The Catacombs

 In the   first  400 years or so following the ressurection of Jesus Christ there  existed a community of  believers in the city of Rome that lived and died  under  unique circumstances.  Roman society and culture was a culture where every aspect of life was given over to a pantheon of false gods.  If you were a Christian living in Rome at these times,  at every turn you were faced with  the choice of  giving some sort of  acknowledgment to these  man-made deities or face ridicule,  scorn and persecution.  Whether it was the  public prayers  offered up at virtually every public event, or the  oaths to  gods   compelled  during  military service, or the paganism of your neighbors, a subtle oppression existed everywhere.  To abstain or speak up might cost you  your job, or your social standing.  To proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ  might mean the  severing of family ties or physical hardship.

  On  top of that, they endured  the occasional  period of state persecution in which various emperors would pledge to wipe them out. Emperor worship and overall state worship was very  much a  part of Roman life , and the early Christian  community made it clear that they would  pray for the king, but not to the king. Christians were  declared enemies of the state and their practices were said to be injurious to the homogeneity of Roman society. Christianity was proclaimed "strange and unlawful" in AD 35 by the Senate.  It was called "deadly" and "detestable"  by Tacitus, "wicked and unbridled" by Plinius, "new and harmful" by Svetonius ,  and "mysterious and opposed to light" by Octavius.  Diocletian even erected a column  proclaiming his  victory over the Christians in his realm. The properties of followers would be  seized, and their houses burned to the ground with full governmental approval. They were set on fire,  or fed to lions for public sport. To stand up for Jesus in  Rome  meant at least discomfort, and possibly martyrdom before a  cheering crowd of bloodthirsty pagans. The  gospel of Jesus Christ  thrived under these conditions, and  one of the greatest monuments to the persecuted church exists in  the form of a series of winding underground  caves, tunnels,  and rooms beneath the city.   These catacombs were referred to by Charles Maitland as “..a vast necropolis, rich in the bones of saints and martyrs; a stupendous  testimony to the truth of Christian history, and  consequently, of Christianity itself; a faithful record of the trials of the persecuted Church….”   Author Selina Bundy  referred to  the catacombs as the "infant church in it's underground cradle".  For  over 400 years, the  Christians of Rome, met, worshiped, and were buried out of  the sight of their oppressors in this underground city.

  There is some speculation as to how this  underground city even came to be. In early Rome, the bodies of prominent people were burned on elaborate funeral pyres, and one theory is that the early Christians began burying their  dead underground to separate themselves from this practice.

 Other researchers say that the tunnels weren’t dug by the Christians, just occupied by them after the rock and sand were removed to build  houses.   The  sandy volcanic  material  known as tufa was mined from the  Roman countryside and used in cement.  It has been suggested by some  chroniclers that  Roman soldiers who who were known converts to Christianity were made to labor in the excavation of this  building material.  This provided the empire with cheap labor and also  put the soldiers in the position of digging out the  future resting place of other Christians. Either way, the  tunnels and chambers and graves stretch out under the  ancient city in all directions for  roughly 15 miles.  Some join up to the family crypts of believers, and  some have entrances that existed under people's houses.  

 In some places, the  tunnels go down several levels, hand carved through rock , with the graves themselves being chiseled out of hard rock and then  sealed up with plaster.

   When one of their own was killed, the Christians would recover the body and take it beneath the city for burial. But it wasn't just a  graveyard, it was place to flee the  sporadic persecutions of the Roman government. Found inside the catacombs are chapels carved from the rock, altars,  benches, chairs and  fountains that supplied water to those hiding there. This was such a well-known fact that   several pagan Roman emperors ( Vallerian, Gallenius, Maximus) forbid entry into the underground city, and would arrest those found at the entrances.   Despite their best efforts though, the Roman state was never able to plug all the holes or block all the entrances, and the  underground community grew and grew, with a  population of approximately 40,000 dead, although an exact number is impossible  due to  vandalism and grave-robbing.

 

  The graves themselves offer remarkable insight in to  this community.  The mourners would  write epitaphs for their departed on the cave walls, or in the wet plaster, and we often see a very human side of these dear saints. We read of their families, of their faith, and of their murders.

translated 'The Tomb of Philemon'

 

 

Sometimes persecutions were so severe, and    internment so hasty, that what results is a sort of mass grave.

