Cultural christianity

It started with a drink and then a few more. Then I smoked my first joint. I felt so guilty. But a month later I’m in the thick of it. I got sucked into this thing. I didn’t even realize it. I justified it, made myself believe that I was okay. But I wasn’t. I went from smoking weed to LSD and cocaine. It happened so fast. It’s like my compass just disappeared and I entered this whole other world. And when I finally realized how lost I was, it was too late. I couldn’t stop. “But even in the middle of all that, I still believed in God. It was weird. I would go to these parties, totally high, and end up talking about Jesus to my friends. I knew I didn’t belong there. I just couldn’t get out of the mess that I was in.

MICHAEL W SMITH

Michael W Smith sharing his testimony in the uplifting book I am Second : Real Stories, Changing Lives. It is quite sobering that the more we know God the more hypocritical sometimes our lives become. The problem is that once we know God, our faith in Christ can become our culture. We become not so much active followers of Christ, but merely existing within the ecosystem.

This means that even when we are living in sin, we can still just carry on worship and serving God on Sunday as per normal. And that is really not a good place to be, but sadly it is where many of us are. The good news is that nothing is impossible with God. If we surrender to Him he can break us free from it. Jesus is a saviour who specialises in hopeless causes!

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I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years. After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother. The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woman (Hilary

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What is the best preparation for preaching?

The best preparation is not to be too anxious about it. Anxious care hinders liveliness and efficacy. It leads to too little dependence on the Spirit. Be not didactic. Aim at the conscience as soldiers aim at the faces. Consider I may be preaching my last sermon. This leads to setting forth Christ as The Way, the Truth and the Life . .. Make Christ the prominent figure…Pay less attention to dear self. JOHN NEWTON

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White Fragility, A Review

Robin DiAngelo has a sermon to preach. It is in form of a short popular book called White Fragilit y. Straight off the bat she tells us not to expect balanced analysis but a forceful argument “unapologetically rooted in identity politics”. She understands identity politics as “the [political] focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality”. The group she wants to save is black people, whom she blankets under “people of colour”. So what is White Fragility about? DiAngelo is sick and tired of white racism in the western world, and specifically the USA. She believes every white person, including babies, are guilty of racism by virtue of being white. So she wants to use her “insider status” as a white American woman to challenge this white racism by getting her fellow “white progressives” to force forward her thesis. In her words, “I am white...and I am mainly writing to a white audience”. I was immediately tempted to put down the book because being black Afri

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