The Progressivist Trajectory Is to Eliminate Christianity

 

                                                             (Park, across from our house.)

In Jesus and the Powers, N. T. Wright and Michael Bird write:

"Many political progressives see Christianity as the number-one enemy against which they are struggling. As such, Christian communities, institutions, cultural influence and moral vision are the darkness against which their post-religious enlightenment is intended to shine. Christianity’s influence can only be eliminated by realigning institutions towards a secularised morality, by narrowing the parameters of religious freedom, by a coercive catharsis of religion itself, and by deconstructing resident fixtures such as history, constitutional law and even family. In the end, the progressive political vision amounts to what US political philosopher Stephen Macedo calls civic totalism, where the State is invested with all power and seeks to regulate as much of public and private life as possible."

- Wright, N. T.; Bird, Michael F.. Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (pp. 138-139). 

For more on the progressivist trajectory, see my book Deconstructing Progressive Christianity.

Joy Is Non-circumstantial

 

                                                        (Redeemer church, Monroe, MI)

Joy, like contentment, like the fruit of the Spirit, like influence for Christ, like manifestations of the Spirit, finds realization independently of the vicissitudes of life. 

Henri Nouwen writes,

"Joy does not come from positive predictions about the state of the world. It does not depend on the ups and downs of the circumstances of our lives. Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world. Jesus says it loudly and clearly: “In the world you will have troubles, but rejoice, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)."

The Many Benefits of Thankfulness

Gratitude is greater than bitterness. Thankfulness is better than resentment. 

Colossians 3:15 says:

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

A heart of thankfulness positively affects one’s entire being. Some scientific studies confirm this. Here are some of them.

From “Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier” (Harvard Medical School)

• “Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”
• Dr. Martin Seligman (University of Pennsylvania) says most studies on showing gratitude to others support an association between gratitude and an individual’s well-being.
• Gratitude can improve relationships. “For example, a study of couples found that individuals who took time to express gratitude for their partner not only felt more positive toward the other person but also felt more comfortable expressing concerns about their relationship.”
• Gratitude is associated with emotional maturity.
• “Gratitude is a way for people to appreciate what they have instead of always reaching for something new in the hopes it will make them happier, or thinking they can’t feel satisfied until every physical and material need is met. Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. And, although it may feel contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with use and practice.”

Here are some ways to cultivate gratitude on a regular basis.

·        Write a thank-you note.

·        Thank someone mentally. (“It may help just to think about someone who has done something nice for you, and mentally thank the individual.”)

·        Keep a gratitude journal. I make lists of things I am thankful for and carry them with me.

·        Count your blessings.

·        Pray. “People who are religious can use prayer to cultivate gratitude.”

From “7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude that Will Motivate You to Give Thanks Year-Round” (Forbes)

Research reveals that gratitude can have these benefits.

• ·        Gratitude opens the door to more relationships.
• ·        Gratitude improves physical health. “Grateful people experience fewer aches and pains and they report feeling healthier than other people, according to a 2012 study published in Personality and Individual Differences.”
• ·        Gratitude improves psychological health. “Gratitude reduces a multitude of toxic emotions, ranging from envy and resentment to frustration and regret. Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., a leading gratitude researcher, has conducted multiple studies on the link between gratitude and well-being. His research confirms that gratitude effectively increases happiness and reduces depression.”
• ·        Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression. “Grateful people are more likely to behave in a prosocial manner, even when others behave less kind, according to a 2012 study by the University of Kentucky. Study participants who ranked higher on gratitude scales were less likely to retaliate against others, even when given negative feedback. They experienced more sensitivity and empathy toward other people and a decreased desire to seek revenge.”
• ·        Grateful people sleep better. “Writing in a gratitude journal improves sleep, according to a 2011 study published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. Spend just 15 minutes jotting down a few grateful sentiments before bed, and you may sleep better and longer." 
• ·        Gratitude improves self-esteem.(Acc. to a 2014 study published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.)
• ·        Gratitude increases mental strength. (Acc. to a 2006 study in Behavior Research and Therapy, and a 2003 study in the Journal of Personality and social Psychology.

From “Giving Thanks: The Benefits of Gratitude” (Psychology Today)

·        

Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough “point out the benefits of expressing gratitude as ranging from better physical health to improved mental alertness. People who express gratitude also are more likely to offer emotional support to others.”

·        “Expressing gratitude in your daily life might even have a protective effect on staving off certain forms of psychological disorders. In a review article published this past March (see below), researchers found that habitually focusing on and appreciating the positive aspects of life is related to a generally higher level of psychological well-being and a lower risk of certain forms of psychopathology.”

·        Increase your gratitude-ability by looking for small things to be thankful for.

From “Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude” (University of Berkeley)

·        It’s easy to take gratitude for granted. “That might be why so many people have dismissed gratitude as simple, obvious, and unworthy of serious attention. But that’s starting to change. Recently scientists have begun to chart a course of research aimed at understanding gratitude and the circumstances in which it flourishes or diminishes.”

