WATER OF LIFE

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.)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am and is filed under Personality type, Christianity, Culture, Culture Types, Inequality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.