 

 

  Equally compelling is the artwork that adorns  the walls of the catacombs.  Hand-painted and personal, it not only gives us  a picture into the  heart of the church, but it also  documents a shift in the  mindset of believers from the period immediately after the Resurrection to the  slow rise of what would eventually become the Roman Catholic Church.  In these paintings you can see a slwo  drift away from  Biblical Christianity to paganism and then the very beginnings of Catholicism.The early artwork  highlights the biblical focus of the church, with  Old Testament Biblical scenes being represented, such as Noah's ark as well as New Testament themes such as the Good Shepherd.

Noah's Ark

Jonah and the Whale

The Three Hebrews from the Book of Daniel

The Good Shepherd

   Unfortunately as time went on , apostasy began to creep in, and the catacombs become adorned with  vague 'Christian' symbology. Decorating  graves with symbols as opposed to words was a well known pagan custom.

The 'Christian' fish

 

 

  

 By the time the  catacombs fell into disuse by the close of the  4th century,  the Catholic elevation of Mary had already begun, and her steady rise in the minds of  believers   shows itself in  the  catacomb paintings.  Admiration of martyrs in the  first century became, sadly, worship of martyrs  by the 4th century.

'Mary'

   Due to a multitude of factors, including the  fall of Rome and  it's invasion by foreign armies, the catacombs were  lost to history for almost a thousand years.  The faithful in Jesus slept  beneath the city while  on the surface upheavals and invasions were happening.  The catacombs were rediscovered in the 1500's and were  excavated  off and on for the  next  several hundred years.

 Unfortunately, at the time of their rediscovery the  Roman Catholic church was at a  peak of great power, and  claimed the catacombs for themselves. What remains today is still under Vatican control. They rewrote the history, claiming the catacombs as 'proof' that the Church of Rome was the   one great true church.  They used the catacombs to establish a legitimacy that they could trace back to the  time of Christ, although a careful student of history will note the difference between the church of the catacombs and the  Vatican  monstrosity.

  Vatican thugs plundered the  catacombs.Graves were opened, and  the bones removed to be treated as relics and worshiped. Artifacts were stolen, and sold to the highest bidder.   Complete fabrications  and histories were drummed up by  Vatican propagandists.  Parishes  paid large sums to  acquire a  finger bone or leg bone from the catacombs. They would then proceed to charge  money for pilgrims  to see it or  kiss it. 

a plundered tomb

  But it didn't stop there.  For the right price, you could do much better than  just a finger bone; you could get yourself a mummified believer or even a whole corpse, grotesquely arrayed for veneration and  trotted across the countryside.   Special indulgences and  privileges were extended to those who would show the remains 'proper respect'. They were set on thrones and  bedecked with jewels.  Parishes across Europe clamored to  either get their hands on such a relic or arrange for one to tour through their district.

 The movement of a dead saint from place to place would draw a crowd, and   drawing a crowd was good for business. Small parishes couldn't always afford the real relics and so a  huge  underground black market developed for forgeries. This led to further pillaging of the graves and grave robbing to feed the demand.  It wasn't that hard to  visit your local graveyard and claim the bones you dug up belonged to  John the Baptist or some other famous name in  Christianity.  This led to by some estimates, hundreds of parts of the same saint existing simultaneously all over Europe, a confusion that continues to this day.

  What also continues to this day is that  Rome  claims the exclusive right to interpret the history of the catacombs in Rome, and the handful of similar structures that have been discovered in other parts of Europe.  The entrances  to the catacombs are dominated by popish structures, and adorned with all manner of relics, such as  the rock at San Sebastiano which purports to contain the footprints of Jesus Christ. With their well-established morbidity, and flair for the  absurd,what should be a celebration of being steadfast and faithful unto death, has become a pageantry of death and   whitewashed history.
Most of this plundered grave material  lingers on in our  modern world in the Gallery of the Vatican.

