The Groundhog Day Gospel

The Gospel of Christ is not a gospel of second chances.  Yes, God gives second chances.  However, we do not have a gospel of second chances.  Let me explain.  Many of us think to ourselves, “I have sinned and failed.”  We come to Christ and he forgives our sin and failure.  This gives us a clean slate.  We have another chance.  We go out and purpose to try to do better.  When we eventually stumble then we have Christ to again forgive us, pick us up, and maybe give some coaching or teaching so we can live better lives.  We go out clean, then stumble again, and then repeat the process.  And then repeat the process.  Again.  And again. 

We hope we have been improving, getting better, and becoming a better person.  Maybe we are getting to be a better imitation of Christ?  Maybe we can get closer to God?  What else can a person do?

The above is not the Gospel.  The above is a spiritual application of the movie Groundhog Day.

We don’t have a Gospel of Second Chances.  Why not?  Because we never had a first chance. Without the first chance, then how can there be a second, a third, or even a seven-times-seventieth chance?

Why no first chance?  We were all born into a broken world, a world broken and dysfunctional since the Fall in the Garden.  We were not only born into a fallen, broken world, we ourselves were born broken, born with a sinful disposition. This was not God’s desire, not at all what he intended, but we and all before us have been broken and have contributed to the vicious, downward cycle of dysfunction and brokenness in this world.

We never had a first chance because we never had a chance to live holy, righteous lives in the first place.  Yes, God gave Moses the Law but the purpose was not to give us a manual showing us how to live lives pleasing to God.  The Apostle Paul wrote that the purpose of the Law was to show us we do not, and will not, live sinless lives.  The purpose was to show the world that we cannot fulfil the Law, to show that we can never, no matter how hard we try, never be holy, never be righteous, never be sanctified, and thus never be acceptable to God (Romans 3:19-20).  We are guilty and already condemned.  Showing us this is a good thing since the Law shows us the absolute necessity of God’s mercy. The penalty is death and without the Blood of the Lamb to pay that price for our freedom we have no chance.

The Gospel of Christ is that God through Christ Jesus came not to give a second chance to you or me, but to bring death to the old man and to bring to life a new creation in us.  This new man, this new creation, this new person has the Holiness, Righteousness, and Sanctification of Christ.  It is through the efforts of God, not the efforts of man; it is Christ in you or me, not you or me, that makes us a new creation.

Yes, we can act holy, but without Christ we cannot be holy.  We can do righteous works, but without Christ we cannot be righteous.  We can act sanctified, do the works of one who is sanctified, but only Christ can make us sanctified.  Yes, in our own efforts we can act sanctified, righteous and holy, but we can’t keep it up.  We can’t keep it up through our own efforts because it is only an act.  I do not mean we are phonies or hypocrites; I mean these are merely acts, not who we are.

The Groundhog Day Gospel is a gospel of bondage, of endless repetition, of continual frustration.  A gospel that does not bring us closer to God but lets us cling to the delusion that we can do better next time; the delusional that it is all about becoming better people.  The message of the Groundhog Day Gospel is, “Not good enough” with the subtext, “Try harder, fail better.”  Like the movie, each day we repeat the cycle.  Unlike the movie, we never escape the cycle.  Being better is not good enough.  The word gospel literally means “good news.”  This Groundhog Day Gospel is bad news.  It is a false gospel.  While this false gospel will not keep us from having our names written in the Book of Life, it can rob us of a lot of joy that God wants us to have in Christ. 

What to do?  How can we be freed from the slavery of this false gospel?  How can we escape the living hell of not good enough and try harder, fail better?  Christ suffered death on the Cross to free us; he never intended to settle for us just being better people.  What God wants is more than we can give him though our own efforts.  He died and rose again to make us sons and daughters of the living God.  “Because of what God has done, you belong to Christ Jesus.  He has become God’s wisdom for us.  He makes us right with God.  He makes us holy and sets us free” (I Cor 1:30 NIRV).

What to do?  Jesus was asked by the people, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”  Jesus answered, “The work of God is this:  to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6: 28-29).  Believe we are each a child of God if we have come to faith in Christ Jesus.  Believe Christ did it all and that our standing as such is settled and will not change.  God wants a close relationship with his children. How close?  God wants to abide in us, to live in and with us, through the person of the Holy Spirit.  Accept that the efforts of Christ brings this about, not our own efforts.  So rest, take a Sabbath, take a permanent vacation from your own efforts.  Rather than look to the efforts of our flesh, our human nature, look to God. (Romans 8:5-8).  Follow God and let the Holy Spirit work in you and through you. 

Rest from your efforts; abide in Christ; let the Holy Spirit do the work that he was given to do.  You may be surprised when you realize your acts, your behavior, your inclinations will be changing, moving toward godliness.  That God is working in you.  You will find that being changed by God, by abiding in him, brings permanent change that could never be obtained by your own efforts.

