WATER OF LIFE

I was watching the Disney movie Santa Buddies with my children and in the movie SANTA SITS ON A GOLDEN THRONE AND LATER IN THE MOVIE A CHILD KNEELS AND PRAYS TO SANTA> Since when did Santa sit on a golden throne and children pray to him? My children are taught in school to use Common Era and Before Common Era instead A.D. and B.C. (Before Christ). Here in Hawaii there was a cross on U.S Army property and the atheists fought and won to have it removed. How is it that the enemy is advancing in American culture, schools, and government? I believe these are symptoms of an American idol worship of evolutionary science and psychology.

In 1975, Ken Ham was a science teacher and saw students lose interest and stop believing the Bible when evolution science started being taught as fact. “Do you know what these students are being taught in most of their classes? That they’re just animals that evolved ultimately from some primeval soup millions of years ago. They are being indoctrinated to believe that evolution is scientific fact. Growing up in a world full of wonderful technology, they have a great respect for real science. They don’t realize that evolution is not observable, repeatable science.

So to them, the Bible is just an outdated religious book. After all, they are taught how the solar system formed by itself from a dust cloud over millions of years, that the earth is billions of years old, and the fossil record is the history of the evolution of life. They are shown pictures of ape-men, considered to be their ancestors. In history, they hear of “primitive man” going through a stone age in this onward, upward evolutionary process.” (Evangelism for the new millennium, Ken Ham)

I believe God put all those genealogies in the Bible so that there would be a record to trace us all back to Adam. This link is important thus I believe the genealogies to be accurate and totaling 6000 years since the birth of Adam. I can take this all on faith but I think it’s important that we also have creation science to hold up against the evolution science theories. We have to believe that Genesis is fact and evolution science is not. “The first book of the Bible relates to us the account of the biological, geological, astronomical, and anthropological history of the universe—and this history is confirmed by observational science in genetics, biology, geology, and astronomy. Because this history as revealed in the Bible is true, then the message of the Christian gospel (concerning salvation from our sin of rebellion in the first man Adam) is true” (Slain from the foundation of the world, Ken Ham)

I’m not a man of science but it’s easy even for the layman to see the effects in our society, our schools, and in state and federal government. Pastor Dr. Rick Bartosik worked as a prison chaplain in the 1970s and tells how the prison was transformed and the inmates put up a cross in the frontyard. He said they started a successful sex offender rehab program based on six Christian books but then in the 1980s the state psychologists moved into the prison system. I work for the Army and recently I watched a training video where the military chaplain referred soldiers considering suicide to a psychologist.

MY POINT IS THAT THE DECEPTION OF EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE HAS ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCEPTANCE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN PLACE OF THE CLERGY> Americans have turned away from God to the false idols of ’science’ and we can see it happening in the schools in the 1970s and the government in the 1980s and even the churches today. One Christian friend is doing a marriage study in his prayer group and he pointed out how psychological terms were used instead of Biblical ones. So why does it matter? Because psychology is the road to strengthening self whereas Christianity is the road to dying to self. There is just as much a problem with mixing psychological theories with Christianity as there is mixing evolutionary theories. We can all the see the outcomes of evolutionary science and psychology on our culture, our children’s education, and our government.

Just before I opened my heart to the Lord I was trying to write a book on inequality. For many years I HAD DEVELOPED MY OWN PHILOSOPHY THAT MY WIFE EVENTUALLY COINED AS Brentopia. My philosophy had some anti-capitalist, social justice, and socialist similarities but my main thrust was to value other personality types and cultures. I WAS PASSIONATE THAT WE SHOULD VALUE OTHER CULTURE TYPES INSTEAD OF FORCING THEM TO CONFORM TO A WESTERN CULTURAL BEHAVIORS, VALUES, AND CAPITALIST SYSTEMS. My belief was that if we valued all personality types (through equal opportunities, rewards, etc.) and cultures (by preserving the richness of their culture through protection from capitalist exploitation) that the result would not only be a better world but an incredible synergy. Many of my blog entries before July of 2007 (when I rededicated my life to Christ) reflect my self-made philosophy. Here are a couple examples:
Type, culture and inequality.
Inequality Matters.

NOT ONLY HAD I CREATED MY OWN GRAND PHILOSOPHY BUT I had also self-defined my relationship with God. I prayed to God but didn’t believe in the church (and organized religion) and I thought that possibly we were all praying to the same god (hindus, muslims, buddhists, etc.), and that god was just differently expressed in other cultures and parts of the world. (By the way, I’m not into self-flagellation. Part of being transformed into the image of Christ is surrendering those parts of ourselves that He shows us we no longer need and I want share with others what I’m learning along the way.)

My equality concept was really the deception of self-sufficiency. It’s idea that man can create a better society without God or his help. Basically the Tower of BABEL ALL OVER AGAIN. The Book of Revelations also tells of a future time where man will once again attempt this. The European Union is an example of this. It seems great, politically and economically, but is it any coincidence that Europeans are falling away from Christianity, so much so, that now missionaries are being sent to Europe—and ironically some of them are coming from countries that Europeans had sent missionaries to years ago. God stopped the Tower of Babel by making all the people speak different languages. It’s interesting to note that cross-cultural communication (also part of the social sciences) is an effort to bridge the very differences that God had put in place to keep man from finishing the Tower of Babel.

