The Freedom To Believe

My first diaper was changed on a church pew. I was raised my entire life in church. From as long as I can remember I have heard pastors, ministers, and speakers talk of how we will eventually lose more and more freedoms in our house of worship. How that as the time draws closer to the end it will become necessary for our freedoms to be tighten and controlled by the ever so scary plot of the anti-christ to do his work before the return of Christ.

As I have grown older, I have watched to see if this freedom has been infringed upon. I must say that I have not witnessed the attack on our places of worship as I was warned about, ...yet. The America I have always known, just wouldn't stand for it. However, I have noticed a change in the opinions and mind-sets of the American public. It seems that if you should choose not to allow certain "life style" into your membership or church functions most of the American public would cry out on the horrible bigotry that they have just witnessed. We as a nation need to grow up and realize that we cannot expect to be included in every group or allow any group or "worldly" pressures to influence the beliefs or the practices that we or others have.

I am absolutely sickened by religious groups that preach hate and intolerance. I have witnessed true bigotry in church when someone was treated horribly by the congregation or listened as the preacher told us how that homosexuals, blacks, and hispanics were the cancer on our nation (I actually heard this). This makes me sick. Love, acceptance, and charity should be our cry, not hate. I feel if Christ would come to earth as he did the first time, he would attack our religious organizations exactly as he did with the church of his day. Not because we should change our core beliefs, but because many beliefs can be inspired by hate. Hate has no place in the christian life but many use their beliefs as a cover for hate. However, we cannot allow beliefs, exactly like these, to be silenced because we are not adult enough to understand the intent of our nations forefathers.

Freedom to believe is a precious freedom and needs to be allowed by everyone, even the ignorant.

Speaking Truth To Power

It is difficult for many of us to visualize a timeline of the world's empires, especially since most of us generally view the world from a Biblical perspective. The ancient world consisted of long lasting empires that did not know about one another. While Asia flourished, Egypt and South America also had flourishing civilizations. One of the longest surviving empires of the world was the Mayans and they have been largely ignored in global views until they ran out of room on their calendar and now they have received to much attention.

But even if you look simply on the history of empires, from Egypt to Assyria, Babylon to Rome, Arab and British ... you come down to the Soviet Union and the United States. What we learn from this is the inevitable reality that empires rise and fall. It seems the cycle of rising and falling gets shorter as time continues it's march forward.

The United States, early in the 20th century, began to pursue it's imperialistic pursuits as Colonialism was dying. However, technological, economic, and military colonialism started taking its place. America was the leader in the early development of things that has forever changed society like films, flight, computer technology, and transportation but we grew and advanced so quickly that our TV and movie industry dominated the world and pushed our culture, fashions, and values onto the rest of the planet earth. Pilots all over the world want to fly and talk to the control tower but you have to speak English..... it's our toys, so it's our rules.

Cultural empires expressed themselves, in the west, in Greek, to Arabic, to Latin and now into English and for those of us born in the second half of the last century, it is difficult to see that we are the king of the hill for this moment in time. The world's technology, culture, military and economy will not always be ruled by our influence.

The Soviet Union was the rival of our lifetime. Then eventually the Soviet Union under the sheer weight of the arms race could no longer finance it's approach and fell for good. Now we to are expanding our military presence across the world but especially in the Pacific around China as if we could launch enough ships to contain them. As China's economy is growing, we are expanding our military spending in exactly the same way the Soviet Union did and we will likely hand world domination to China because of the lack of foresight on our part to stop following in the footsteps of those that have gone down the same path.

Take Afghanistan, long known as the death of empires. We watched as the Soviet Union deplete their capital resources in a useless war there and now we have been there from 2001 to the present trying our best to commit the same economic and political suicide ourselves. We also maintain more than 700 military bases in 130 nations, many of which are related to WWII issues ... a war that ended 70 years ago.  Without any thought about the fall of Russia, we now are hearing the drum beats for a war in Iran.

