics this naivety leads to inevitable Satanic ends. Ultimately genocide, as we saw all throughout the last century. Mass human sacrifice to the Kingdom of Satan. Political wisdom is found in the Founding Fathers and founding documents of the United States of America. Found there summed up astonishingly well.

Thomas Sowell writes well in his book The Vision of the Anointed on this theme of political leftists (the followers of the political left anyway) seeing man as inherently good and perfectible, and conservatives (or classical liberals, what conservative used to be called before the Left co-opted the term liberal and defiled it) seeing man as needing real checks and balances on his fallen nature. This makes leftists (or followers of the political left) more amenable to giving up their liberty to dictators and authoritarian political ideologies, all the while chanting peace, love, and freedom...

Understanding the reality and mechanics of liberty vs. tyranny is basic for a Christian. It's a subject of spiritual warfare, ultimately. The discernment we get from the Holy Spirit Himself upon regeneration by the word and the Spirit should lead one into such understanding. Which includes valuing liberty, by the way. Not to mention being able to see through all Orwellian language distortion.

For starters I would recommend a book that gives overviews of classic books on the subject: Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read by Benjamin Wiker.

Here's where I'm different: I'm not trying to sound like some scholar. I'll readily recommend a book with a title or written level that is easily mocked by the usual types who mock such things. If the book is worthwhile, which this one is. His chapter on the Bible is a mess, but overall the value of the book is in his concise summing up of foundational ideas, as he courses through the ten books, that describe liberty and tyranny and how each are instituted and defended or overthrown and so on.