Thursday, May 29, 2008

missionary in africa

In 1985 Clarence Duncan arrived in Africa as missionary to the solidly Muslim people called the Yao who live mainly in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi. When he settled in his village, he called for a meeting with the elders. After the pleasantries the chief asked him his name. Clarence replied, "Mr. Clarence."
The council looked at each other for a moment and then the chief asked, "Why are you here?"
Again Clarence simply said, "I want to tell your people about Isa Al Mahsi (Jesus the Messiah)."
A couple months later, when the chief decided he could trust Clarence, he said, "Do you know why we allowed you to stay?"
Clarence said, "I never thought about it."
"Twenty-one years ago a very old Yao man came to our village and called for a meeting as you did. When we asked him his name, this Yao man said, 'Mr. Clarence'—which isn't an African name at all! When we asked him why he came, he said, 'I want to tell your people about Isa Al Mahsi.' These were your very words. Twenty-one years ago Mr. Clarence led four of our villagers to follow Jesus. So we ran them out of the village. And we killed Mr. Clarence. The reason we allowed you to stay was we were afraid."
That was 1985. Two years ago on a January morning 24 Muslim elders approached Clarence Duncan's house. After a meal the leader sat in the middle of the room and said that they had come to ask questions about Christianity. Clarence said fine but that he would only answer them by reading from the Bible so they would know he did not invent the answers. So he gave each of them a Bible in the trade language. The first question was, "Why do you Christians say that there are three gods?"
Clarence said the answer was found in Deuteronomy 6:4 and gave them the page: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one!" And he mentioned that Isa (Jesus) said this very thing in Mark 12:29.
The questioning went on till five in the afternoon. When all had left, the leader, Sheik Abu Bakr, stayed and asked if he could see Clarence in a week.
When they met Abu asked if Clarence knew why they came to see him last week. Clarence said he assumed it was to ask questions. But Abu said, "No, it was because the Christian church is growing so fast we knew we had to kill you. We had consulted for three days and prepared our magic. You were to be struck dumb when we asked questions, then fall on the ground paralyzed and then die. But when you kept talking, and even stood up and moved around, we knew you had a stronger Spirit and gave up."
Then Abu said, "I want to become a Christian." And he told an amazing story.
"When I was a teenager, in our village we were not Muslim people and we were not Christian. We were Achewa people with our own religion. Behind our village was a hill where I would often go to pray.
"One day I was on that hill praying. Suddenly all around me was a blinding light. Out of this light I saw a big hand coming toward me holding an open book. I looked at the book and saw writing on the page. A Voice told me to read. I protested that I could not read, never having been to school. The Voice again told me to read. So I did. And suddenly the book and the hand disappeared.
"I ran back to my village and all the people were looking for me, thinking I had died on that hill! They asked about a fire they had seen up there. When I told them the story, they laughed at me saying, You can't read!
"Someone got a book and I began to read! Then people came from all around to find out more about what happened and asked questions. The Muslim authorities found out about me and I was trained in the ways of Islam. Soon all or our village became Muslim. For 15 years I was the greatest debater against the Christians."
He paused and then said, "You remember when I asked you the first question about why Christians believe in three gods? Your answer was Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4."
"That's right," Clarence said.
Sheik Abu Bakr looked Clarence Duncan in the eye and said, "That was the same passage that this Voice on the mountain showed me. At that moment I knew that the God you were talking about was the True God!"
"Then why did you keep asking me all those questions the whole day?"
"Because," he smiled, "I wanted all these Muslim leaders to know what the Christians believe and I wanted them to hear it from you. The whole day I pretended unbelief so that I could ask more questions. Now I want to become a Christian."

Monday, May 26, 2008

"There is nothing that makes us love a person so much as praying for him." - William Law
I picked up my phone only to hear a defeated voice on the other line. It was my dear friend Lyndsey. " Caroline- I just dont know what to do anymore- she just steals and does drugs and now she is in jail for meth." At this point I really didnt have any words of wisdom for my friend- I had never been in her situation..."just keep on loving her and pray" were the only words it seemed i could come up with. "Well I am going to go pick her up in a few days so hopefully she will have time to reflect on her life."
As I hung up the phone I thought about Lyndsey's own story. Although she had never made any trips to jail, she had had her fun with drugs before. But then everything changed.
I remember the first time she described to me the moment in which she was saved. "I prayed and was overcome with this amazing feeling- my eyes were opened up and I saw everything in a completely new light" and it was in that moment she found freedom.

About a week later Lyndsey called me again. "caroline I picked up my friend and you will never guess what happened..." She continued to explain to me that something profound had happened to her while she was in jail. It was if she had come alive and in a way i guess she had. After years and years of trying to get her friend to read her bible for some reason a passion inside her was
ignited and she couldnt keep her hands off the pages of this book she had before perceived to be so boring. As Lyndsey's friend handed her back her bible Lyndsey noticed little notes her friend had taken on verses she had read. Lyndsey was flabbergasted. What had happened to her?

