Wow. Intriguing.

What do you think?

Because Some Misunderstand

It shouldn't need to be said, but I guess it does. Christianity has members all over the world. It is not a kingdom made up of one people group, one color, or one nation. There are brothers in Christ all over the world. I have Christian brothers who are Chinese, Indian, American Indian (Natives), African, African American, Jordanian, Arab, etc. They come from all the nations. I have brothers and sisters that I know personally from Nigeria, Camaroon, Philippines, Indonesia, Russia, Romania, France, England, Scotland, Australia, China, Korea, Cambodia, Japan, and on and on.

When I write against Islam, it is not bigoted against any race or nation or people. To be a Christian is, and always has been to be "against" the world --contra mundum, as the ancient Christians said, "Against the World."

We believe that Jesus is the only way. We believe that all belief structures have some truth in them, but ultimately are undone if they don't have the truth of Jesus as the Lord of all at the center. I want to be clear, we know this is offensive. But we don't hate anyone. At least we're not supposed to. I know I don't. When I speak ill of Islam, I am speaking of a false belief system. I am not speaking of hating people. I don't want to hurt Muslims. I want to save them. I want to separate them from their false faith and introduce them to Christ.

I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY THIS EITHER, BUT CLEARLY I NEED TO: I don't want to do this by force. If someone tells me they don't agree with me and are offended that I desire that they believe in Jesus, I will not hate them, nor kill them, nor pass laws to force them to change. They are free to do as they please. I will still love them as best I can.


I ALSO SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY THIS, BUT I GUESS I NEED TO: geo political comments are about strategies of governments. Such opinions belong to us all. But to prefer one government over another (as I do, and most people do) doesn't mean that I hate the people of any other government or culture.

We serve a Lord who said that people from every "Tribe, tongue, and nation will worship Him." I believe that. I have seen a good bit of that in my life.

Peace.

Mitt Romney is not a Christian

I don't know how you plan on voting this coming year. That's up to you. But for reasons that are not political, I think I need to point out the obvious: Mitt Romney is not a Christian (He is also not a baseball mitt, but that's another subject).

Mormonism and Christianity are becoming confused in our popular media. Glenn Beck, the popular talk show host is a Mormon. He is not a Christian. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, not a Christian.

Where is the confusion coming in? It comes in here: Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney use the word "Christian" to describe themselves. Now, we can wrangle over the the meaning of the word, I suppose, but it is better to be historical. Historically, Christianity believes certain things about Jesus that Mormons don't believe. Likewise, past ages, who were more familiar with Christianity in general, did not classify Mormonism as Christian.

Mormonism was invented in the 1800's in America by a man named Joseph Smith. He invented scriptures which are filled with plagiarisms from the Bible, and fantastical histories of the North American continent and it's ancient peoples.

Mormonism differs from Christianity in many ways. For example, the definition of God: in Christianity, there is one God, and that God is three persons --Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To the Mormons, there are gods beyond number. All current gods were once men. Men today have the potential to achieve god-status in the world to come. This alone makes Mormonism unlike anything having to do with Christianity in any known historical form.

The other differences are many, but we don't really need to discuss them. If you have God wrong, you have everything wrong.

Mormonism is a strange American folk religion, no more. It is not Christianity.