break from the "Guide"

This is not my work and by no means am I trying to steal or claim it is an original work of my own but what I want to show is more evidence as to why everyone should pay attention to what this man of "Change" is saying and doing.

June 15, 2009
Our Historically Challenged President
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services

In his speech last week in Cairo, President Obama proclaimed he was a "student of history." But despite Barack Obama's image as an Ivy-League-educated intellectual, he lacks historical competency, both in areas of facts and interpretation.

This first became apparent during the presidential campaign. Candidate Obama proclaimed then that during World War II his great-uncle had helped liberate Auschwitz, and that his grandfather knew fellow American troops that had entered Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Both are impossible. The Americans didn't free either Nazi death camp. (Regarding Obama's great uncle's war experience, the Obama team later said he'd meant the camp at Buchenwald.)

Much of what Obama said to thousands of Germans during his Victory Column speech in Berlin last summer was also ahistorical. He began, "I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city." He apparently forgot that for the prior eight years, the official faces of American foreign policy in Germany were Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — both African-Americans.

In the same speech, Obama seemed to suggest that the world had come together to save Berlin during the Airlift. In fact, it was almost an entirely American and British effort — written off by most observers as hopeless and joined only by a handful of Western allies when the improbable lift looked like it might succeed.

In the recent Cairo speech, Obama's historical allusions were even more suspect. Almost every one of his references was either misleading or incomplete. He suggested that today's Middle East tension was fed by the legacy of European colonialism and the Cold War that had reduced nations to proxies.

But the great colonizers of the Middle East were the Ottoman Muslims, who for centuries ruled with an iron fist. The 20th-century movements of Baathism, Pan-Arabism and Nasserism — largely homegrown totalitarian ideologies — did far more damage over the last half-century to the Middle East than the legacy of European colonialism.

Obama also claimed that "Islam . . . carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment." While medieval Islamic culture was impressive and ensured the survival of a few classical texts — often through the agency of Arabic-speaking Christians — it had little to do with the European rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin values. Europeans, Chinese and Hindus, not Muslims, invented most of the breakthroughs Obama credited to Islamic innovation.

Much of the Renaissance, in fact, was more predicated on the centuries-long flight of Greek-speaking Byzantine scholars from Constantinople to Western Europe to escape the aggression of Islamic Turks. Many romantic thinkers of the Enlightenment sought to extend freedom to oppressed subjects of Muslim fundamentalist rule in eastern and southern Europe.

Obama also insisted that "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition." Yet the Spanish Inquisition began in 1478; by then Cordoba had long been re-conquered by Spanish Christians, and was governed as a staunchly Christian city.

In reference to Iraq, President Obama promised that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other." Is he unaware of how the United States imposed democracies after World War II?

After the defeat of German Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese militarism, Americans — by force — insisted that these nations adopt democratic governments, for their own sakes and the world's. Indeed, it is hard to think of too many democratic governments that did not emerge from violence — including our own.

Obama also stated: "For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights."

With all due respect to our president, this assertion is again not fully accurate. The only thing that ended slavery in the United States was the Civil War, which saw some 600,000 Americans — the vast majority of them white — lost in a violent struggle to ensure that nearly half the country would not remain a slave-owning society. Also, the massive urban riots of the 1960s and 1970s were certainly violent.

This list of distortions could be easily expanded. President Obama, in elegant fashion, may casually invoke the means of politically correct history for the higher ends of contemporary reconciliation. But it is a bad habit. Eloquence and good intentions exempt no one from the truth of the past — President Obama included.

©2009 Tribune Media Services

An Idiot's Guide to Theology: God's Wrath

The wrath of God according to this idiot is actually just the brokenness of this world displayed in the darkness that covers it. In the Gospel of John the theme of the light referring to Jesus and the darkness the brokenness of the world are reoccurring and are kind of the direction of these thoughts. Let me explain; if someone is in the world they are in the darkness, then Jesus came down and he is the Light the darkness flees from him. But soon the Jesus had to leave this world to prepare the coming kingdom but he did leave us with the light. But this world is still broken so darkness still dwells in it, but since darkness can not remain in the light it is not as broken within us, but if someone is to reject the light within them they remain in darkness, so if someone chooses darkness they choose brokenness and since God can not abide in brokenness his peace and comfort are not there. So it is reasonable to say God's wrath is really just the brokenness of the world tearing itself apart and is not really apart of God at all. So the darkness is displayed in the broken, sinful world we live.
If we look to scripture especially in the Old Testament we see time and time again the people God had chosen turning away from him, their stronghold, their fortress, their light in this broken world, they turn to darkness a place where God can not abide and they are pummeled into a pulp until someone wh9o had remain in the light carries them home again. many times the Bible talks about God as a jealous God wanting only to have his children turn back to him, because he could not go where they wanted to go.
finally if one is to look to our history, not one hundred years ago one of the worlds most devastating atrocities in all of recorded history the Holocaust took place many people ask "where was God during that..?" My response is: He wasn't, he cold not abide in the darkness of war and genocide, but still there were some who relied completely on Him who despite the fact they would die for it they held on. Others thank God for survival others curse him for both. Even today atrocities around the world are happening but it is not God's fault for them happening but the brokenness of this world
God's wrath is not something he does but something out of his control it is displayed in the broken darkness of this world and God can not aide in such darkness.

Break from Idiot's Guide...

so i grew up with a single mom and i wasn't very good at sports but this kid needs real friends not just his mom poor kid...

