Closet Christian

I can never understand "Christian-based" hate groups. It's very oxymoronic. Isn't it? How can you be Christian and hate your brother, when Christ has called you to to love all your brothers, especially those marginalized, and even your enemies? I'll give them one thing though, they are right about the country changing as far as being taken over. But, I argue that it has NOTHING to do with sexual preferences, race, religious views, or ethnicity. It has to do with ignorance, misinformation, misconceptions, and backwards ideology perpetrated by media. We are not one another's enemies. We are all people trying to make it in the world, people, just people.

My thoughts and ideas make me a very isolated and unpopular person in this backward town. Unfortunately in this primarily Christian town, my Christianity is frowned upon and unacceptable.

"I do not believe in the death penalty, because Christ tells me I should forgive my brethren." I live in a prison town, and I have lost my guard friends because of that statement. I also believe that God has told us not to take a life. He, and only He, is to avenge. I also believe the death penalty allows some victim's families to live with guilt because they fought for the death penalty. Often it creeps in slowly as they realized that these are people. They become at odds with Christ. I also believe the death penalty allows the criminal to get off easy. They never have to live with the guilt of their crimes. The taking of a loved one is a life sentence for the victim's family and a travesty for all involved. It should be  life sentence for the perpetrator, as well.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

~ Romans 12:17-21

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

~ Matthew 6:14-15

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

~ Mark 11:25

"Although I support the use of guns and bows for hunting for food, I believe that assault rifles should be outlawed, and hunting should only be done for food not for sport." Again, I have lost many "Christian" friends from this statement. New Oxford American Dictionary defines assault as, "make a physical attack on," and assault rifle as, "a rapid-fire, magazine-fed automatic rifle designed for infantry use." There is no reason for an individual to have an assault rifle other than to kill mass numbers of people. It is not logical to use an assault rifle as a hunting rifle. Once we start saying it is okay for the general public to have public access to military weapons, our problems grow and even more mass numbers of people begin to die. We would not want our neighbor to have a bomb designed to kill mass numbers of people, we would not allow our neighbors to have a rocket launcher, would not allow our neighbors to carry hand grenades, so why do we allow assault rifles? I agree that each person has the right to own a handgun, rifle, shot gun, bow, and crossbow, but assault rifles I will never get behind. For a matter of fact, my home has weapons, but they are not weapons of mass destruction. A gun used wisely does not kill a man, and just because we have been given dominion over the animals of Earth, we have been warned to care for it and its lifeforms.

"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'"

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 

~ NIV Genesis 1:26-30

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 

~ NIV Genesis 2:15

Remember, love one another. I do. ♥

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

~ 1 John 3:11-16

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

~ John 13:34-35

I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (NIV Genesis 2:2-3)

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)

The sabbath is defined as “a day of religious observance and abstinence from work.” It is the fourth commandment handed down to Christians and Jews by their common creator. It is a rule that many of Christians forget to follow on a weekly basis.

Many Christians see the sabbath as Sunday, but they are truly mistaken. We worship on Sunday because in worship we are celebrating our life and birth. We are celebrating the birth of the universe. Look very closely to the word Sun-day.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (NIV Genesis 1:1-5)

Therefore, the sabbath would actually be on Saturday, as Sunday is the day that the Sun was created. Some faiths, including Christian faiths, do worship on Saturday. In their way of worship, they are keeping the day Holy. In Judaism, the sabbath is a sacred day, which they do not work, nor do they drive on Saturday. Many Catholic churches also worship on the sabbath, for that is when they often hold evening mass.

I do believe that there are many American Christians that overlook the "Keep it holy" part of our fourth commandment. Many Christians spend the wee hours of their Saturday mornings and late Saturday evenings partying it up. I have seen these same Christians in church, looking worse for wear, and fighting major headaches due to hangovers on Sunday mornings. This is the type of hypocrisy in Christian Americans that many critics of Christianity speak of.

As Christians, though, do we rest on the sabbath? Not always. Now there are certain professions where it is not possible to rest on each and every Saturday. These professions are law enforcement agencies, medical professions, and other similar civil service agencies. But in those professions, though the person is not resting, are they keeping the day Holy?