 

 But before we  get too busy lamenting that this  crucial piece of church history has stayed for so long in  the hands of the  church's greatest enemy, consider the words of Selinda Bundy who wrote "In Rome, destined to act so great, so awful a part in that church's future history, a cradle for those whom the Lord out of the world was provided, even beneath the  ground over which their opponents trod in pride an power; and a receptacle afforded for the ashes of the martyrs who had been faithful unto death, and who, with others more peacefully fallen asleep in Jesus left their tombs as a testimony to ages and ages yet to come, of the truth of that religion for which they  suffered, bled and died"

 

 

The Submission Post

 I  was reading one of those  'anti' websites.  This  'anti' website was aimed towards my particular  flavor of Christianity.  There's a handful of  sites like this out there,  populated by  remarkably bitter people who  have, in a lot of cases, taken legitimate grievances and allowed those  grievances to poison their souls.  This  site had  various  doctrinal positions  categorized as 'deception' like 'The KJVO Deception' or 'The  Homeschooling Deception'.  The overall vibe of  the site is that people like me  are  stupid dupes at best and  oppressive control freak jerks at worst.  Frankly I've been called  worse by better people, so that doesn't bother me.

  What does bother me  is the  flagrant abuse of the meanings of words to promote an agenda.  You see this in the political realm where  words like  'tolerance'   are used to say 'I can talk, you must shut up'. This happens in the  bible realms too, where a word is redefined by usage to mean things that it doesn't really mean.These  folks at the anti-site have taken  enormous liberties with the  word 'submit'.  There are postings that talk about the horrible  egregious wrongs committed by oppressive control freak jerks from the pulpit in regards to  women.  They  attempt to make the case that these aforementioned jerks are wrong, and they make their case by changing the definition of the word 'submit'. They do this by appealing to  their dictionary, or to the 'original languages' or the marginal notes in their  NIV (as long as those notes agree with them). By the time these anti-folks are done, the word 'submit' means 'do whatever you want'.  It's quite a trick.

  But  what a word means in the Bible isn't defined by what the dictionary says it means; what a word means in the Bible is defined by how that word is used.  With that in mind,  before we  take a look at Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 (which are the passages whose application bothered them) I think it's fair to look at every other time  in the Bible that the word 'submit' is used in order to see what it means before we  try to figure out how to apply it.

  In Genesis 16,  Hagar the slave is skipping town to get away from Sarai how is ,at the very least, openly hostile towards her when  Hagar turns out to be  fertile where Sarai is barren. Is it   permissible to  be hostile towards your servant after she has a  child by your husband, especially after it was your idea? Probably not. Was Sarai in the wrong?  Probably so. However, in verse 9 Hagar is commanded to return to Sarai and submit herself under her hands.  I understand how  hard a thing that is to grasp in this modern age, but the fact is, in the very first appearance of the word, God tells a woman to return to her mistress even though her mistress is probably in the wrong! See how contrary that book runs to the desires of our flesh?

  What was Hagar supposed to  do when she got back?  What did God mean by 'submit'?  In 2 Samuel 22:45 the word is defined.  It says "Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear , they shall be obedient unto me."  To submit is to hear what somebody says, and do it.  Not only to obey, but to obey as soon as they hear it. Delayed obedience is  disobedience. This definition is  backed up in Psalm 18:44 where the Bible says "As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me." My opinion or your opinion on this is  amazingly unimportant. That's what the word means.  Hagar was supposed to go back to Sarai and do what  she said as soon as she said it, even if Sarai was wrong.

  You don't have to agree with the commandment to submit.  You can think the commander is wrong, and you may even be correct in that assessment. From Psalm 66:3, you can even  be at enmity with somebody and still submit unto them!  The definition is  very narrow and doesn't require your agreement ,only your obedience. If you're looking for an application according to Psalm 68:30, one of the ways you  submit yourself is to part with your money, and give it to the one to whom you are submitting.

  The Bible moves  smoothly from definition to application and  in the New Testament the Corinthian church is told in chapter 16 verse 16 that they are supposed to  find people who are labouring  in the ministry, and submit to them.  If the definition holds, these  labourers may occasionally be wrong.  Everybody is.  The God who commanded you to submit  acknowledges throughout the Bible that 'all flesh is as grass' and that 'there is none that doeth good, no  not one' and  that 'man at his best state is all together  vanity'.  That same God  tells you to find people who are  legitimately labouring in the ministry, and   do what they say, as soon as they say it!  The qualification given in  1 Cor 16 isn't that  you submit yourselves to  people you agree with all the time or who see things the way you do.  The qualification is that  you submit yourself unto people who addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.  If you have a person who has addicted himself to the  ministry of the padding of his own wallet, or addicted himself to the ministry of his own self-exaltation then congratulations, you're off the hook. But you are still obligated to find somebody that is labouring, and  help them.  The way you help them is  you  do what  they say  as soon as they say it!  The Bible really isn't that hard to understand.