An Idoiot's Guide to Theology: Disclaimer

Disclaimer: These are just my ramblings and ideas that roll around in the ole' noggin and don't necessarily reflect that of the entire Christian Community in fact I bet most Christians will disagree with me and probably condemn me for the posts...but that is why I have called this series of posts An Idiot's Guide cause I am an idiot and well I can admit when i don't fully know something but i try and so if I were the reader I would keep that in mind and I would keep it open as well. Yeah that is about it for the disclaimer. - Spencer (the Idiot)

An Idiots Guide to Theology: What is the Church?

What I believe the church is, is a body of believers striving to find definition and hoping on the ideas of a radical leader and social outcast. The church is an extension of the life and the ideas set forth by this radical teacher, who then died for his cause. The church is a place where that life is shared in the minds and hearts of people who believe this radicals teaching. The church is not a place or a location but a living being. It is a being with emotion, full of life, and vitality. We can see this for in the fact that it is timeless. From the churches humble beginnings in houses to the massive churches and then back to the houses, in all shapes and forms the church is ever-moving and ever changing, and if it were to stop true church would stop. The church that was set up was to be this way. It is a persons desire to be in communion with this radical teacher, not so much on a specific doctrine that he was teaching but more of the general ideals that he set forth. I believe often times it is the doctrine arguments that are really just specific traditions to specific institutions and places of worship. With the arguments about tradition our worship and gathering and sharing in the good community set up by this radical become very convoluted and are not necessarily unheard but are not as strong as when a church body is in good communion with one another. On Early Church writer said that the church is the pure bride of Christ, although it is a beautiful thought, when that belief goes to far it will slow the progress of the church and will make it an uninviting institution. An opposite opinion was that it was a place of bridge building between the followers and the people outside the teachings, again a wonderful thought if let to go too far the church could be infected by ideals that are not in synch with the teachings of the radical leader. Like I said before the church is a living entity that does not waver with time but rather flows with the waves of time.

An Idiots Guide to Theology: Whats the Point?

I believe the purpose of this life is to live simply in love. I am not fully sure how to explain simple love but I will try; in scripture while in conversation with some scholars Jesus gets posed with the question of what the greatest commandment is, Jesus’ response was “Love God, and equally important is Love Your Neighbor. These two commandments have so much deep meaning and many a sermon have been preached on each. However, I believe these to be the simplest commands in the Bible. God wants us to love, simply love. We use this word so loosely in the English language but in other languages, there are multiple different ways to say Love. What I believe the love Jesus and the writers were referring to were the simple love of a child, a child’s love is so simple but is more genuine than any other love to be found on this Earth. We can all recognize this love, it is unconditional and unmeasured, the love for the parent by the child is unmatched by any love, the only thing that could challenge it is the love of a parent for the child but that love has been corrupted by time and age. This love is genuine, it is pure, and most of all it is simple. Our lives are to be simple, and through the simplicity of life we gain the complex understanding of the grand spectrum of life. The narrative explains that God is love. In addition, if we are to participate in loving someone, or God himself we are participating in continuity with God. With the act of Christ’s glorification on the cross Jesus participated in the deepest act of love in laying down his life of us. So if we participate in the death of Christ we participate in his love.

An Idiot's Guide to Theology: Where does Knowledge Come From?

What is the basis of our knowledge?

I think it is unfair to base all of our knowledge on one single catalyst. I believe it is based on three things. God's revelation to man through his son Jesus or through the Bible, we should also base it on Reason, reason through wisdom or shared experience, and finally upon tradition, by tradition i mean cultural tradition.
The first of these I said was God's revelation, I believe that revelation is a very important aspect of having knowledge. I believe God expresses the things God thinks are most important, he used his son Jesus as an ambassador to earth on his behalf, to show us how to live the gospel, whether or not his son's life and death on the cross did something for us spiritually is a different question, but what his life did show us was how to live a fruitful life. His life expressed in what we call the Bible and although there are is an argument as to whether or not certain other gospels should be added, Jesus' life still shows us how to live. Another avenue one can go in with revelation is when God reveals something to someone outside of the Bible, an experience in which an answer or new idea is given to a person by the will of God. This is interesting because I believe this happens at many turning points in Church History from the Early Fathers to the Papal decrees to Luther and his ideas of Justification by faith to the Stone-Campbell movement where restoration and unity were main themes. In one way or another these ideas were revealed to them through scripture. These ideas don't break open cannon of anything but they do ask question and pose answers that are interpretations of what they have studied for a lifetime.
The second of the standards is Reason. I say it is just as important because I believe this kind of keeps revelation in check.If something someone says is a revelation a rationalist will pick apart the revelationalists argument and if it can withstand that both revelation and reason are used to enhance thought.When I thing of Reason I can not help but think to King Solomon. When God asked him waht he wanted most he requested wisdom, the ability to reason through an issue and give the best answer. he did not ask for divine revelation he already had from his historical tradtion, but he asked to be able to discern truth. But reason can go to far as well and pride and reason do not mix, it leads to a very mechanical way of life.
And so, with the other two comes cultural tradition. This would be looking back into history and picking apart what other people have said and questioning it and looking to what others have said about what we have pulled apart. We have to remember what we are not the first to ask these questions, this keeps us humbled in out journey for knowledge.
I believe in a checks and balance system for the standard in which I seek knowledge because I do not think one way can get all of the information we need to begin to answer theological questions. I think that is where many young, new and old theologians get stuck by having one standard of knowledge instead of trusting others.
That my take on things. I do not claim t know anything really in fact would say I dont know much at all. But I do my best to understand.