I am convinced that sacrificing your day of rest to be one of the body is Holy. If we sacrifice our day of rest to ensure the safety and welfare of others, are we not being the Lord's hands and feet in the world?

With that being said, I have seen many, many changes for American Christians in my lifetime. As a child there was one store in town that was open on Sundays, and most others were closed for the majority of the day on Saturdays. There were no restaurants opened on Sunday, and going downtown on Sunday meant walking through a ghost town. Today, most business excluding offices and such are opened on both Saturday and Sunday. Due to the economy, many Christians must work on the sabbath, as they need to on Sunday as well. However, I am not convinced that they are breaking God's law. Again, to sacrifice your day of rest in order to ensure the welfare and safety of others is a Christian act.

Jesus has taught us that one who has sacrificed for the sake of another is still keeping the sabbath.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-12)

Do you believe that working for income on a Saturday and Sunday is keeping the sabbath? I do. I feel that a person who does such in order to provide food, shelter, and clothing to their families. I feel that the economy makes working on the sabbath necessary. We need to remember, as Christians, that the Bible was written for a different time and circumstances. Keeping the sabbath does not come before caring for your brothers and sisters, whether they be family or strangers.

Pollution

Mother Earth is ill, and we, mankind, are the cancer that are killing her. Do Something has posted 11 facts that Americans should know about the pollutants Americans are responsible for releasing into our environment every day.

1. 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.


2. The Mississippi River – which drains the lands of nearly 40% of the continental United Sates – carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year. The resulting dead zone in the Gulf each summer is about the size of New Jersey.


3. 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually.


4. Polluted drinking waters are a problem for about half of the world’s population. Each year there are about 250 million cases of water-based diseases, resulting in roughly 5 to 10 million deaths.


5. Vehicle exhaust contributes roughly 60% of all carbon monoxide emissions nationwide, and up to 95% in cities.


6. Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage.


7. Each year, U.S. factories spew 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the air, land, and water.


8. In the U.S. 41% of all insecticides are used on corn. Of these, 80% are used to treat a pest that could be controlled simply by rotating a different crop for just one year.


9. Every year, one American produces over 3,285 pounds of hazardous waste.


10. Over 80% of items in landfills can be recycled, but they’re not.


11. Americans generate 30 billion foam cups, 220 million tires, and 1.8 billion disposable diapers every year.

Source:  Do Something

Releasing pollutants into the environment is not ethical, as it does not benefit society as a whole. However, it could improve one's station in life and improve their pleasure, for some of your biggest companies contribute greatly to the pollution levels worldwide. Atop each company is the people whose wealth is dependent up on cutting corners such as moving factories to countries with no environmental protection standards and laws. This never-ending need to gain wealth falls under the greed category. Some readers will argue that beneficence makes pollution ethical, but it would be selfish for us to assume that one's pleasure should be put above the whole. 

"That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill." ~ Aristotle

Regardless of pollution being on the forefront in modern media, many Americans forget to care for their environment. We are blind to the impact that this cancer has on us until we witness the overall effects through our weather, wildfires, floods, etc. When catastrophic events happen, we open our eyes to the impact our carelessness has on the environment, that is until the news gets old, and we start flipping through our regularly broadcasting stations and our  favorite television shows.

Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Isaac, Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, Texas Wildfires, California Wildfires, Colorado Wildfires, New Mexico Wildfires, Shifting Seasons, Drought Across the South, Prolonged Intense Summers, Massive Tornados, etc. 

As Christians, we have a responsibility to care for our planet.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (NIV Genesis 1:27-28)

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (NIV Genesis 2:15)

God may have given mankind dominion over the earth, but he also gave us the responsibility of caring for the earth. Sure, life would be more difficult if we abruptly ended our ever-growing dependence on fossil fuels. Many of us have chosen to pass the responsibility off to future generations, and that is also due to the fact that our forefathers have passed the responsibility off to us throughout the years. In the past, it was due to ignorance, as mankind did not fully understand his/her environmental impact.

Now that we are fully aware of the impact, we need to take up the responsibility and do what we can to heal the cancer that we have placed upon the back of the third rock that we call home. After all, we did not come upon this responsibility on our own. It is a responsibility that God has bestowed upon us, and I do not think that this is what God meant.

For information on what you can do to reduce your impact on the environment: EPA