  The person you are submitting  to doesn't have a blank check in regards to you.  The burden and accountability they have  before God  is  really quite frightening according to Hebrews 13:17 and until you've had people labouring with you and  submitting themselves unto you, you have no idea how much sleep  the position costs you.  In the military and in the ministry, I have had people looking to me to make a decision, and I've had to  proceed on, worried  both before and after whether or not  my  judgment calls were  the right ones.  I have had people  labouring with me and submitting themselves unto me that were  much more talented at what we were doing than  I was. In fact, that has been the case more often than not. The decision , and accountability, was still mine, not theirs.  All they had to do was do what I said, when I said it, and if it was wrong, God would judge me, not them. True biblical submission  protects the  submitter, and  brings the submittee under the  scrutiny of the judge of all the earth.

  James 4:7 says we are to  "Submit yourselves therefore to God."  If the definition holds we are do what God said as soon as he said it.  What did God say? Among other things he said that you are to "submit yourselves unto the elder" if you are the younger (1 Peter 5:5).  As my dad  has told me more than once "I didn't get this old by being stupid."  God also told us  to "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake..." and if there was ever a commandment of God that I have struggled with, it's that one.  If you don't believe me, ask my wife.  The truth is I want to do what I want to do and I think I know best for my life.  I may even be right, and the  local government wrong, but the Bible still says what the Bible says.  Speed limits may  really be about revenue generations more than public safety, but I still have to do what they say as soon as they say if I am submitting myself to God.  My spirit bucks so hard against that I don't even like typing about it. 

  Now, having  prepared the  ground, let's look  at  Ephesians 5:22 ("Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.") and Colossians 3:18 ("Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.")  If that word still means what it means  every other place in the Bible, my wife is supposed to do what I say when I say it.  She is supposed to  do that even if she thinks I am wrong.  She is supposed to do that even if I am wrong.  She is supposed to do  it even if she is smarter or more spiritual than me.  There are no qualification  given in either chapter other  than  it be to  "your own husbands".  If I am wrong, God will clean my clock, not hers.  She is protected from the judging eye of God by her obedience while I am left flapping in the breeze by my position.  Knowing that, and knowing that God has given her gifts to be able to minister  to me, unless I'm a complete chucklehead, I'll listen to her counsel. I will consider that we are heirs together of the grace of life.  I will think about her and the kids before I decide. I will seek safety in a multitude of counselors. I will scrutinize what the word of God says.  But, and here's the tough part, even if I do  NONE of those things, she is still required by the  scriptures to  do what I say when I say it.  If I say 'wear this' or 'read that' or 'turn off the Facebook and come to bed', she needs to do it. Even if she doesn't want to. God will bless her and judge me.

 In closing, let me say this; the women's liberation movement  produced an entire generation of disobedient women who, after having  stepped out from underneath the protections of submission, raised  a generation of silly women laden with diverse lusts.  They 'preached' freedom, but they produced miserable slaves.  Unfortunately, that's the way that sort of thing always  turns out.  And if some preacher somewhere was a control freak jerk and mis-used his scriptural authority, just stand by, God's been dealing with stuff like that for a long time, and knows exactly how to  trim his wick.  Don't get bitter, and don't get rebellious.