·        Recent studies on people who practice thankfulness consistently report a number of benefits:

·        Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure;

·        Higher levels of positive emotions;

·        More joy, optimism, and happiness;

·        Acting with more generosity and compassion;

·        Feeling less lonely and isolated.

From “Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Mental Health” (Psychiatry Advisor)

Gratitude can have a positive effect on a person’s emotions in four significant ways.

·        First, gratitude magnifies positive emotions by helping us to appreciate the value in something; thus gaining more benefit from it.  

·        Second, it blocks toxic, negative emotions, such as envy, resentment, and regret - emotions that can destroy happiness.  

·        Third, gratitude fosters resiliency.

·        And lastly, gratitude promotes self worth. 

From “5 Proven Health Benefits of Gratitude” (Shape)

·        

• Gratitude is good for your heart. “According to a recent study at the University of California, San Diego, being mindful of the things you're thankful for each day actually lowers inflammation in the heart and improves rhythm. Researchers looked at a group of adults with existing heart issues and had some keep a gratitude journal. After just two months, they found that the grateful group actually showed improved heart health.”
• ·        You’ll smarten up. “Teens who actively practiced an attitude of gratitude had higher GPAs than their ungrateful counterparts, says research published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.”
• ·         It’s good for your relationships. “Expressing gratitude instead of frustration will do more than just smooth things over—it will actually help your emotional health. Expressing and attitude of gratitude raises levels of empathy and abolishes any desire to get even, found researchers at the University of Kentucky.”
• ·        You’ll sleep more soundly. “ Writing in a gratitude journal before turning in will help you get a longer, deeper night's sleep, says a study published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.”

See also:

• “Thank You. No, Thank You.” (Wall Street Journal)
• “10 Ways to Become More Grateful.” (U. of Berkeley)

AND...

Prayer with Thanksgiving Is an Anxiety-Buster

Destined to Be Creatures of Thanksgiving

Prayer with Thanksgiving Is an Anxiety-Buster

 

(Monroe County)

I have a list of things I am thankful for. Sometimes I print the list out, carry it with me, and pull it out to re-read it. Regularly doing this defeats my sometimes anxious heart.

J. P. Moreland writes about this in Loving God with Your Mind: Essays in Honor of J. P. Moreland.  

"I practice the discipline of gratitude. Due to my heredity and upbringing, I have a predisposition to anxiety and depression. One way to avoid these is to train yourself to see the glass half full and not half empty, that is, to habitualize a positive, thankful approach to life. And the best way to do that involves a negative and a positive step. Negatively, learn to spot early on any catastrophizing or totalizing thoughts you have in which you take fears and so forth, blow them up out of proportion, and engage in fearful, negative self-talk. When you spot the negative thought, tell yourself that it isn’t true, that it is overstated, and seek to undermine the thought. Then, positively, turn to God in prayer and thank Him for, say, five to six things in your life, ranging from little things like the taste of coffee to large things like friends and family. I will do this around one hundred times a day, and by now, such expressions of gratitude have become a habit and they have colored my perception of life. The discipline of gratitude keeps one from becoming sour on life and is very, very life giving." (p. 225) 

In Philippians chapter four Paul instructs Jesus' followers to "not be anxious about anything." The Greek word for 'anxious' is one used in contexts of persecution. It's used in Matthew 10:19, where Jesus tells his disciples, "When they arrest you, do not be anxious about what to say or how to say it."

When Paul counsels the Philippian Christians to not be anxious, it's not like they are sitting down to a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner in a peaceful, non-threatening land. He writes from prison. The context is: persecution. The Jesus-followers were suffering under opposition from their pagan neighbors, just like Paul and Silas had suffered when among them (Acts 16L19-24; Phil. 1:28-30). 

I know what worry and anxiety are like. I have, in some especially troubling times, felt consumed by them. So I ask - how realistic is it to be told, “Be anxious about nothing?” Paul’s answer, and his experiential reality, is found in his rich, ongoing prayer life. He writes: 

Do not be anxious about anything, 

but in every situation,

by prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving,

present your requests to God.

I have proof that this works, (following Henri Nouwen, in his book Gracias!). It's this.  When I don’t pray, when I don't count the many reasons I have to be thankful,  I am more easily filled with worry and fear. In the act of praying I enter into the caregiving of the Great Physician, who dials down the anxiety.

In everyday prayer-conferencing with God, I present my requests to him. I lay my burdens before him (See 1 Peter 5:7). I remember that I have a Father God who loves me, in whom I trust. Where there is trust, there is neither worry nor anxiety. A person with a thanks-filled, praying life, grows in trust and diminishes in anxiety. A praying person discovers, experientially, that thankful trust and anxiety are inversely proportionate. 

