Lincoln, Luther, and King

If we are to err, we should err on the side of mercy and forgiveness. On the one hand, Jesus thought it was important to publicly rebuke the corrupt religious leaders of his day. And so I have done in earlier posts. But since God is able to rescue any local church held in the jaws of ungodly district church leadership; since God is able to build his kingdom out of the ashes of the destruction caused by evil men; since God will one day right all wrongs and correct all injustices... ...today I am removing prior posts that document the gross abuses of the Assemblies of God Michigan District against the churches that God entrusted to it. Undeserved mercy. Undeserved forgiveness. Because there may be a slim chance that they don't realize what they did, just as Jesus prayed for those who crucified him because they didn't know what they were doing. Even though it is extremely unlikely that after 7 years they still don't realize the evil of their actions, maybe there is still a sav

In my opinion, only if Genesis is literal. In that case, a created being made with a free-will must be able to obtain the consequences of its decisions. God did everything he could to prevent the wrong decision: He clearly explained the choice to his creation. He clearly explained the consequences that would occur from making the wrong choice (“On the day you eat of it, dying you shall die”.) And he clearly gave enough other choices so that idle curiosity or boredom weren’t a factor (“You may eat of ANY tree of the garden except one”). The Genesis account is clear that Eve did not take the forbidden fruit out of curiosity or boredom. She was presented with a challenge (which her pristine, fully-engaged mind would readily have recognized), and that challenge clearly would have led her to the logical conclusion, “either this snake is lying to me, or God is lying to me.” So who did she choose to distrust? God or the snake? The temptation was fair, in that it purely tested her faith in G

Just when human arrogance has reached its height, and mankind's darkness of mind (the belief in evolution as our creator) has all but erased away any acknowledgment of the ingenious works of Jesus the true creator, science produces a new empirical observation that shocks us out of our drunken stupor with such intensity that we must again wrestle with the undeniable fact that we live in a world that was designed. In this case, it's an octopus. An octopus whose eyes are color-blind. An octopus whose eyesight isn't very sharp, even though its eyes are not "backwards" like the eyes of you reading this blog (Hmmm if you can read this blog, then "backwards" eyes must be a pretty good design, right? I'm a mechanical engineer, and my definition of a good design is a design that is functional.) But somehow, this feeble-eyed, color-blind octopus possesses a technology that the U.S. Military would pay billions to have: The ability to change shape, texture, and

As this Assemblies of God 2011 General Council website banner requests, I am about to make my mark on their movement... The word 'VOLUNTARY'. Does anyone out there know what it means? The big question is, does anyone within the Assemblies of God (AOG) religious organization know what it means? Let's look at a few quotes from their website and constitution, in which I will emphasize the words voluntary and obligatory in all caps. According to the Assemblies of God contribution page, VOLUNTARY commitments may be revised at any time. The page describes automatic monthly contributions as follows: "As your commitment is an agreement between you and God, it is understood that you may revise your commitment at any time." The page also describes 'Faith Promise' donations: "As your Faith Promise is an agreement between you and God, it is understood that you may revise your promise at any time." OK, so it sounds like VOLUNTARY giving is not OBLIG