Both parties, in the American political debate, have had recent presidential candidates that tried to bring to the forefront the self destruction this military empire we have built will bring upon us, Paul and Ryan, two different men from opposite ends of our political system but they have both been painted as being lunatics. Every politician deserves to be seen a bubble off of plumb but these two have been sent to the far reaches of political consideration because, as Ron Paul said, "Telling the truth is treason in the empire of lies."

Before you think that I am supporting Paul too much, let me quickly say that he paraphrased that quote in his book from George Orwell who said that, "In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

I don't mention the inevitability of the demise of the American empire to be upsetting nor to suggest that we should take steps to remain at the top of the mountain. I'm just making a observation about power just as a spiritual person and a simple citizen.

As a spiritual person I refer to an Old Testament lesson which comes from the 17th chapter of Ezekiel where the prophet is declaring that the day would come when God would raise up the kingdom of Judah to rule the world. He uses the image of Israel as a mighty cedar tree growing tall and all of the birds of the air, representing the nations of the world, come to build nests in its branches. This Zionist vision is repeated here and there through the Bible and is sometimes so subtle that even modern Americans seem to be persuaded that God wants to put this particular government and this particular piece of real estate in a prominent position. I to believe in God's chosen people, but not to the point of lunacy.

The lesson here demonstrates that Jesus was not taken in by Ezekiel's excesses of nationalistic enthusiasm. In Mark chapter 4, Jesus likens the Kingdom of God, not to a giant cedar tree but to a tiny mustard plant. He mocks Ezekiel saying that birds build their nest in the mustard plant but not any bird that is not intent upon almost immediate extinction because the mustard weed only grows to be about a foot to a foot and a half tall.... It can be crushed by stepping on it and it dies in the first frost. To rub it in just a bit further, the mustard weed was not kosher and was used only to feed cattle and sheep. Jesus chose the weakest, most disgusting and unlikely plant to represent the Kingdom of God and he did that just as Roman armies were carrying their fierce symbols of military might all over the western world.

If we are to "speak the truth to power" we must first accept that speaking is the only power we have but I am always suspicious of power because every empire eventually becomes one built upon lies.

Take for example that we not only invaded Iraq under false pretenses, once our first set of lies were discovered, then the defense for occupation was that Saddam was a horribly corrupt dictator that violently put down protest and tortured prisoners. But wait a minute, don't we torture prisoners and violently put down opposition? How about the amount of corruption within the pentagon and the hundreds of millions of missing dollars?  This forces one to wonder, in a contest between our Government in Iraq and Saddam's management ... which one was the most deadly and oppressive and corrupt?

Honestly, I have no idea what the answer is to that question would be. However, I know for certain you will not hear this question asked by the media channels that are owned by the same corporations that profit from the war nor in any denominational church because speaking the truth in the empire of lies is considered to be treason.

When Jesus points to the vulnerable, non-kosher mustard plant as the symbol for the kingdom where we want to hold our citizenship it is an anti-empire symbol. A citizenship not attached to any earthly Government.

I am an American and I want my country to be the one that delivers emergency relief aid. I want them to provide medical treatment to the millions throughout the world without such capabilities.  I even want my nation to be the one that helps to stop genocide, remove murderous dictators, and to promote human rights around this global community of ours. But I know that power always corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we start believing things like, "Water boarding isn't torture because Americans do it and America doesn't torture..... so water boarding can't be torture." Round and round we go with the justifications.

So if speaking the truth is treason in the empire of lies, I just want to make sure that I am guilty of treason. Or if you prefer George Orwell's wording so that speaking the truth in an age of deceit is a revolutionary act, fine. But no matter how you slice it, we should never be afraid to speak the truth to the empire because without us, they are sure to prefer their lies.





Israel Exalted at Last
Ezekiel 17:22-24

"Thus says the Lord God: “I will take also one of the highest branches of the high cedar and set it out. I will crop off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and will plant it on a high and prominent mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it; and it will bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a majestic cedar. Under it will dwell birds of every sort; in the shadow of its branches they will dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, have brought down the high tree and exalted the low tree, dried up the green tree and made the dry tree flourish; I, the Lord, have spoken and have done it. "

Parable of the Mustard Seed Matt. 13:31–35

"Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.”And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples."

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