Be blessed!
RB

An autumn tradition: Shakespeare in the North Country

It’s time once again for a favorite part of fall, the American Shakespeare Center performances, and your favorite duty, which is telling others that FREE tickets are now available at the Brewer Bookstore and the Sullivan Student Center. For those who shamelessly procrastinate, FREE tickets should be available at the door of each night's performance.  Since they are FREE, I might be wrong, and if I am, shame on you!

If you’re new to St. Lawrence University, the American Shakespeare Center’s touring troupe, based in Staunton, VA, has visited us for nearly 25 years, since 1992 (we’re one of only 3 colleges in the country with such a long relationship). The actors bring us three shows a year, typically two of Shakespeare’s plays and one from his era, and offer workshops here as well. This year, however, we’ll get to see a late-Victorian comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest, along with Henry V, and Julius Caesar. These are modified original practices performances: the house lights stay on, the actors do not perform on an elevated stage (you’re encouraged to stand up to see, as some in Shakespeare’s audience would have done), there are no microphones, and there is lots of music. It’s a lot of fun, particularly if you sit in the front row, where you might become part of the action.


All tickets are FREE this year, but as always I do recommend picking them up early, and arriving to the shows around a half hour early, to catch some of the pre-show music and to get a great seat.

All performances are in Eben Holden Center. The schedule is:

• Thursday, October 8, 7:30 pm, Henry V
• Friday, October 9, 7:30 pm, Henry V
• Saturday, October 10, 7:30 pm, Julius Caesar
• Saturday, October 10, Midnight, The Importance of Being Earnest
• Sunday, October 11, 5:30 pm, The Importance of Being Earnest

Do note that SLU’s traditional midnight performance (did you know we are the only campus in the country for whom the actors are willing to perform at midnight?)—my consistent pick for best show, year after year; there’s some adrenaline in that room—has moved from Friday to Saturday. Sunday’s performance, too, has moved later into the evening by popular request.

Finally, this year, we’re featuring two events in conjunction with the performances:
• a FREE lecture by Dr. Sarah Skwire of the Liberty Fund on “Political Economics in Henry V” in Sykes at 8 pm on Wednesday, October 7
• a FREE panel discussion on “The Economics of Performance and Production” featuring PCA’s own Zip Trainor, visiting ASC actor Andrew Goldwasser, and Dr. Skwire at noon on Thursday, October 8 in Eben Holden North (you’re encouraged to bring a brown bag lunch)

[Shamelessly plagiarized in large part from a campus email sent by Sarah Barber of the English Department and there is nothing you can do about it.  So there!]

John Newton in the 18th C. on a 21st C. problem

I asked the Lord that I may grow

in faith and love and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know,

and seek more earnestly his face.

'Twas He who taught me thus to pray,

and He I trust has answered prayer,

But it has been in such a way

as almost drove me to despair.

I thought that in some favored hours,

at once he'd answer my request,

And by His love's transforming power,

Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of that He made me feel

the hidden evils of my heart,

And bade the angry powers of hell

assault my soul in every part.

Nay, more, with His hand He seemed 

intent to aggravate my woe,

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

blasted my gourds*, and laid me low.

"Lord, why this?" I trembling cried,

"Wilt Thou pursue this worm to death?"

"This is the way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith."

"These inward trials I employ

from sin and self to set thee free,

And cross thy schemes of earthly joy

that thou might find thy all in Me."

John Newton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­iv­er, 1779).

Text Source: Treasures in Christ by Jean Oathout (7 July 2015).

Image: "Hymn 36" in A Selection of Favorite Conference Hymns with Historical Sketches of Church History: through every century of the Christian Era, edited by J.A. Burke (Albany, NY: A.N. Sherman, 1829), p.34.

*Alludes to the plant that provided shade in Jonah (4: 6-7, KJV).

Arminian v. Calvinist? Don't think so.....

This afternoon I read this exchange between an elderly John Wesley and a young Charles Simeon which occurred in the mid-1780's. I then found it reprinted online and did a cut and paste. Here Simeon writes of the meeting and refers to himself in the third person.

Wesley  Simeon A young Minister, about three or four years after he was ordained, had an opportunity of conversing familiarly with the great and venerable leader of the Arminians in this kingdom; and, wishing to improve the occasion to the uttermost, he addressed him nearly in the following words:

Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?

No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?

Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?

Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things where in we agree.

Sources: here and there.

Abbot & Costello on Unemployment

The following is one of the clearest explanations I've read of alternative unemployment statistics.  Someone sent me this so I do not know the original source. However I have updated the numbers to reflect the January 2015 unemployment statistics. 

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 5.7%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that's 11.3%.

COSTELLO: You just said 5.7%.

ABBOTT: 5.7% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right, 5.7% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that's 11.3%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 11.3% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that's 5.7%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE! Is it 5.7% or 11.3%?

ABBOTT: 5.7% are unemployed. 11.3% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Congress said you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss the point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment rolls that would count as less unemployment? 

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how it gets to 5.7%. Otherwise it would be 11.3%. 

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like an Economist.