As Lyndsey was leaving with her friend she informed her that while she was in jail one of their close friends had died. Her friend turned to her and replied "but he didnt know...he didnt know! Her friend motioned to her bible..".no one told him!" Lyndsey he needed it!
What had gotten into her? God. It was if she had been intoxicated with him and couldnt rest until everyone around her knew. A few days ago she was a cold hard girl who lived only for meth- but now she had been so transformed by God's love that the thought of not getting to share it with her friend was devastating. But how God had saved her.She had been in her own hell and had experienced sweet salvation from that which had- oh so enslaved her.
Salvation is amazing.
How mind boggling. To be completely transformed and yet to still be the same you. How I wish everyone would desire it. God how I pray that everyone searching for truth would find You- that their eyes would be opened.
"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." romans 10:9-11

Saturday, May 24, 2008

atheists and their fathers

Atheists and Their Fathers


Written by Kerby Anderson
Introduction
How does one become an atheist? Does a person's relationship with his earthly father affect his relationship with his heavenly Father? These are some of the questions we will explore in this article as we talk about the book Faith of the Fatherless by Paul Vitz.
Vitz is a psychologist who was an atheist himself until his late thirties. He began to wonder if psychology played a role in one's belief about God. After all, secular psychologists have been saying that a belief in God is really nothing more than infantile wish fulfillment. Dr. Vitz wondered if the shoe was on the other foot. Could it be that atheists are engaged in unconscious wish fulfillment?
After studying the lives of more than a dozen of the world's most influential atheists, Dr. Vitz discovered that they all had one thing in common: defective relationships with their fathers. The relationship was defective because the father was either dead, abusive, weak, or had abandoned the children. When he studied the lives of influential theists during those same historical time periods, he found they enjoyed a strong, loving relationship with a father (or a father substitute if the father was dead).
For example, Friedrich Nietzche lost his father (who was a pastor) before his fifth birthday. One biographer wrote that Nietzche was "passionately attached to his father, and the shock of losing him was profound." Dr. Vitz writes that Nietzche had a "strong, intellectually macho reaction against a dead, very Christian father." Friedrich Nietzche is best known as the philosopher who said, "God is dead." It certainly seems possible that his rejection of God and Christianity was a "rejection of the weakness of his father."
Contrast Nietzche with the life of Blaise Pascal. This famous mathematician and religious writer lived at a time in Paris when there was considerable skepticism about religion. He nevertheless wrote Les pensées (Thoughts), a powerful and imaginative defense of Christianity, which also attacked skepticism. Pascal's father, Etienne, was a wealthy judge and also an able mathematician. He was known as a good man with religious convictions. Pascal's mother died when he was three, so his father gave up his law practice and home-schooled Blaise and his sisters.
Here we are going to look at the correlation between our relationship with our earthly father and our heavenly Father. No matter what our family background, we are still responsible for the choices we make. Growing up in an unloving home does not excuse us from rejecting God, but it does explain why some people reject God. There may be a psychological component to their commitment to atheism.
Nietzche and Freud
Friedrich Nietzche is a philosopher who has influenced everyone from Adolph Hitler to the Columbine killers. His father was a Lutheran pastor who died of a brain disease before Nietzche's fifth birthday. He often spoke positively of his father and said his death was a great loss, which he never forgot. One biographer wrote that Nietzche was "passionately attached to his father, and the shock of losing him was profound."
It seems he associated the general weakness and sickness of his father with his father's Christianity. Nietzche's major criticism of Christianity was that it suffers from an absence, even a rejection, of "life force." The God Nietzche chose was Dionysius, a strong pagan expression of life force. It certainly seems possible that his rejection of God and Christianity was a "rejection of the weakness of his father."
Nietzche's own philosophy placed an emphasis on the "superman" along with a denigration of women. Yet his own search for masculinity was undermined by the domination of his childhood by his mother and female relatives in a Christian household. Dr. Vitz says, "It is not surprising, then, that for Nietzche Christian morality was something for women." He concludes that Nietzche had a "strong, intellectually macho reaction against a dead, very Christian father who was loved and admired but perceived as sickly and weak."
Sigmund Freud despised his Jewish father, who was a weak man unable to support his family. Freud later wrote in two letters that his father was a sexual pervert, and that the children suffered as a result. Dr. Vitz believes that Freud's Oedipus Complex (which placed hatred of the father at the center of his psychology) was an expression of "his strong unconscious hostility to and rejection of his own father." His father was involved in a form of reformed Judaism but was also a weak, passive man with sexual perversions. Freud's rejection of God and Judaism seems connected to his rejection of his father.
Both Nietzche and Freud demonstrate the relationship between our attitudes toward our earthly father and our heavenly Father. In both cases, there seems to be a psychological component to their commitment to atheism.
Russell and Hume
Bertrand Russell was one of the most famous atheists of the last century. Both of Russell's parents lived on the margin of radical politics. His father died when Bertrand Russell was four years old, and his mother died two years earlier. He was subsequently cared for by his rigidly puritanical grandmother, who was known as "Deadly Nightshade." She was by birth a Scottish Presbyterian, and by temperament a puritan.
