Are you interested in culture and just how it is to be structured through godliness? If so, here is a site that you may want to visit!
God calls us to spiritually claim all aspects of our lives, including our culture at large. To claim that the institution of marriage, for instance, is not an institution of the Church is simply ludicrous! This type of teaching is a prime example of Gnosticism. When, for instance, a man and a women cohabit together and raise a family outside of a sacramental context, the couple simply practices fornication. But when this lifestyle contains Christ-centered spiritual and ethical boundaries, lead by the Church, then this lifestyle ceases to be sin and begins to glorify God. The Psalmist teaches that we must practice holiness in everything we do, which would include our participation and leadership in culture:
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? - Psalm 139:7
When God created man, He gave him a task to tend the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). When man transgressed God’s law, God allowed him to fall into a curse (Genesis 3:14-24). However, man’s task to tend the garden was not abolished; rather, it was modified to the extent of becoming more laborious. God told Adam that he would have to “till the ground,” meaning that nature would no longer provide for Adam like it had before the fall. Tilling the ground did not mean that he would merely have to dig when planting crops; it meant that life would now become more laborious for him and all his descendents. Also, when God told Eve that she would “desire the [position of the] man” and “bear pain in childbirth,” this did not mean that women would have to keep quiet and pregnant their whole lives. The curses that man and woman brought upon themselves do not leave man in complete turmoil with very little to do in life. On the contrary! These curses were accompanied by a covenant of grace, which has enabled men and women throughout the ages to work in harmony for the sake of God’s kingdom - or “culture,” if you will.
England is forcasting bleak days for her Church. It seems that one of the hindrances of growth for the Church of England is the fact that the Muslims implement an actual heritage within their belief, whereas Christianity’s heritage is now so shallow that it is laughable. David Voas, a professor of population studies at the Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester, said:
“The difficulty is in retaining the children who have churchgoing parents. So long as churchgoing is something that gets you laughed at, so long as there is a social stigma attached to being a churchgoing young person, it will be difficult to reverse the trend.” He said that young Muslims operated in a different environment. “Being religious is a way that you show you are different, that you are proud of your heritage. One of the ways young Muslims assert their identity is by being more observant than their parents.“
In order to grow the kingdom to the extent of finally overcoming Islam, it is clear that we must begin to emphasis the visible Church and her call to take dominion over all spiritual realms, as the book of Genesis clearly commands. Enough with the Gnostic notions of piety and doctrinal prestige! We need the faith of our fathers that once proclaimed a realistic “religion.” Here is an example of our current downward spiral within the realm of spiritual dominion and religion as well our leanings toward Evangelicalism (site):
“People who don’t go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building.”
The first article I quoted moves on to state that Evangelicalism is absorbing much of the Church growth. This explains much of the loss of cultural identity within England (America, likewise). Christians that adhere to the more Evangelical worldview cannot be dignified in the culture, because they simply do not have one. To them, the Christian faith is about the invisible but not the visible, which in turn brings us to a Gnostic faith that is not true to the Lord’s Prayer of having God’s “kingdom come… on earth as it is in heaven.” God wills for us to take action in every area of our faith and life. There is no neutrality! There is no aspect of life that is off limits to God’s will; be it liturgy, architecture, music, art, or overall vocation.
To build a Christian heritage, and pass this heritage down to children that can be dignified through it, means embracing a faith that actually makes itself known here on earth. The early Church helps us to understand just what this looks like, and the medieval Church helps us understand what has developed from the early Church. But the modern Church is no longer drinking from this well, and insists on creating new traditions of multiculturalism and relativism. No longer is the Anglo-Catholic culture meaningful to today’s Christian; the very tradition that founded America itself.
This reluctance to administrate the Anglican culture may very well be due to the fear of it being rejected by more third-world types of culture. But countries such as Africa and Mexico are completely eager to embrace the Anglican culture. Neutral Evangelicalism seeks to be the answer to this pre-fabricated fear of man! But not only is Evangelicalism fighting its own arson, but the deterrent they are using is actually a fuel - it is not nearly as neutral as they think! Their culture is not neutral but rather it is modern, embracing nearly every post-Christendom culture that they possible can in order to supposedly be “all things to all people.” When St. Paul made this statement, he was not referring to our faith at large, but rather his apologetic (theological tactics to persuade) as well as his overall demeanor.
O Gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen
This article shows how restaurants are now losing money due to more women doing what women have traditionally done in pre-liberal times: manage their homes!
According to the article, more women are staying at home and cooking for their families, which has in turn caused restaurants to lose revenue. No offense to anyone that works within the restaurant industry, but let’s face it, this industry, along with many other modern industries (see industrial revolution) has created a narcissistic culture and ethic in America (in particular) that leads to nothing but schism within the family and the Church.
Not only is the American economy based on this “capitalistic” framework, but much of the Christian ministry - especially within Evangelicalism - is built on this same framework. The essence of this model includes the basic tendency and motive to capitalize on the overall desires and weaknesses of the people! Yet the ethic of Christ involves selfless and sacrificial love for one another, as Christ clearly demonstrated to us in His lifetime. This means that one may actually need to repent and serve those that Christ calls us to serve, rather than fleeing from the difficult service in order to build our own, more monetarily gainful, business or ministry.
The overcorrection to modern capitalism would be the pursuit of idealistic notions (idealism - the creation and belief of ideals that are impossible to manage). The Puritans fell into this shortly after they settled in America. Imposing laws and theologies that had never been fully embraced in all of history, the Puritans believed that God had called them to be the new Jerusalem. They were wrong! God does not want an overnight make-shift Jerusalem erected. God simply wants us to do what is right and just within our own lives, and teach those same principles to our pupils. If our pupils do not want to learn and live the ways of Christ, then they have chosen to live as peasants (there is nothing sinful about a society with poor people. When Christ says to give to the poor, He is certainly not commanding us to instantly make them wealthy). Typically, the idealist would want both classes of peasant and elitist to become abolished, and this is generally called liberalism. Liberalism is not the answer to capitalism! The answer to secular capitalism is… well, I am not sure there is a proper “ism” to place here, at least not one that would be understood by most Christians. Though, I can say this: The “biblical” model of Christian economy is not found in one particular frame of history, but likely, a combination of historical frames, coupled with a combination of historical theologies.
On the surface, the forces behind the spread of secularism and Islam would appear to have little in common. Secularism is essentially a movement against a place for religious belief in public life, while Islam holds the complete subservience of the public sphere to Islam through the imposition of Sharia law. But, as Richarad Bastein points out in an article at Mercator.net, things may not always be as they seem. Just as similarities were notable between the seemingly opposed forces of Nazism and Marxism, so links can also be seen between Islam and secularism.
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This website has acquired tens of thousands of hits over the past year and so it is time to place it at the top of the web searches for Anglicanism in Phoenix, Arizona. This is done by typing the words Anglican and Phoenix, Arizona as many times possible in order for the search engines to catch the site. The Continuing Anglican Church is alive and well in Phoenix Arizona, but so is the liberal “Anglican” church. We must rise above the liberals on the search engines by creating Anglican sites such as this one, right here in Phoenix, Arizona, so that when an enquirer punches in the words Anglican Phoenix, AnglicanThought pulls right up. This will prevent the Anglican (Episcopal) enquirer from thinking that the only Anglican/Episcopal churches in Arizona are liberal. Phoenix, Arizona is primed for new Anglican movement. One can find a variety of Continuing Anglican churches in the valley simply by typing the words Anglican/Episcopal and Phoenix into a search bar. One day all the conservatives will leave the Episcopal Church of the United States and will be in need of a conservative Anglican/Episcopal church. Hopefully those conservatives - or would be conservatives - here in Phoenix, Arizona, will find this site on Google, and will discover the riches of the historic Anglican faith.
Today is the feast day of St. Valentine. There is not a whole lot known about the Valentine (Valentinus) that is celebrated today, but apparently we have found the way to celebrate what God has done through him. If you are a heathen, you can celebrate via the emperor cult (Americanism), and not “commune” with the Church on this holiday. The choice is yours! Or is it?
Rick Santorum, a former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and a known and dedicated defender of the family, has written an important article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on a change in focus on the issue of life in some recent Hollywood movies. In a number of recent popular films, a woman is faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy and chooses to have the baby. While some of these films are awash in the cultural ills of contemporary Western society, there is a techtonic shift on how the entire abortion issue is handled.Even with some questionable conduct on the part of the characters, the movies show young people grappling with the issue devoid of the usual caricatures provided by Hollywood. For example, in the much praised film Juno, the mian character has a warm and positive interaction with another girl in her high-school who is a pro-life advocate and encourages her to have the baby. This stands in stark contrast to the portrayals of pro-life advocates by the mainstream media.