The Advantages of the Secret Church

  I feel I must start this  post with a disclaimer that everybody already knows; I overthink everything.  Now that we have that out of the way...
  It's that time of the year in the America South  where  local churches are having their vacation bible school programs.   You can see these signs on the side of the road advertising the 'theme' for this year, and since most VBS  programs are  a pre-packaged  curriculum purchased from some  church  curriculum publisher warehouse, complete with promotional posters and  handouts, it's not uncommon to see the same poster on the side of the road for different churches.  It's not even that rare for different denominations to have the same program going on, at the same time.  Secret agents are big this year, in case you were wondering.
  I'm not against VBS.  There is one put on by a local church that my kids attend every year even though we don't attend their church.  It's the closest thing to a date night that  my wife and I usually get.  I'm not against VBS workers who take   every night of their lives for a week or so  to spend time with  other people's children,  including mine.  They labour, unpaid, in an attempt to  reach the lost and encourage the saved.  I think it's probably better to have an activity like a VBS than it is to not have it.
 Having said that, I think the  church of Jesus Christ  loses something when it becomes mainstream.  It's hard to imagine the  early church putting signs on the side of the road advertising their  summer program.  It's equally  hard to imagine the  early church meeting in opulent buildings with padded pews.  It seems to me sometimes that  the norm of biblical Christianity should be  a certain amount of persecution, or at least disdain from the locals.  When you lose that, you lose something that is so nebulous that I don't even have a word for it.  It seems to me that 'real Christians' (like a missionary friend of mine in China right now) should be  existing just on the edge of being thrown in jail for their beliefs.  In those  scenarios, there are no lukewarm believers because their faith actually costs them something.
  I think that biblical Christianity can be  the victim of it's own success and when the believers are a substantial part of the population, there is no need to hide.  But with no need to hide, you lose an essential part of what it means to  be  a follower of Jesus Christ.  Within a generation or two, you have a  body of believers who, having grown up without persecution, don't see it as essential, and  therefore avoid it a at all costs.  A generation or two later, and you have a Joel Osteen rear his toothy head.
  But back to VBS.  It's equally difficult for me to  imagine the early church  catering specifically to the children in their midst with  pre-packaged  programs that  try to impart biblical truths by linking them to spacemen or secret agents or safaris.  Part of  me recoils a bit as if God somehow isn't interesting enough to stand on his own.  Do we lose something  when we try to make God relevant?
  I am  familiar and  sympathetic to the argument (advanced by my wife when I start overthinking it) that the goal of evangelism is to  'turn the world upside down' and  one of the  hallmarks of  having some success in that area is that the local community isn't always burning us at the stake.   Signs on the side of the road are progress. We've done the  job and  won  the  community so there is  no longer any need to meet in a cave or in a catacomb. But I am also painfully aware that the Bible says "all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" and I  just don't think I've done much suffering.
  I think , even as a street preacher who takes his fair share of  verbal abuse from the community, my persecution  level is so low that it doesn't even register. I sincerely believe that at that judgment seat of Christ, people like me will be told that we received our rewards down here, and therefore  don't receive so many up there. After all,  I will drop my children off  at a  comfortable, climate controlled building where modestly  dressed women and spirit-filled men will take time with them and teach them some bible truths.    If that's not the easy life, what is?

Why Nothing Has Changed for the GOP

  When I wrote the  book SWINDLED, I made the case that the GOP wasn't the party of freedom that it claimed to be , but rather a loose coalition of power brokers and money movers that, although ostensibly committed to slightly less government, where so terrified by the  candidacy of Ron Paul that they committed a whole slew of atrocities to  block his nomination. These  atrocities included voter fraud, financial shenanigans, and  the skirting of federal election laws.  Over and over again in primary after primary I showed that a handful of people flipped switches and pulled levers in an attempt to derail the  most serious liberty  element the Republican Party has seen in decades from  establishing any  real presence under the tent. One such individual is a man named Reince Priebus.
 Once upon a time, Priebus, but the general counsel for the national Republican Party, but Priebus's real skill seems to be  fund raising. In December of 2010, he stepped down as general counsel for the RNC so he could run for chariman.  In a letter to the delegates he said "I will keep expenses low. I will put in strong and serious controls. We will raise the necessary funds to make sure we are successful. We will work to regain the confidence of our donor base and I will personally call our major donors to ask them to rejoin our efforts at the RNC."  Having secured the job, Priebus was true to his goal, cutting the  party debt by almost half, raising over $50 million dollars. He brought some high level donors on board,  was praised by Ed Gillispie as being "on message" and having done "a great job at raising money, which is the principal  role of the RNC chairman."
  Deep pocket donors  give money to political campaigns for one of three  reasons.  One reason is  protection money, which is why  large corporations routinely finance both sides of the aisle.  No matter which  stooge wins, he's  less likely to bite the hand that has been feeding him. The other two reasons are closely related; access and influence. You pay a candidate so that when he wins, he will take your phone calls and then listen to you.  As  Louisiana governor Earl K. Long famously said " I don't buy senators, I rent them. It's cheaper." Very rarely are deep pocket donors  motivated by  principal or  genuine excitement  over a cause.  Men like Priebus understand this, and court these tendencies. The last thing  Priebus needs is an actual grassroots  movement that  is spontaneous, and can't be either controlled, steered, or tapped for large donations.  Enter the Ron Paul Revolution.