Russell's daughter Katherine noted that his grandmother's joyless faith was "the only form of Christianity my father knew well." This ascetic faith taught that "the life of this world was no more than a gloomy testing ground for future bliss." She concluded, "My father threw this morbid belief out the window."
Dr. Vitz points out that Russell's only other parent figures were a string of nannies to whom he often grew quite attached. When one of the nannies left, the eleven-year-old Bertrand was "inconsolable." He soon discovered that the way out of his sadness was to retreat into the world of books.
After his early years of lost loves and later years of solitary living at home with tutors, Russell described himself in this way: "My most profound feelings have remained always solitary and have found in human things no companionship . . . . The sea, the stars, the night wind in waste places, mean more to me than even the human beings I love best, and I am conscious that human affection is to me at bottom an attempt to escape from the vain search for God."
Another famous atheist was David Hume. He was born into a prominent and affluent family. He seems to have been on good terms with his mother as well as his brother and sister. He was raised as a Scottish Presbyterian but gave up his faith and devoted most of his writing to the topic of religion.
Like the other atheists we have discussed, David Hume fits the pattern. His father died when he was two years old. Biographies of his life mention no relatives or family friends who could serve as father-figures. And David Hume is known as a man who had no religious beliefs and spent his life raising skeptical arguments against religion in any form.
Both Russell and Hume demonstrate the relationship between our attitudes toward our earthly father and our heavenly Father. In each case, there is a psychological component to their commitment to atheism.
Sartre, Voltaire, and Feuerbach
Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most famous atheists of the last century. His father died when he was fifteen months old. He and his mother lived with his maternal grandparents as his mother cultivated a very intimate relationship with him. She concentrated her emotional energy on her son until she remarried when Sartre was twelve. This idyllic and Oedipal involvement came to an end, and Sartre strongly rejected his stepfather.
In those formative years, Sartre's real father died, his grandfather was cool and distant, and his stepfather took his beloved mother away from him. The adolescent Sartre concluded to himself, "You know what? God doesn't exist." Commentators note that Sartre obsessed with fatherhood all his life and never got over his fatherlessness. Dr. Vitz concludes that "his father's absence was such a painful reality that Jean-Paul spent a lifetime trying to deny the loss and build a philosophy in which the absence of a father and of God is the very starting place for the good or authentic life."
Another philosopher during the French Enlightenment disliked his father so much that he changed his name from Arouet to Voltaire. The two fought constantly. At one point Voltaire's father was so angry with his son for his interest in the world of letters rather than taking up a career in law that he "authorized having his son sent to prison or into exile in the West Indies." Voltaire was not a true atheist, but rather a deist who believed in an impersonal God. He was a strident critic of religion, especially Christianity with its understanding of a personal God.
Ludwig Feuerbach was a prominent German atheist who was born into a distinguished and gifted German family. His father was a prominent jurist who was difficult and undiplomatic with colleagues and family. The dramatic event in young Ludwig's life must have been his father's affair with the wife of one his father's friends. They lived together openly in another town, and she bore him a son. The affair began when Feuerbach was nine and lasted for nine years. His father publicly rejected his family, and years later Feuerbach rejected Christianity. One famous critic of religion said that Feuerbach was so hostile to Christianity that he would have been called the Antichrist if the world had ended then.
Each of these men once again illustrates the relationship between atheism and their fathers.
Burke and Wilberforce
British statesman Edmund Burke is considered by many as the founder of modern conservative political thought. He was partly raised by his grandfather and three affectionate uncles. He later wrote of his Uncle Garret, that he was "one of the very best men, I believe that ever lived, of the clearest integrity, the most genuine principles of religion and virtue."
His writings are in direct opposition to the radical principles of the French Revolution. One of his major criticisms of the French Revolution was its hostility to religion: "We are not converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helevetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers." For Burke, God and religion were important pillars of a just and civil society.
William Wilberforce was an English statesman and abolitionist. His father died when he was nine years old, and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle. He was extremely close to his uncle and to John Newton who was a frequent visitor to their home. Newton was a former slave trader who converted to Christ and wrote the famous hymn "Amazing Grace." Wilberforce first heard of the evils of slavery from Newton's stories and sermons, "even reverencing him as a parent when [he] was a child." Wilberforce was an evangelical Christian who went on to serve in parliament and was instrumental in abolishing the British slave trade.
As mentioned earlier, Blaise Pascal was a famous mathematician and religious writer. Pascal's father was a wealthy judge and also an able mathematician, known as a good man with religious convictions. Pascal's mother died when he was three, so his father gave up his law practice and home-schooled Blaise and his sisters. Pascal went on to powerfully present a Christian perspective at a time when there was considerable skepticism about religion in France.
I believe Paul Vitz provides an important look at atheists and theists in his book Faith of the Fatherless. The prominent atheists of the last few centuries all had defective relationships with their fathers while the theists enjoyed a strong, loving relationship with a father or a father substitute. This might be something to compassionately consider the next time you witness to an atheist.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