Paul writes that our prayers should be accompanied “with thanksgiving.” Ben Witherington comments on this. He writes,

“Paul believes there is much to be said for praying in the right spirit or frame of mind.” This is significant for the Roman Philippians, since pagan prayers did not include thanksgiving. Roman prayers were often fearful, bargaining prayers, not based on a relationship with some loving god.

Witherington adds: “Prayer with the attitude of thanksgiving is a stress-buster.”

John Wesley said that thanksgiving is the surest evidence of a soul free from anxiety.

J. P. Moreland counsels that the discipline of gratitude thwarts catastrophic thinking.

The antidote for worry and anxiety is: praying, with thanksgiving.

Destined to Be Creatures of Thanksgiving

 

(Montana Rockies - Bozeman Pass)

The older I get, the more thankful I am becoming. Giving thanks is habitual. I often find myself saying, to myself, or out loud in a whisper, "Thank you God."

This happens several times a day. I think of something God has done for me, I see something he has given me, and reflexively the words rise up and come out of me.

I wake in the morning and say "Thank You" for waking in the morning and moving into a new day.

Dallas Willard, before he went to be with Jesus, was grateful. Gary Moon describes Willard's last words. 

"At 4:30 a.m. a nurse came in to turn Dallas in the bed. Her visit awakened [Dallas’ good friend Gary Black who was in the hospital room with him]. Moving Dallas awakened him too. Gary took Dallas’s hand. Dallas turned to him and told him to tell his loved ones how much he was blessed by them and how much he appreciated them. … Then, as Gary described, “In a voice clearer than I had heard in days, he leaned his head back slightly and with his eyes closed said, ‘Thank you.’” Gary did not feel that Dallas was talking to him, but to another presence that Dallas seemed to sense in the room. And those were the last words of Dallas Willard. “Thank you,” he said, to a very present and then finally visible to him God."

Gary Moon, Becoming Dallas Willard (IVP, 2018), page 240

Gratitude is moving from volition to embodiment. This is good. I am being prepared.

In the great throne room scene of Revelation 4, the awesome four living creatures are spotlighted, as they levitate around the throne of God. They give splendor to the One who sits on the throne. I am destined to do the same. I am being prepped for full-being God-glorification. The creatures give value to him who occupies the throne. I have the same destiny. I am being shaped into a God-honoring creature.

The four living creatures give thanks. 

An eternal outpouring of gratitude. 

I will one day join this mighty chorus! 

I am being mentored in this, by the Holy Spirit.

All I am meant to be is summed up in the great outpouring of glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne and lives forever and ever. (Revelation 4:9)

This outpouring of magnification is too much for the twenty-four elders. The threefold amplification of the four living creatures drops the elders to their knees before the Lord, and they worship him. (Revelation 4:10)

Listen, all you who are in Christ! This is your transcendent destiny, which, in your current immanent embodiment, you are being schooled for. 

To be creatures who radiate glory, display honor, and sing thanksgiving to the God who reigns for ever and ever. To be, as C.S. Lewis once said, "everlasting splendors."

Thank you.

The Pro-Life Psalm

 

 

(Redeemer Church, Monroe, dark outside, lights on in the sanctuary)

PSALM 139:13-18

For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

A Disciple Exercises in the Spiritual Gymnasium

 

My mentor, Jesus, taught me that I must exercise in the spiritual gymnasium. The game-changer for me was when I read Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. That was in 1982. Few books have caused me to do something in response to what I read. Foster's was one of them.  

I already knew that I must, as a disciple, be disciplined. I must discipline myself to dwell in the Lord's house, seeking his presence. I must abide in Jesus, like a branch, connected to the vine. What Foster gave me was that disciples of Christ must exercise spiritually, and that spiritual exercising was the way I abide in him. For example, praying connects me with Jesus. He gives himself to me, as I pray.

I am not doing spiritual exercises to earn God's love. But, because I love Him, and he has loved me, I desire to grow in him. More accurately, I long to have Christ formed, in me. (Galatians 4:19)  

I understand this to be the apostle Paul's idea when he writes, Train yourself to be godly (1 Timothy 4:7). What struck me about this verse was that the Greek word for "train" is gumnaze. Gymnasium!  

1 Corinthians 9:25 reads, Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. The Greek word for "compete" is agonizomenos. Agonize! Which means, to compete in the gymnastic games. Again, I am not competing for God's love. He loves me. I compete to be empowered, led, relevant, and anointed.  

After reading Foster I began to up my level of competing. I do worship reps in God's gymnasium. I do prayer reps, Bible reps, serving reps, solitude reps, listening reps, giving reps, thanksgiving reps, to grow stronger and be competitive in life.  

As Jesus' disciple, I long to be fit for his service.  

I want this for you, too.

DECLARATIONS

 I am a spiritual athlete!

 I train, every day, in God's Gym.

 I am growing in spiritual fitness.

 I am a competitor for the souls of women and men.

 I can feel my spirit getting stronger and stronger.

 I live and love the connected-to-Jesus life!

(From my book 31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship.)