  As the  preparations began for the 2012 election,  Priebus is the individual who  pushed for Nevada to move their caucus date  from  January to February. Nevada has always been a  place sympathetic to the liberty message, and even with a large Nevada Mormon population that  would tend to tilt towards Romney, Ron Paul campaign organizers had reason to  expect great things.  But the GOP  machinery, headed by  Priebus engaged in all sorts of monkey business, including changing the times the polls were open and announcing a Romney victory when only 5% of the vote had been counted and several counties ( including Paul stronghold Clark County) still hadn't reported in. The state GOP chairperson  resigned in the middle of the night while the vote was still going on. The hour-by-hour account makes for compelling reading. Despite all this Paul wound up finishing  2nd behind Romney, and later  snagged the majority of delegates at the state convention, effectively winning the state.
  Oh, but dear friends, the last chapter had not been written yet, because Mr. Priebus ,being the money man that he is,  formed a thing called 'Team Nevada'. Priebus even  wrote their press release saying "
“Nevada is a critical state in the upcoming elections, and that is why the Republican Party is expanding our voter contact and volunteer programs across the state,” The purported purpose of Team Nevada was to expand  RNC outreach in the state.  The real reason  was to funnel money away from the Nevada Republican Party, with its Paulian sympathies, into the coffers of the Romney campaign.  Paul might have won the state, but the money  was going to Romney.
  Rolling into the Tampa convention, the national party was  struggling with impromptu and  possibly illegal rule changes that   finally managed to successfully block Paul's nomination.  One of the men most opposed to the  procedural  malfeasance going on was  Morton Blackwell. Blackwell was actually a Romney supporter, but felt that the rule changed behind closed doors the night before the convention at the behest of Romney s lawyer were  sinister and  'un-Republcian'. He was blocked, delayed, and stuck on a bus for 3 hours while John Sununu went  into hiding, lest anyone present him with a minority report challenging these new rules.  The end result was the nomination of Mitt "I am not a robot" Romney , who was  easily trounced by Barack Obama.
 
  The reason I  go briefly through all this history is this; 2016 will soon be here, and like the battering husband that swears he'll never hit you again, the GOP will  try to convince you they have changed.  They have not . In fact, they have changed so little that  Priebus and  Blackwell are facing off over yet another round of rule changes. Priebus has been making the talk-show rounds denouncing  convenient GOP boogey-man ( boogey-woman?) Hilary Clinton for everything  that could possibly be wrong with the world in an attempt to pre-empt her political ambitions.  This is  vastly more pragamtic than focusing on  the 'nar-a-dimes-worth-of-difference' between the two parties.  He is  flipping switches and pulling levers as  we speak, and those  GOP 2016 hopefuls  who want access to the war chest of funds have to court him, and have to say the right things. They will have to  either endorse the  warfare state or soften their opposition to it.  They will have to agree to long-standing  state pillaging programs like Social Security, and be willing to  blur the  numbers on issues like immigration.  The staus quo will not be challenged, only nibbled at the edges with  convoluted solutions that only merely shift inappropriate state power from  one pocket to another.  They will do all this while men like Priebus try to convince you that there is an Islamicist under every bush and only a robot with an 'R' after his name can  save you.  They will claim tea party roots while they pocket  vast rivers of money from  corporate donors who then will expect sympathy at best, and corporate welfare at worst.
  The same people are still in charge of the GOP machinery as were in charge of the machinery in 2012.  Don't be fooled.