complete satisfaction

This is a note I wrote for my friend Cory after I admitted to him that women are in fact inherently evil ...( yeah right..) This is dedicated to all those poor male souls that have been torn to pieces by women. (rolling eyes..)
complete satisfaction
Spiders have always provoked curiosity and fear for many. They are proudly displayed on Halloween and have a tendency to foreshadow the climax of horror films. They live in dark places and are known for their messy webs, big round eyes, and long legs. From their spinners they secrete a sticky substance called silk from which they create their webs. Their alluring webs attract the spider's prey quickly. After the spiders have trapped their prey they proceed to clasp their victims with their appendages, then they use their sharp fangs to inject poison into them. The spider's venom contains enzymes which have the power to not only paralyze their prey, but also to dissolve them (Nieuwenhuys). Before the spider's victim is completely lifeless, the spider finally sucks the prey's blood leaving them dry and dead.I am a woman. I think that men have a greater capacity to hold power, but that a woman has the ability to destroy a man in a way which they could never destroy us. Of course there are times when men carelessly break a woman's heart, but even then it seems she is able to bring herself back together. On the other hand, women are completely different when it comes to men. Women can easily detect a man's weakness and know where to attack. Women are always on the watch and we are constantly waiting for the perfect time to strike our next victim. Women may appear to be weak and vulnerable but this is just an act we put on to make men feel secure. We put up fronts to fit the ideal mold men have naively created in order to mess with their minds. We long to destroy and dominate without mercy. Women, like spiders, provoke both curiosity and fear. There is something captivating about our gender that mesmerizes men. We use our features (such as our long legs) to seduce men into our lives. We provocatively entice men with false allusions of beauty and empty kisses. We create our webs of allurement with silky soft compliments which we know will quickly entangle our prey. After trapping men with our webs, we "whip" them to whatever we want them to be. At first the man may struggle; he might question what is going on and pitifully attempt to escape only to find that there is no way out. Our "love" is sticky and leaves no room for the innate freedom men so fervently desire. The victim has been defeated and is quickly drawing near to his end. He is the lamb approaching the slaughter. When we get our prey where we want him, we strike with words and verbally poison him. A woman's venom not only paralyzes her man for the moment, but will completely dissolve every shred of dignity he has. Before the woman is finished, she will perform the pinnacle of her destruction- she will suck him dry. The victim's blood is the most vital part of the predator's feast. The victim's blood runs through his heart and sustains his very life. For the woman to completely dominate him it is crucial that she does not leave a drop. The woman's thirst will not be quenched until every ounce of his life has been devoured. When the victim, a mere hollow shell of what vaguely resembles a man is left, only then will she then be finished. After her successful win, the woman will return to her web. Her game will continue- the vicious cycle of love will continue.Perhaps there is a reason why so many fearless young men dread the sight of petite, helpless little spiders. Maybe there is a correlation between it and the creatures they are so helplessly attracted to. Both female and spider entice only to annihilate and in the end are both completely satisfied.

lyndseys wise comment:
Not that I completely agree that I am a blood thirsty spider when it comes to men, but why do you think women feed upon men in this manner? The only time I get the urge to destroy a man is when I have been hurt by him. I do not believe that women are born this way. Only after repeated failures, either personally or from a third party perspective, do the female gender long to hurt the male gender. We begin to see the whole cycle of love as a means to give the man what we think he ultimately deserves. Maybe by men often being so careless with the feelings of women, they are beginnning to flip the scale. Instead of women being scared of getting hurt, it is the men who are terrified of having the life sucked out of them. As a result, we are creating men who do not act like men. Women then see that weakness in them and take advantage of it. What it comes down to is manipulation. Women are the best manipulators. Our skills surpass that of most men. We do it and do not even notice. We use it, not only to get what we want, but also to secretley gain the upper hand. It has become a means to protect yourself, to guard your heart. Men tend to try to control things with little lies, while on the other hand, women manipulate everything.