She said what I was supposed to
think?  Thank God for freedom, thank God

for liberation.  Yeah
Now we are allowed to think
We are allowed to feel…
Lust…
Without…
CUTE BORING LOVE

Don’t you ever just like me?
Longing for
purity and don’t you ever
Get so sick of

our territories?  What are you so scared of sister?
What
made you so afraid to feel?  To choose

stone cold liberation?  The one thing I hate most about me,
is the one thing you want to make your
trademark.  To feel

lust without
CUTE
BORING
LOVE  Don’t

you ever, just like
me, longing for
purity?  Don’t you ever get sick of our territories?

Don’t you ever feel like glass?  Fragile
, hurting, let it
pass.  Don’t you ever?  Don’t you
think it’s time to

trespass?  But when
the fire is gone.

Who are you?

Who are you now?

Who are you?

What are you scared of?  (But I’m just as scared)
What are you so scared of?  (as you.)
What are you so scared of?
What are you so scared of sister?
What are you so scared of?

Don’t you ever, just like me,  longing for purity?
And don’t you ever get so sick of our territories?
Don’t you ever feel like glass?
(Don’t you ever?)
Fragile, hurting, letting it pass.
(Don’t you ever?)
Don’t you ever?
Don’t you ever think it’s time?
Don’t you think it’s time to trespass?

That’s the lyrics to a great song called Cute Boring Love by Blindside.  It’s so true and sad, that’s where we really are.  We have the freedom to lust without love and everyone’s okay with that, they glorify it even.  The point of sex is the cute boring love, not the other way around.  Sex is a God-given means to bring about oneness in a marriage.  That’s the whole point of it, oneness.  Marriage is all about oneness, becoming one with God and your spouse, sex is both oneness and a means to oneness.  It’s a holy thing set up by God for a spiritual purpose.  As a culture we’ve almost totally destroyed the value of sex.  It might be everywhere but it’s common and worthless.  I say no.  It’s a beautiful God given gift in the right context, the context of marriage.  Without that context every relationship eventually becomes devoid of cute boring love and the entire point is lust.  The world’s view of sex says that the point of sex is good sex.  How depressing is that?  I might end up “bored” according to the world but that’s so far preferable to the alternative, becoming depressed and having no real point to anything. 

I’m reading “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. It’s depressing. In part because he’s right and in equal measure because he’s horribly, totally wrong. So far the book is an assault of Americanism – the religion, and an embracing of the need to believe in the older, truer, pagan gods. Kali, Odin, Anansi. At one point the protagonist, Shadow, is approached by a new, American god, TV, and rejects it in favor of the old gods. He realizes that the reason that he prefers the old gods is because they’re straightforward, honest, and true. They don’t speak in cliches like the new gods. It’s the battle of the roadside attraction vs. the shopping mall.

That’s all well and good, as far as it goes. In a sense Gaiman has a great insight and is close to the truth, but he lands just short and winds up far from it in the end. America has it’s new gods, self, TV, sex, information, government, the list goes on. They are hollow, empty, revolting. It goes to show the depths man that man sinks to when he ‘kills God.’ Everyone believes in something. You know all those saccharine kids movies where ‘you just have to believe’? They’re a total crock. Everyone believes. The question is: In what?

Gaiman says the older things are truer and nobler. Cheap? Yes. Old and poor? Definitely. But far preferable to the rotten new gods. In a sense he’s right, the pagan gods have greater elements of truth, better explanations (or at least more satisfying ones), and they call for self sacrifice and service of something higher than yourself. On the other hand, all the new gods are really just manifestations of one god, Self. The new gods are gods with no explanations, no need for them, no need for thought. They are the gods of mindless self-indulgence. They are the gods of drive thru coffee and plastic, the gods of consumers, urging their worshipers to consume even more. But the old gods are no different really in the end. The result is the same. Or is it? The end is the same in both cases except for one crucial detail. The old gods gave us self-satisfaction and the same sin, but as service to something higher, in this they are braver than the new gods, the old gods were brave enough to allow consciousness of the eternal and a desire for transcendence. The new gods have thoroughly and mercilessly destroyed that. Now is the end point. There is no eternal, there is no need to transcend. God has set eternity in the hearts of men so we would ask questions. The old gods used this, they stole it and answered the questions in a way. The new gods silence the voice in our heads. There are no questions, no answers. It is as C.S. Lewis foretold in ‘The Screwtape Letters’, it is easier to damn a numb man, one who thinks he’s fine, one who is comfortable. That is what the church dies in America and lives in China. WE ARE COMFORTABLE.

Man always creates gods that are less than himself because you cannot create something greater than yourself. In so doing man becomes less because man always becomes more and more like his gods. Man’s gods are always just extensions of what’s in the heart of man so man becomes less and less and more and more mannish each time he creates new gods. These new American gods might just be the death of man…

But the new gods aren’t entirely successful, they can’t kill the voice, just muffle it. So when it gets too loud, they pull a fast one and anesthetize it. They give us ’spirituality’, a watered down nothing that sates what’s left of our God-consciousness. And we go as sheep to the slaughter. In masses we go, happy to be damned.

So, in response Gaiman summons a vision of a counter-culture of the old gods. Except that the old gods aren’t a fix, just another demonic smokescreen. The human idea of counter-culture is a joke. It’s all the same in the end, just different names, different faces, all the same mannish ideas. The only view that offers something truly different, that’s really counter to all human culture is the Way. The true Christ-likeness of the apostles, the denial of the world and the focus on the eternal. Christianity in the mainstream has become just another anesthetic on the whole. You have the old god of orthodoxy, the form of godliness and the half-answers of ritual. And you have the new god of the Emergent Church, a culture of ’spirituality’ and ‘faith’ that just sates our consciousness into the sleep of the comfortable damned. I’m not saying that there aren’t true believers in either of those camps, I’m telling the truth about the majority of what I’ve seen. What we need here is the True God of the Bible and a real relationship with Him. Your Standard American Christian is as much a lost sheep as anyone else. What we need isn’t Christianity as a religion, politics as a tool, or any other human method that promises to fix the problem. We need nothing apart form a return to the Way. A return to true relationship and maybe even apostolic poverty, who know? God.

