Welcome to Gaia! ::

Why No Revival?
Still No Revival?

I was just thinking about the newer of these two tracts. While I'm not a big fan of ol' Chick he does bring up some good points in his first tract. There is a lot of injustice in the world that we know about but we have become indifferent toward these problems. There are families that are in need and living on the street or one paycheck away from doing so. There are many who see the suffering of others as "God giving them what they deserve". There are pastors who are poorly educated and do a great disservice to their congregation, especially when they encourage throwing reason out the door. People miss the point of prayer and equated to asking god-genie to grant one's wishes, hence why the milk jug argument has come about. Next "occult" practices are more common in the types of chuches that Chick promotes. Seriously, say a magic phrase and you become part of the "elites/saved". We need to obey the "Laws of Moses" or Gawd will bring about his wrath on us. This borders pretty damn close to "taming supernatural forces" imho.

Now the second tract is pretty much a whine fest that people are moving away from Biblical literalism (Biblolatry). Also his anti-Catholic and anti-Islamic fears rise their ugly head here too. While I do not care for Islam and much of the doctrines of Catholicism, this us vs them attitude is self-defeating. If you are too focused on what the others are doing, you risk forgetting about what you are supposed to be doing. It's covert coveting basically. He then goes on praising the KJV which is one of the most beautifully written, poorly translated versions of the Bible around. Many things are "translated" with great artistic liberty in order to make many of King James laws appear to be divinely inspired and on par with "Gawd's Will". This particular tract seems to be a panic more than anything, especially since he ends it with his classic "heaven or hell" death sequences.

Anyway thank you for sharing this with us and we got a lot out of this. While I do not accept the Demiurge that Chick is promoting, God does show a few glimmers of Light in this darkness presented here. Goes to show how the Light will consume the darkness huh. Hopefully no one will confuse the shadows being shown on the wall here as real.

You're kind preaching to the choir here lol. I am saved and continuously being saved through Christ. I agree full heartedly with the verses you posted but find your interpretation "off" to say the least. If you would like to discuss alternative interpretations to these verses I am more than willing to do so, especially since these come from texts that are standard in my tradition of Christianity. I even have an interpretation of the Ephesians passage you quoted already prepared.

Anyway I thought I'd use this to show some "alternative" interpretations to the passages he uses here.

Ephesians 2:8-10 - It's basically talking about faith in the mythos of what Christ represented and it's related teachings. History was taught back then for a purpose, not as just a string of facts. If you reduce it to faith in a string of "facts" where will your faith go if evidence shows your "facts" are wrong. I actually wrote a bit more in depth about this passage and it can be found here

Before I begin, let me give a little background about John, it's a Gentile retelling of the Tanahk with the purpose of contrasting the Tanahk's view of tribal God, YHWH with the developing view of a Universal God promoted by Christianity.
John 3:16 - If YHVH supposedly made the world perfect, then why would it need saving? The traditional answer is because the "Fall of Man" was so great that it rocked the foundations of the universe but such an interpretation means that somehow "Man" put a kink in this god's plans. The early Christians who used this text believed the world was created flawed from the beginning and that Christ came to rescue it from itself. (Note this is before a canon was established). Symbolically, the world is one's perspective and worldview, what the Son, the image of God, is supposed to be saving is one's perspective/worldview from itself. "the Son of God" is an old expression meaning "Perfect image of God" not a literal child.

John 14:6 (foregoing the KJV translation here, it screws it up here) 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
One finer point edit:
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by emulating me.
Early Christian worship is nothing like Christian worship is today. Early Christian worship was primarily emulation of the Christ mythos. There were reasons the Romans regarded the Christians as atheists besides not worshiping their Gods.
Anyway here's how I take this passage, "Mythically, Christ is the perfect image of what this Universal God would be like if he were a man, if you want to better know this God, then emulate Christ and trust his teachings."

John 3:36, this is a dualistic passage contrasting YHVH and Yeshua's God. Translation: Follow image of God and you'll get to know the universal God, don't and you'll stay under the wrath of YHVH. It's a stab saying that the Judeans were getting it wrong.

Anyway that's my two cents.

I think we were all victims of a 'hit-and-run' witness attempt. rolleyes

There are many not true Christan and few that are. :/

well i know. Religion is a difficult subject but if you truly believe in it you should learn as much as possible.
You should only ask for forgiveness if you mean it. Not to be like "oh ill do this this and this then ask for forgiveness" it not right, you know.

God knows all smile