The commercial success of these films is perhaps an indication that even among those who publicly accept abortion as a “choice”, personally it is a very wrong choice. There seems to be a growing sense that as the generation that “liberated” us from traditional morality passes, we are in need of being liberated from the tyranny of our liberators.
It is the Christmas season and along with decorations, carols, and long lines in the shopping malls comes the medial blitz trumpeting something that casts doubt on orthodox Christianity. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious rallying point - I thought they might be poised to annoint the movie based on the atheist “children’s fantasy” The Golden Compass, but it appears that debacle will join Heaven’s Gate and Waterworld in the special class of movies that end the careers of anyone associated with it. Apparently, atheism is so trendy in Hollywood that no one in a position of authority bothered to read the book and grasp the idea that it’s lifeless message would have little appeal before sinking $200 million into it. It will be even better when the second Chronicles of Narnia film rakes in the dollars upon its release. Yet despite such a setback, I am confident that by December 25 a numnber of major media outlets will have recovered from this disappointment and made their own contributions to throwing water on the yuletide fire.
Take a look at these stats on Islam. Pretty alarming!
I just finished watching the movie Amazing Grace. It was quite good, although I did get a little sleepy at times. There was a tremendous amount of dialog and next to no scenes of just how the slave-traders treated the slaves or what they went through. I suppose this gentle quality needs to be restored amongst Hollywood, though. Psychological/spiritual impact can hit us in a number of ways, and that it does in this movie. The movie does elude to the Church and even shows one scene of a pastor preaching on the issue of slave-trade, but the travesty of the African slave-trade certainly could have been emphasized more.
It’s hard to even tell that Wilberforce was an Anglican, unless one knows a thing or two about Anglicanism and her history…it just was not emphasized. Anglicanism, not only has a history of rich Worship, but it also has a history of rich ethics. Amazing Grace does a fine job on demonstrating this! So…okay, it did a great job in demonstrating Anglicanism, but I was hoping the flag would be waiving high, that’s all. Rent or buy this movie and never forget that the American Union was not the first to notice the brutality of African slave-trade.
Some Christians are urging others to pull their children out of public school due to the new pro-homosexual bill that our hero Arnold Schwarzenegger just passed. The dividing line between the wheat and the chaff is becoming more and more evident as proclaimed Christians will be showing just whose side they are on.
Rev. Wilson posted this link on church signs. I wonder if this is real. If it is, I think it is great that polar opposite churches like these are even having conversation, as silly as the conversation might be.
Take a look at what Katrina did to this Church.
I recently purchased this picture from Marshalls, to hang in my study at home. It is hard to tell by this small pic, but it is a church and a city combined into one picture. My wife says it is too “Pink Floyd.” Hey, I like Pink Floyd, what’s up?! I think this picture says, at the very least, two important things: The Church is dominant over the culture regardless of what state it is in (no pun intended) and the culture is always trying to drive into the Church regardless of what state it is in.
The Picture is by Scott Mutter - like the Church is our “Mutter”;)
T.S. Eliot articulates our call within modern times:
The Universal Church is today, it seems to me, more definitely set against the World than at any time since Pagan Rome. I do not mean that our times are particularly corrupt; all times are corrupt. In spite of certain local appearances, Christianity is not and cannot be within measurable time, ‘official’. The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide.
— T. S. Eliot, Thoughts After Lambeth (1931)
Well said! The emperor cult of America will one day fall, and Christians will have to either submit to the cultural mandate that the early Reformers and Early Church Fathers demonstrated to us or to the latest emperor cult if the times. Dispensationalists go as far as calling this point of submission to the evils of the culture “the mark of the beast.” I do believe they are hyper-extending the Word of God in that this mark in which we find in Revelation is typology; symbolic of the general nature of submission to foreign economies, not a literal chip in the human body. The chip technology is certainly available for our times, but a chip is not necessary to submit to the beast. One’s heart is what is needed. The hand that Revelation speaks of may be symbolic to the “working hand”, and the forhead that Revelation speaks of can certainly be symbolic of the mind. After all, Paul calls our submission to Christ “the renewing of the mind” (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23).