Rick Warren is Exactly What's Wrong with Christianity

  By all means, watch this video so that you have some context for my comments.
  First of all, Rick Warren has been  apostate for years, so I'm hardly surprised.  But he was brought onto this show for the express purpose of discussing his 40 years of  marriage, and the 'secret' to t a good marriage. He certainly  deserves to be  congratulated, and  that accomplishment is worthy of note and celebration, but what happens next is horrific and has eternal consequences.
  Now I'm not stupid. I know  a guy only gets brought on a show like this because he is a known quantity. He wasn't going to say anything new or shocking. Rick Warren was vetted years ago, and they knew he would spew some  self-help-ish platitudes. They knew he would smile for the cameras. They knew he would be a nice guy, and he wouldn't beat them over the head with the Bible.
   I don't claim to be familiar with his show other than  being aware of its existence, but there are a couple of people  on the couch there that I recognize.  Whoopi Goldberg is there, and her hatred of God, and the Bible is pretty well established, despite having a preacher for a father.  In addition she has this warped view of Jesus that doesn't match the Bible.
  A bit further next to her is Barbara Walters who has, at least enough class and  poise to  not  say whatever pops into her head.  Mrs Walters has been at this game a long time, and though  she has a passing interest in eternal things,  doesn't believe the Bible at least when it comes to salvation.
  On the far end is Jenny McCarthy, who has made her initial mark in the world  by exposing her nakedness to men for money. She flouts her  early Catholicism, but claims weird things like salvation being found in her son, as opposed to the son of God.  It's interesting that at the 1 minute mark in this video she seems to imply that  Mr. Warren's faithfulness to his wife  for 40 years  is nearly impossible.  This is  probably  a window into her life more than his. Somehow, despite her pin-up girl roots, she has rebranded herself as  a nurturing supermom and an advocate  for autism cures.  Only in America can  you pull off a turn-around like that.
  So there you have it.  Rick Warren sits on the couch  with an assortment of Bible rejecting, man-hating harpies.  He has been  brought on the show for his opinion.  Behind him on the big screen are lots of pictures of Rick Warren with his  arms outspread and a glowing light behind him, as if he was the Messiah. He's even introduced as 'Pastor' and  Mrs. Walters  claims he is one of the most influential ministers in America. The stage has been set. He has been presented as an expert by the harpies.  Whatever he says next will carry a lot of weight with the audience. The hostesses, trained entertainers that they are at least pretend to hang on his every word.  Not only does he have a rapt audience  surrounding him, he has  a TV camera and an audience of millions.  Millions of people with a Godless eternity before them and the lake of fire awaiting them.  What does he say?
  Pretty much nothing.  He says  nothing you couldn't get from any number of unregenerate  self-help authors. He has a golden opportunity to stand up for Jesus Christ, and instead he says meaningless phrases like 'Love is a choice'. Actually, Mr. Warren, 'love' is a verb.  Sometimes a noun, but usually a verb.  He never one mentions the name of Jesus Christ and only mentions God once in passing as in 'we are committed to God', whatever that means.  Which God? The God of the Bible or the god of Jenny McCarthy?
  The audience and the  hostesses heard him speak for several minutes and not once did he offer them anything more than what they had  come with. They remained without hope, and without God while he pocketed the money and  gloried in the spotlight.
  How hard would it  have been to say something like " The beginning of the foundation of our marriage is a belief in the salvation available through the shed blood of Jesus Christ"  or "If it weren't for Jesus and how he saved me from hell, we wouldn't have a  good marriage." Or " Until I repented and believed the gospel, I had no idea what love even was."  I mean, I'm willing to give the guy  a bit of latitude here.  There are only a couple of reasons he  wouldn't have said  anything like that. One reason is that  he doesn't believe anything of the sort.  The  brainless  empty platitudes he regurgitated may in fact, be his opinion on the matter.  That's pretty scary in itself, but the alternative  may be worse.  He may know the truth and be afraid to say it. If you present the Bible to Jenny the harlot, and her conscience is pricked, you don't get invited back. Oprah won't promote your book if you don't toe the party line.  If that's the case, that he was silenced by either fear or self-love,the blood of millions is now on his hands.
  Mr. Warren is a best-selling author, and quite wealthy, and there is  no danger that the producers of 'The View' will be asking me to come on  anytime soon.  Nobody even knows who I am.  But I decided years ago that I would rather do the job the way God says do it and  by consequence labour in obscurity, than to sell and out and  be put in the spotlight. What Rick Warren has isn't even worth having. A Christianity where God exists  just to  give you a better life now or to   help you lose weight or to fix your crummy marriage isn't a  faith worth dying for, and that's why the Rick Warrens of the world have no martys.  When's the last time  you heard of somebody dying for their 'purpose driven life'?
  What's worse about it all is that because he has the spotlight, and the microphone, people like him   become the  definition of what Christianity is in the minds of the world.  Those of us that try to do right are accused of  being 'mean' and 'angry by comparison. Why can't you be  more like Rick or Joel?  The reason we can't be more like Rick or Joel is because we can't sell out God like they have.
The world promotes what the world approves of, and Mr. Warren..I'm sorry 'Pastor' Warren, isn't part of the solution; he's part of the problem.
  If you want a  gutless, spineless, gelding  Christianity,  you're welcome to it.  I'm going to keep the faith once delivered to the saints.