The church in China is alive because it isn’t easy to be Christian, you can’t be a comfortable Christian. You have to have the truth to have the courage to even claim the name of Christ there. In America it’s easy to claim the name of Christ and call yourself a Christian, but very hard to live like it. It’s a subtle but definite line. Let’s make sure we’re on the right side of it. The side of God, not gods. To quote Tolkien:

The board is set, the pieces are moving. Now we come to it, the great battle of our time. -Gandal

Bible College is a special place, where you meet special people, have your world rocked and shrunk at the same time, and learn that a “real” education is the last thing that you need, or want.

God will rock your world so hard, He’ll make your head spin, your assumptions will be challenged, your idols removed, and He’ll talk to you, like you could almost reach out and touch Him. It’s so awesome. And once your wolrd is rocked you’ll look around and realize that you are connected to people form all over the world, and could quite possibly road trip the US and stay at friend’s houses the whole way. You’ll know PK’s, former drug addicts, homeschoolers, scene kids, geeks, normal people, and the next great worship leader/pastor/missionary. You’ll meet people who will do great things for God and people who will make you wonder “Why are they here again?” It’s a unique environment and a wonderful experience.

I know people who’s parent’s, committed Christians, leaders in the church, don’t know why they came here and don’t want them wasting their time here. The real waste of time is putting off your relationship with the Lord. You don’t have to come here to have one by any means, but it helps, you can just devote time to God and His Word like you can very few other places. People who don’t think CCBC is a real education or the real world are so sadly mistaken it’s sad. It’s possibly the closest thing to real life available in this mortal coil… I know that might seem ridiculous, but if God is real, He is the determinant of reality, therefore the closer you are to God, the closer you are to reality. Therefore, since Bible College is a place where you get closer to God, it is where you really learn to live, and where you really live. It’s where you go to learn how to live your life, not necessarily what you’re going to do with your life. That’s all up to God anyway. Everything always has been and always will be. Praise the Lord oh my soul! I wish that you could know Him like I do if you don’t, or know Him better if you do. If you have any questions or just want to talk, feel free.

Another thing, once you go here, going back home can be depressing. Sure, you get to see your friends or family, but you don’t see any change. Same hopes, same people, same problems, same drama. A lot of things change, but the people and the essentials don’t change that often. You come back and the youth room is different, but not the youth group. Oh, you’ll see basic change, btu not heart change. It makes you absolutely desperate for a revival. I’m sick of American “Christians.” The people who go to church, help out, pray, lead discipleship groups, and don’t understand how you can go to Europe with no support, no money, no plan, nothing but a call and vision of rocking the world, and the faith that God will make a way and do His work through you. They say “God Bless you, how will I pay the rent next month?” The answer is: pay it with faith and prayer. I know I’m not perfect by any means, but I have the faith to at least take the step, and the training to know that it can happen. These are the people who need a early church crash course. The early church wasn’t perfect by any means, but at least they had faith and knew what they believed and had a fire in their hearts that burned with the desire to share the faith that was so real to them. I don’t share like I could I admit, I’m in no way perfect or and example, but at least I can see a goal. These poor souls think it’s all okay. The Son of God is getting ready to return and who is ready? Who anticipates it with eagerness? Too few. My church is dynamic, friendly, and solid… and in need of a massive outpouring of the Spirit, a fresh vision and a fresh teaching. These people know what the Word says, but they don’t know what a relationship can look like. One of our guest speakers at chapel broke down crying over things he saw Bible College graduates doing, and not doing. I weep for the church, the social center of conservative America, breeding ground of heresy, defiler of Christ. Not everyone or every church fits that description. Mine doesn’t. But the church in America is largely apostate and filled with heresy. This is the last great falling away. It can be the last great revival in the personal relationship between Christ and members of the church. God doesn’t see a congregation. He sees individuals, He sees His child, His bride in every one of us, when is the last time we had an encounter on a personal level with our future bridegroom?

This isn’t where I meant to go, but the words came.  Maybe they came from God, I pray that that is the case.  I know a family who heard God’s call and just packed up and moved to Romania as missionaries.  They heard God’s call again and now they live in Iraq.  They have the kind of faith that I want.  Faith with proof.  I just wanted to talk about Bible College, not condemn anyone.  But if this convicts you, pray about it.  Before you go calling me a legalist, please examine why this post makes you uncomfortable and pray about your response.  I never intended to go here with this post, but I did mean to go here at some point.  As God leads then.  I hope this ministers to you, who knows, maybe you’ll come to Bible College and understand first hand.  *shrugs*  As long as this is a call to holiness and intimacy with God, it’s been worth it.  I love my brothers and sisters, that’s why I do this, because I care.  I just hope that this comes across.  I point no fingers, save one, and that one upwards, towards heaven, that’s what we need to be mindful of.  Every second, every heartbeat, every God given breath should remind us that this is not our home and drive us to live for eternity right now.

Grace and peace as Paul would say.  Welcome to my blog and hopefully I’ll keep posting and updating.  Stay tuned for updates about what the Lord is doing in my life, what He’s telling me and where He’s leading me.  I’m going to be back at Murrieta this semester, and hopefully I can go to one of the extensions campuses in England for my fourth semester.