The culture and nature itself will indeed be redeemed with all of mankind (Romans 8:22), and we are called to usher this into existence “on earth as it is in heaven” as Christ says. As Eliot implies in the quote above, today’s culture is striving toward more of what Rome was after: an agnostic type of state religion that retains a relativistic sense of morality for the sake of material gain. It will fail, as he says, but we whom are already advancing the kingdom of God within the areas of culture that we are able will be there (or our kin will be) to receive this blessed window of opportunity.
What struck me first were those eyes. They are remarkable…They clearly see beyond prison walls. With a twinkle in them, they are fixed on the realities of yet unseen eternal things, contemplating ways and words and means to convey such stupendous immortal truths revealed to him for those mortals whose sights are hemmed in by the narrow walls of day to day battles of the here and now. Conviction is written all over his confident, tranquil expression. He knows who holds his future, and the future of mankind. But how will he put into human language what his spirit has grasped? How will he pass on to his fellow-travellers outside prison walls what behind them has enlightened his heart through the study of the Scriptures? How will he condense into some brief epistle what he has experienced on the way to Damascus and in Arabia’s desert? These weighty and vital matters seem to preoccupy his lofty flights of thoughts.And yet, he is perfectly at ease in his gloomy cell. He indeed does not look like a prisoner of Caesar. No worry about his personal fate can be detected, a rather carefree, relaxed attitude permeates the confines of his earthly abode. Leisurely, one foot, being freed from the bondage of its shoe, rests upon it, as done by someone feeling right at home, without fear or apprehension. Here is someone who obviously is in charge, and not being charged. A man at peace with his destiny. A man of purpose at work. Persecution and Prison are merely incidental.Here, sitting on the simple bedstead, cramped and uncomfortable, though his posture never gives the impression for this to be just so, is the Champion of Christian liberty through divine grace, still busy in discharging his heavenly commission on earth. The surrounding cannot impede the driving force of the great purpose of his life, for all things must work together for good to them that love God.
And there he is, redeeming the remaining time to fulfill the passion of his heart to present to the Christ of God a Church without spot and wrinkle. He is intense and ponderous in putting on the finishing touches to this very objective. He is so enthralled that nothing seems to distract him, any ambiance is good enough as long as the message can be caught on paper and rushed to his friends to meet their needs of freedom, faith and charity.
In Paul’s bearing Rembrandt caught - in Rembrandt-fashion - the sovereignty of his divine calling. The portrait exudes the benign, but firm authority of the chief steward of the mysteries of God. Truly Pauline, his noble personality unobtrusively, but definitely and pleasantly, fills the prison cell, all other things and facts recede into the background as being less important. There is, however, no air of „pomp and circumstance,” there is no trace of self-importance or bigotry, let alone of self-pity, but there is authoritative modesty coupled with an almost lighthearted, victorious smile on his weather-beaten face that knows in Whom faith and trust have been placed. Here is someone who is not set to please, but to win men to his cause, here is an approved soldier of Christ who rightly divides the word of truth, come what - and who - may. He is under, and responsible to, God Himself, not to any earthling, and may he wield as much temporary power as he wishes.
It is intriguing to note that Paul’s sufferings and hardships are in no way highlighted or even hinted at, but rather his divine destiny, to be a light unto the Gentiles. Against the backdrop of the invading daylight and the prominence of the Scriptures on his lap, this is forcefully emphasized. Paul’s motto is thus beautifully and purposefully portrayed: „For me to live is Christ.”
Even in prison: Paul, the scholar, surrounded by his beloved, life-giving Scriptures, eager to transpose and apply the Old Testament prophecies to the New Testament realities. Paul, the aged, who has learned to cope with every situation and condition as long as Christ is glorified. Paul, the pragmatist, who is quite happy to enjoy the warming benefits of a cloak and the rays of the sun, filtered through prison bars, though, they are. Paul, the sound, well balanced Servant of Christ. Right to the end.
Head slightly bent forward, retrospectively hand to chin, , prospectively hand on the book, Rembrandt just about enables us to read Paul’s profound thoughts in the process of being penned down:
“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. This is now a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. However, for this cause I have obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering as a pattern to all of those who will come to believe on him, finding life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
HERBERT ROS
Stuttgart, Germany