God On The Shelf...

Question: "Do you think most people wonder away from thier faith in their 20's?"
- The Hipster
Another One From Relevant Magazine.com

Matt loved Jesus, you were supposed to believe. And you would have. The very moment you first see Matt, all round, wide eyes that are set deep just above an adorable smile, Matt convinces. But he was full of it. “I thought that by satisfying my flesh, I could escape from my head.” He devoured a steady diet of girls and booze. In an odd inconsistency, Matt hid his secret life, though he hoped it would free him. “I know that I believed in the Lord and loved Him, but ... I guess the easiest thing to say is that I didn’t understand grace.” In sin he tried to banish the God he couldn’t connect with, and separate from the unsustaining spirituality he had known as a child.

Here, insert the standard sinful sequence: bad choices, problems with alcohol, smatterings of drugs for fun and drugs for downtimes, when no sense of peace could be found. Then came Rick Warren. Yeah, that Rick Warren.

Matt took himself to Saddleback Church. “Do I remember what they were talking about at the time? Nope.”His spiritual development had entered a progressive phase. He says he doesn’t remember what was preached when he returned to church, but Matt remembers knowing he needed to return again. The next week he gave himself to God, claiming a spirituality born of his own intention. Of the conversion, or reconversion, you could call it, I ask Matt if he feels he was a Christian prior to the night he drove home, knowing God changed him forever. When he answers, Matt says perhaps he was. And then he adds, in simple truth, “But I may not have chosen Him until [that] time.”

It was theologian Paul Tillich who asked whether or not Christians could identify the values that had centering power in their lives. Can you? On that day, Matt did.

The Barna Group, the go-to Christian research organization, confirmed in a 2006 study what most of us already know—a lot of Christians experience spiritual drift during their 20s. We put God on the shelf. “The levels of disengagement among twentysomethings suggest that youth ministry fails,” vice president David Kinnaman says.

Bible-study Wednesday gets replaced by poker or Pilates. WOW 2002 gets replaced
by Arcade Fire.

But here’s the catch: Barna statistics suggest religious habits get the boot, not religion itself. Many of us are finding that we want God. The debate is whether or not it’s normal, and a necessary part of psychological development, to shelve God and go do something else in order to know, when we get back to God, that we want that relationship for life.

It's All In Our Head
A pioneer of human development, psychologist Erik Erikson assigned a number to the act of putting God on the shelf. It’s No. 5 in the stages we have to go through in order to mature. You and I know stage five by its other name, though: adolescence. The central conflict during adolescence is identity. We’re confused.

Pastor Phil Wyman directs The Gathering, a Salem, Mass., church operating in the heart of a town made famous for witchcraft. He compliments the Neo-pagan community in Salem for the focus they place on every person as a creative individual. “I know many Christians who have not left the faith, but left their former church experience in search of something deeper,” he says. “They were in search of deeper relationships, deeper service to the community and the world, or a deeper sense of wonder.”

Read more by going here: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god_article.php?id=7552

How do we know that the Bible is the written word of God?

Another SwordandSpirit.com posting.

How can we tell whether God or mere men were responsible for the Bible or for any other book of "holy writ?”

There are many ways to examine this good and honest question. But let’s look at it from a way not used too often: let’s examine the perspective. Men will write from their own limited point of view. It is reasonable to expect that God, on the other hand, would communicate to us from a perspective that goes beyond our limited frame of reference.

Man's finite universe is limited to the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. No wonder, then, that a man-invented religion will confine God and God's interaction with man to these four dimensions. But, since God the Creator must live beyond these four He created, a message truly from Him will reveal His perspective from extra dimensions.

In this respect, among many others, the Bible is unique. It alone contains descriptions of an entirely self-consistent, yet extra-dimensional reality; such as the beginning of space and time, God's operations before time began, and God as one, two, and three persons simultaneously. The Bible alone teaches such doctrines as the simultaneity of free choice and predetermination. For these and many other reasons, it is sensible to conclude that the Bible alone is the written word of God to man.

The Holy Trinity? How Does That Work?

Another post, taken from that wonderful Christian study site; SwordandSpirit.com.

The Trinity just does not seem to make sense. How can one person be two persons and three persons all at the same time?

