A Few Quick Items...
Saw this on a bumper-sticker this morning while making deliveries...
Hatred Is A Learned Behavior
File that one under "Wishful Thinking" because it's utterly false. The truth is we are all born with the seed of hatred in our hearts, and we don't have to be taught how to make it grow, or bear fruit...
Now it's true that concepts like "Nigger" "Cracker" and "Hymie" do in fact have to be learned, but even without those labels there would be whites who hated blacks, blacks who hated whites, and a fair mixture of both who hated Jews.
Moving on....
There's an interesting debate going on at WorldNetDaily; Rick Warren and the Emergent Church being the subject. Here's a few choice quotes:
"If other Churches that abide in the Warren philosophy, such as Chicago's gargantuan "Willow Creek," were to truly uphold Christian values among their enormous congregations, they would certainly be a constant "thorn in the side" of their surrounding populace, acculturated into the modernism as those communities certainly are. Yet an amazing degree of compatibility and congeniality exists between the Warren Church model and the social structures of Chicago and Southern California."
---
"True servants of G*d do not concede to evil in order to add to the kingdom of G*d.
---
"...though it's unfortunate and saddening to watch these ravening wolves rend the flock it is simultaneously heartening to see in the midst of this present darkness that there are still those willing to speak out against the spiritual adultery committed by these men and their kind. There remains a remnant of true believers within the Body who are empowered by the Holy Spirit with discernment and love of the true Gospel message of Christ crucified; the one and only Truth. These few stand as sentries in the darkness shining forth their candles of truth and light; the teachings of infallible scripture. While others question the validity and relevance of the Bible these few hold fast to their first love, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh."
Sticking strictly to the words of our Lord, Jesus said,
The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
--Matthew 10:24-25
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
John 15:18-21
Something is not right with these big mega-churches... Seriously. Question is, can it be fixed or should it be scrapped, as in shunned altogether by the Bride of Christ? In any case, genuine believers should be making an attempt to spread the genuine Gospel within the ranks of these dead churches.
Moving on...
If Saddam is truly executed within the next 48 hours, it will only serve to prove the old adage... 'Famous people die in threes'
James Brown
President Ford
Saddam Hussein
Lastly...
I regularly visit a few Jabberwocky Pulpits on the web. I don't comment near as often as I'd like-- Prudence and Temperance, twin sisters of different mothers, stay my hand. One commenter at one such place has this phrase on his profile page...
"The peaches, apples, plums and pears
are guarded by ferocious bears."
...A level of cuteness that oddly compliments kool-aid stained lips. Odder still is that's all there is... On the entire net! One line of verse.
What wasted potential! Ahhh, but that's the story of the whole of humanity, neh?
from the mind of... Eric | 12:07 AM
6 Comments:
Hidy.
Hatred *is* learned. You're confusing hatred with sin. Sin, among other things, is failure to be the creation God intended us to be. To insist that we all are born with hatred in our hearts is to set up hatred as the norm, and to excuse those who exhibit it. Malarkey.
Don't confuse megachurches with "the emergent church," which are two different phenomena. Of course, I don't know what they think they're debating over at WND 'cause I try not to sully my eyes.
I think you concern yourself too much with how other Christians live out their own "working out" of salvation, and their own roles as ambassadors for Christ in the world, when you should be more concerned with those who are definitely lost. :-)
Happy New Year's Eve Eve Eve!
"Hatred *is* learned"
THAT, my friend, IS malarky!
Have a happy new year!
Oh, come on.
The survival instinct is in every human heart, a response to the fact that we will all die. It can, but does not always, manifest itself as hatred.
I utterly deny that "hatred" is in every heart. You're mixing up words! Again ... :-)
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"
--Jeremiah 17:9
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."
--Romans 7:18
I'd like to believe that few men truly wish to hate, but the seed of hatred lies in every human heart. Jesus said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God..." It's not that men are incapable of performing good toward his fellow man, we are quite capable! Jesus said, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" It's not that we can't do good, but the distinction lies in His use of the word 'evil'... i.e.; unregenerated; the natural state of man from birth, through Adam.
The unregenerated heart is at enmity toward God... it hates God... until the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts, but that doesn't strip away or diminish the old man. We are still sinful creatures after we are born again. The only thing that distinguishes a Christian from every other man is the blood of Christ applied to his debt of sin... His gift of un-merited favor... Grace.
But we are BORN with hate in our heart. We LEARN to label the things we hate.
Still mixing and matching words. Evil, sure -- although I dismiss "total depravity" as Calvinistic rhetorical extremism. Sin, sure, for all have sinned.
But hatred? No. Babies do not hate, dude. They learn it. Hatred is learned.
I LEARNED to hate blacks growing up where and when I did. I LEARNED to hate gays for the same reasons. And I LEARNED to love by finally laying my LEARNED hatred at the foot of the Cross -- and LEARNING the habit of taking it back to the Cross when I reflexively tried to pick it up again.
Learning is another way of saying "working out" -- as in one's salvation, and one's role as an ambassador for Christ. Some people "work out" their prejudices.
As for the Scriptures, I'd have to read the context of Jeremiah's remark to get a better handle on who he was talking to, and in what context.
As for Paul's -- he elsewhere wallows around in his own sense of sin and worthlessness; he claimed to be THE chief of sinners, didn't he? Taking what he says about himself and automatically applying it to every human being on the planet is wrong. He, too, was writing to certain people, in certain circumstances, for certain purposes.
(Mama ER is just barely out of the woods, although still a long ways from home -- which is why I can afford the mental energy to rassle with ya, bro, as I sit here and enjoy her company.) :-)
I'm with ER. Hatred is learned. But it is an easy learn for us when confronted with our fears.
If we're never around a group of people, then suddenly being present of a group that is different than us, it is easy to fear their different behavior. And hatred is just a step or two away from fear.
Seems to me.
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