Even if Babylon reaches the sky and fortifies her lofty stronghold, I will send destroyers against her,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 51:53

In some ways Japan is also like that ideal society. It’s extremely safe and the policemen don’t wear guns. The gap between the rich and the poor is much smaller than the US. Unemployment for many years has been low. Neil Verwey, a missionary in Japan for 50 years, said that ever since consumerism took hold of the culture the numbers turning to Christ decreased. There are less than two percent Christians in Japan. Pastor Paul Suzuki, of Life Chapel (in Japan), said it’s hard to keep your faith in Japan—and that’s not surprising seeing how the Japanese have built for themselves a safe, somewhat egalitarian, comfortable, consumer-satisfying society. But I’ve also seen with my own eyes that in this country there is river of sexual immorality that runs deep and that many families are hollow structures.

The ultimate outcome of the seeds of self-sufficiency is a turning away from God (Europe) or not turning to God (Japan). God’s ultimate plan (according the Bible and the Book of Revelations) isn’t to save the earth or even to perfect human society. GOD’S PURPOSE IS THAT WE ARE TO BE IN A DEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP WITH Him. ANYTHING CONTRARY TO THIS IS THE DECEPTIVE WORKS OF THE ENEMY AND THE ANTI-CHRIST (Revelations).

(Side-note: I’m not yelling with my capitalized text. That’s just the way it comes out of my text editor when I download it to my computer and I believe there is something providential about that.)

Before I came back to Christ I felt Christians didn’t seem any more spiritually enlightened than buddhists, hindus, etc. On a scale of who was more friendly I felt Asians in general were more friendly or accepting than even the American Christians I knew.

Church is not a house of saints but more a hospital for the sick. Accepting the Holy Spirit into our spirit means a rebirth of our whole self (heart, mind, body, soul). The fruit of the Holy Spirit isn’t spiritual enlightenment. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22,23). This is the sign of a victorious and mature Christian. Dr. Charles Solomon estimates that only five percent of Christians are living this victorious life so that means the rest are culture Christians. I don’t know if that estimate is true or not.

Back to the point on being accepting. God is inclusive of everyone with no exceptions. The Bible, especially Jesus, teaches how we are to love others. We don’t have to agree with or condemn one another. For example, according to God’s Word homosexuality is a sin. We all struggle with different kinds of sin. The point is that we love the person and hate the sin. C.S. Lewis said this is easy to do because we do it with ourselves everyday. It’s not for me to convince you that something is a sin that’s the work of the Holy Spirit and reading His Word. The Holy Spirit may even speak to you through my words. When God’s truth is spoken (and in a loving way) our spirit senses it. Christians are to be the salt of the world and salt makes people thirsty for the Lord.

One reviewer of my book said I raised more questions than I answered. I suppose there is some truth to that even in this blog entry. One Christian told me when he first came to Christ he saw everything black and white and rejected anything worldly. He gave the example of being offended by a pastor listening to secular music but that now, years later, he doesn’t see that as a problem. On the other hand, it may be that as we mature as Christians we leave behind (for good) things of the world including man’s wisdom and deceptions. Its only been two years since I rededicated my life to Christ and my blog has been an attempt to show people how God is moving in my life and how He is transforming me week by week into His character and image. So what is God showing me? Im not sure. Am I just going to a necessary extreme and as I mature in Christ? Will I come into a greater balance with worldly things such as personality type? Or is it that God’s plan requires me to surrender that, but that maybe his plan for others doesn’t necessarily require that. 

I’m on my second reading of the Bible, and as I go deeper into His Word, He shows even more through the Holy Spirit and I begin wonder why personality type is needed at all. My stand a year ago was that God can use anything, including type, to glorify Himself and work in our lives. And I still believe that. I came to Christ through a mix of psychology and Christianity but maybe I’m finding out that as I mature I NATURALLY SHED THE WORLDLY PARTS AND JUST FOCUS ON His Word and the Holy Spirit’s guidance, counseling, and teaching. Since His wisdom is limitless at what point would I need to turn back to man’s wisdom? Life is so short, especially now that I am forty, so why would I WANT TO SPEND MY TIME ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN EXPLORING AND GROWING THROUGH His unlimited wisdom and teaching? So why study anything at all? No, I’m just talking about psychology, which cross-cultural communication also falls under because its a categorization of behaviors. I still have a strong longing to explore the richness of other cultures but somehow applying categories and Jungian theory doesn’t seem right anymore. I sense a great deception in psychology and its derivatives. 

Recently, my boss sent me to a training and it turned out to be for the mini-DISC (another personality type system popular for leadership training). Even yesterday I was in a meeting with my bosses and everybody was sharing their DISC type. Coincidentally, after that type training class, I negatively stereotyped someone at work based on what I thought was their type and it created a huge conflict. Not everyone is as stupid as me but it makes me wonder what sort of spirit (of God or of the enemy) personality type introduces. I used to think it was a spirit of appreciation (of differences) but now I think its more of one that clouds our eyes under the guise of opening them—and that is exactly how the enemy works!  I may have abused or misused personality type but am I IN THE MINORITY OR THE MAJORITY? If the majority, then thats a confirmation that its a tool of deception used by the enemy. And its not because of a lack of training or understanding. I took the MBTI qualified practitioner course and passed the test with a score in the upper ninety percent. And I’ve read a stack of books and academic research on personality type.