In the universe we live in it just can't happen. In the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time, the Trinity is not just unreasonable, it's illogical. And if all there was was the universe we live in, the idea of the Trinity would have to be rejected. However…

The universe had a beginning, thus a Beginner. This Beginner, having created all 4 dimensions of space and time, must be above and beyond them. In fact, astronomers' best theories reveal the necessity of at least ten dimensions of reality for the Creator. In this multi-dimensional reality, three persons can be one God.

By the way, the Bible is the only Holy Book which speaks of extra dimensions of space and time and a God Who works in them and through them. The other books lock God into the 4 dimensions we live in, implying they were written by man alone, sans divine inspiration.

Can God's Existence Be Absolutely Proven?

I took this from SwordandSpirit.com, a great Chrisitanity study site. Use this information whenever you find yourself in one of those "conversations" or maybe just for your own personal review.

What I want is absolute proof for the existence of God. Why can't any Christian give that to me?

Absolute proof requires complete knowledge of something. Philosophers would say, for example, that since we cannot know everything about the chairs we sit on, there remains a basis for doubt - however slight - about their actuality. So, sorry! We humans, confined as we are to the 4 dimensions of time and space, cannot possess absolute proof of anything. There's always that inherent limitation.

However! There is ample practical proof of the existence of chairs. That is, there is so much evidence to support the belief that they are there, that, by faith in those evidences, we sit. So what we are more realistically seeking in life's great mysteries is practical proof, not the forever-elusive absolute proof.

As to the existence of God. evidence from 1) discoveries about the origin and design of the universe, 2) the origin of life itself, and 3) the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, all show us that for these to have happened by accident or "coincidence" are much less than 1050. (1050 is one followed by fifty zeroes, odds a lot worse than your local lottery and a long-shot by anyone's standards!) I bring those odds up because they are considered "miraculous" even among scientists.

Though not absolute proof, this is more than enough practical proof that the universe, life, and the words of the Bible have not come together on their own but by the intervention of God.

Does A Presidential Candidates Stance on Abortion Really Matter?

Recently i started a debate between some of my friends. The subject; "Does it really matter if a presidential candidates stance on abortion and same sex marriage differs from yours?"
Tons of comments were made, ranging all across the spectrum. Because of such, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to challenge you to look beyond the surface in your thinking. Remember Winnie the Pooh; "Think, think, think". (Am i the only one that remembers Winnie the Pooh?)

1) Yes, as a Christian i do not agree with abortion or homosexuality. I believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a true evil that needs to be rooted out of our society. I also believe that it is an unfortunate thing that we have to have a discussion around same sex marriage, I don't agree with it. With saying that, I am full of compassion and love for anyone who has dealt with either of these issues. Is dealing with them or feel differently than me. I feel for you and I ain't judging. I love you and we can still get a cup of Teavana together.

2) Church folks...however, if you are going to vote strictly on these two moral issues remember that Ungodliness encompasses more than just abortion and homosexuality. Isn't it just as evil to allow human genocide in a place such as Darfur, or to trade weapons with a country or group that you know will use it against innocent people? How about the damage we are doing to the environment? Do you honestly think either candidate is pro killing babies and homosexuality? (usually they understand that those are choices that people make and its really a question of constitutional rights; can people can exercise those choices not a question of morality).

3) Do you know how our government works? The president cant just go in and pronounce abortion against the law and same sex marriages illegal. The president is part of the "executive" branch of government. He cannot change laws or originate them. His job is to execute what is passed by congress and the senate (legislative branches) and uphold what the supreme court (judicial branch) says is right or wrong.

4) Hasn't every Republican president in the last 30 years gotten into office waving these morality issues? Has anything changed. In fact didn't Bush get into office almost solely on Evangelical Christians voting on moral issues...what has happened as a result? Give me one piece of legislation that has overturned abortion or abolished same sex marriages.

5) Isn't it funny that many people wave these "polarizing" issues whenever they seem to be loosing ground in other areas that the president actually can effect, like the economy or our position on the world stage?

6) Can you really legislate morality? Remember your history...prohibition. They made drinking illegal and we say where that got us. Organized crime shot through the roof and people just simply drank in private instead of publicly.

I just say all this to make you think...i haven't exactly figured where i stand on these issues...however I know its deeper than what you see on the surface....I just want you to think!

I am in no way saying that i am a Democrat or Republican in this post...so please don't take this as such a declaration...

- The Hipster