COSTELLO: I don't even know what the heck I just said!

ABBOTT: Oh, now you're thinking like a Politician.

a year of big anniversaries

40 YEARS AGO  we graduated from college, got married and moved across country so I could go to grad school at Virginia Tech.  (The order of the previously listed events is based on chronology, not importance.)

30 YEARS AGO after completing a Fulbright Lectureship at a Nigerian university,  we moved to a little college town in Northern New York.  The Sunday before Labor Day I attended Christian Fellowship Center for the first time.  Despite never having been in a church quite like it, I immediately knew it was home.  It has been ever since.  The next day (yes, on Labor Day) I taught my first class at St. Lawrence University.

20 YEARS AGO I visited a church, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, and experienced the so-called laughing rival (a.k.a., the Toronto Blessing, the Father’s Blessing).  It had a huge impact on me.  I have never, ever since questioned God’s love for me, no matter what has happened in my life. God's love was never an issue, not even during a period of severe depression.

10 YEARS AGO I experienced probably the worst day of my life.  This caused me to seek professional counseling for depression.  After counseling, after living most of my life with the illness, I have been depression free.

ZERO YEARS AGO I now know a great God and I am knowing Him better each day.  I have a great wife as companion and friend and I find her more attractive in more ways each day.  I attend a great church with over-the-top wonderful pastors for whom I am thankful to God each day.  I have a great job (with tenure!) teaching great students at a great small college for which I am more grateful each day.  I live in a great little village in the great undiscovered paradise of New York's North Country and I appreciate living here more each day.

As you can see from the previous great-full paragraph that I am grateful.  I'm not bragging since I cannot really take any credit.  At a minimum, that would assume I thought I knew what I was doing! I have been greatly blessed in a great many ways.  The past decade has literally been the best years of my life and the last two years by far the happiest of those.

I know I deserve none of this and that realization makes me very grateful indeed.

Be blessed!
RB

for christians only (orthodox, catholic, evangelical)

If you consider yourself devoted to Christ, please watch the following short video:

   

Please consider signing the Manhattan Declaration after reading more:

http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/index.html#1

Thank you,
RB

unacceptable! obama's accommodation compromises religious liberty

The official position of the Bishops’ Conference signals that no compromise concerning the HHS preventive care mandate could succeed. It is not the government's role to define or limit the mission of a church or any other religious organization:

Unacceptable

February 27, 2012

The Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an accommodation for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS mandate for coverage (without costsharing) of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (cost free) these same products and services.Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that theterms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.

This so-called accommodation changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It iscertainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance thatcovered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.

It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not paying for this aspect of the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will notpass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform theemployee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying ―five day after pill pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who explains theterms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy covers.

The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.

It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept an assault ontheir religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick. Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches,auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy T2 (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty. The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment.

[Followed by 42 pages of signatures]

Source:

www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Unacceptable-2-27-11am2.pdf

ron paul and michele bachmann are marginal candidates

Jon Stewart and others have wondered why the media is ignoring Ron Paul. It is easy. He is a very marginal candidate with little chance of being nominated. Michele Bachmann is only marginally better as a marginal candidate.

This is not my opinion. It is in the polls and it is what the smart money is saying.

Check the Real Clear Politics poll summary shown above (click image to enlarge). Even though Bachmann is getting all the press, she is way down in the polls at 9.6%, way behind Romney (20.2%) and Perry (18.4%) and even trailing non-candidate Sarah Palin (10.0%). Bachmann is barely ahead of non-candidate Rudy Giuliani (9.3) and the rightfully overlooked Ron Paul (8.8). Ron Paul's support has been in single digits, steady, and not growing. Not a good trend. These folks are the minor candidates with Bachmann at best being the pick of a bad litter.

I do not pay much attention to political polls. If I want a good gauge of what is likely to happen, I go to the prediction markets. These markets are forward looking, in that they show what people bet will happen rather than looking backward to what potential voters were thinking last week. In prediction markets, people are putting their money where their mouths are, rather than just answering the phone and giving their opinion. Prediction polls have a much better track record of predicting outcomes than public opinion polls.

The smart money has Bachmann and Paul as even bigger losers. The bets at Intrade.com predict Perry has a 35.3% chance of winning the nomination with Romney following closely at 31.0%. Sarah Palin is a very distant third at 7.6%. Jon Huntsman is fourth at 5.8% followed closely by Bachmann at 5.3% Where's Ron Paul? At a lowly 4.0% and in sixth place.

You think your know better? Then put your money where your mouth is. If you are so smart then you can make a profit, but only if you are right.

integrity of the scripture: is what we have now, what they wrote then?

I love reasoning tested by evidence. I guess it is part of my training as an economist. That is why I love the following 48 min. video of a lecture by Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary. He is one of the world's leading experts on NT textual studies -- trying to figure which, if any, of the current NT writings are accurate.

This lecture was presented to a lay audience so even I could understand it!

Guest Speaker :: Daniel Wallace from Antioch Church on Vimeo.