It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/whoopi_goldberg_2.html#mHHVlZVl8ub853FE.99

It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/whoopi_goldberg_2.html#mHHVlZVl8ub853FE.99

The Big 4-0

 Tomorrow I turn 40 and  between the congratulations that people have so kindly offered me sandwiched with  comments that either I am really getting old or that I am still a young man (I wish  my well-wishers would take a vote or something on this), people have   missed an essential truth; I  never  expected to live this long.  So as  inconvenient  as it is that I can't run as fast or jump as high as I once could , two factors accompany that; I never could  run that fast or jump that high to start with and statistically, I should  be in a  pine box somewhere not running or jumping at all.
  When I  got saved at the  age of 21, I  had already laid in store the seeds of a destructive life. I was in more trouble than anybody had any idea, including myself. I've never been one to do anything halfway, including sin and my excessive tendencies  were going  to kill me unless somebody intervened.  Somebody did, and I owe every  moment since that day to the Lamb of God who rescued me.  Not only did he rescue me from the eternal consequences of  myself, he  has been saving me from myself ever since. I still have very self-destructive qualities and  the convicting power of the Holy Spirit accompanied with the word of God have  conspired together to return to me the mind I threw away.  I owe him not only my continued eternal existence, but every individual day where I have been  clothed and in my right mind.
  It didn't stop there.  He gave me the John 10:10 life with a beautiful wife who has tolerated me for   13 years and counting, 4 kids who are wonderful despite being related to me, a ministry, and friends. Man, have I ever got some friends.  You see, to other people, that  angry violent,  lonely guy I once was is far away in the past but to me he's just on the other side of the mirror. I understand, more than anybody else at least some portion of what it cost Jesus Christ to get me this far. I have some  idea, at least a better idea than anyone else exactly how dark and hopeless the sewer was that I was rescued from. It gives you an appreciation for the light.
  I mentioned friends.  I have this one friend named Doug, and Doug is the quintessential church kid.  He's always been the good kid, and  got saved when he was 9 or 10, after having been in church since he was a fetus, or thereabouts. It's almost sickening, as I have no idea how he can stand me. He has  very little first hand information about how really bad and rotten the world is.  I was there the first time he kissed a girl, and it was such a special occasion we all dressed up for it.  The girl was wearing this white dress.  You should have been there. Anyway, Doug is a remarkably decent human being, and he married this  phenomenal young lady that we  probably couldn't love any more if we tried.  My wife wants our boys to grow up to be just like Doug.  I asked her why she didn't want them to grow up to be like me and she said "They're already like you.". I tried not to  read too much into that.
  Interestingly, Doug is a lot like my wife who is also an easygoing non-confrontational church kid and  a decent human being far beyond what she ought to be.  Doug's wife is intense, impulsive, confrontational, and a tad obsessive.  Do you see where I'm going here? Doug and I , in temperament and  life history are opposites. Doug and I both married  our opposites, which means we are both a  a lot like  each other's wives.  Try not to  let that get too weird, I'm going somewhere with this.
  Doug and I, despite the  differences were rescued from the very same thing.  He was rescued from  back alleys and bar fights and fornication and sin just like I was; he was simply rescued a lot earlier than I was before it had a chance to scar him.  It's common for old ruffians to be particularity grateful for God's grace in that he allows us to salvage so much of the life we were trying to destroy. But the Bible says "No temptation hath taken you but such as is common to man.." so I have to believe that a person recused 100 feet from the edge of the cliff is just as rescued as a guy dangling from the edge, and ought to be just as grateful.  I suppose the case could be made that they ought to be more  excited, and more grateful. They get all the benefits of being me now without any of the detraction of being me  back then.
 Anyway, let me go on record; it's been a good run, and if I never see 41, it's still been a good run, by God's grace.