The Religion Cocktail

Ruth Gledhill, the religion correspondant for The Times, has dropped in my estimations as she took Boris Johnson’s suggestion to practice Ramadan in order to sympathise with Muslims. Boris, the kind-hearted and muddled fellow that he is, asked his employees to forsake biscuits on their tea breaks in order that their fellow colleagues could have a slightly easier day at work. It seems he’s forgotten he’s mayor of London, which is the capital of England. Tea breaks without biscuits is something that hasn’t had to have been foregone since ration books, and we’re not about to start now; sharia law or not.

Of course, these days, a cocktail of religious festivals is the way forward if you want true enlightenment…
Or if you want to lose weight.

Watch out for other religious fasts across the wide ranging worldviews of Islam, buddhism, Judaism, and others, while I stick to feast of Jesus.

Fasting is irrelevant until we realise what a feast we have in Him. Then fasting becomes another form of worship, instead of a complete self-indulgent attempt at sympathy and weight-loss combined.

If you fast in a foreign land, which, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we do whether you were born here, or born-again here, you should complain about the gluttonous nature of your colleagues. Free will has been around for long enough for us to know that the greatest gift we can give us choice. And if our lives present even an aroma of Jesus, we will get into trouble anyway.

Christmas is coming, act normal

It's the time of year again, where no matter how many people complain, Christmas decorations are appearing in the shelves of supermarkets. All over the country there is uproar, and secret purchasing, of such items being visible to the general public.

This is the usual point where an opinionist such as myself will lament over the lost meaning of Christmas, and some friends will unknowingly complain the Christmas isn't the only time you should be nice to people for a change.

My first ever job was in a supermarket in Rotherham. It had all the joys of tithing manure. I was asked to work Christmas eve, despite the fact I was making more money per hour busking in a four piece, than I would that day on the tills.

And yet, good will seemed to have been injected into a black man who came running round the shop handing out fivers to anyone who helped him.

It was a mighty strange experience.

Britain seems to be pretty hostile towards the traditions it has had. I wonder what would happen to the common man of his Christmas holidays were taken away from him?

Convert to Islam, probably.

Adrian Warnock and his secretive sharing

Adrian Warnock shared this quote last night on his blog:

"A PROMISE from God may very instructively be compared to a cheque payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably, and then have done with it. No, he is to treat the promise as a reality, as a man treats a cheque."

Now Adrian has chosen to keep the author from the public and asks that others hold back that information if they have it. I have an idea of who it is, though I can't be sure, and in some sense it doesn't really matter. If the words are truth we can ascribe them to Jesus. 

Ephesians says: "the fruit of light [of which we are children] is found in all that is good and right and true."

And seeing as we are children of God, then it makes a fine bit of sense to attribute these things the the King.

Ephesians also spends some time emphasising the downpayment, or guarantee, which is the Holy Spirit. We are sealed by Him, and await an inheritance because of Him.

I await what else will be shared from the book this quote came from, but I do think that if we are to operate fully as the church of Jesus Christ, we must change our thinking about God's word. And that is only possible if we renew our minds daily to receive from the King. We have nothing left to give. How can we possible try to earn His favour? Or make Him hurry His work? Just receive the blessings from Him daily. That's all He asks us to do… at first, anyway.

Whatever you want you first have to sow. (Economy God's way part 4)

Jason Vallotton

It has become all too easy to think that work is from the devil. In due course the world will be over and work will be finished with. However, when we here Jesus teaching in parables that focus on money, work, and relationships, we have to wonder what the kingdom of God really is.

When the 'culmination of all things' takes place, what will remain? And what will never be seen again?

In the parable of the talents we have 4 characters. 3 servants and the king.

These servants must have worked hard to get where they are. When the king goes away for a while, the servants are entrusted with large sums of money to use in whatever way they see fit. The king's motivation is to make a profit, but also wants to have there servants go further than where they have been. This is an initiation into upper management, if you like.

If you don't like, go suck on a lemon.

The fascinating thing about this parable is the uncanny ability it has to condemn complacency. You've been given something. You either do something with it, or lose it. If you're not using is, it's obviously useless to you.

Where does that put investment banking in the kingdom of God scale?

Broken people, broken record

I'm no father, and I'm also guilty of getting carried away with my phone. But when I see two parents with the mother giving their daughter attention while the father plays with his Blackberry on the underground, where there is no reception, while the son amuses himself behind them both, it gives me something to rant about.

Still, nobody's perfect. And that is the excuse of the nation as yet another prisoner is set free for a large sum of money, and the Post Office strikes because people have worked out how to use email.

There is no such thing as ideal parents. Once you get to your teens you are convinced your parents know nothing and the whole world is against you. Strange things emerge from all parts of your body, and you're left wondering how long it will be until the next meal. And continual hunger isn't good for a growing lad with self esteem and image issues.

I think it's high time the UK admits it has the issues of a 15-year-old boy, unable to get a girlfriend, just so that we can get back to work on Monday with a clear conscience. So the economy is a wee bit on a low at the moment, but that doesn't allow the world to decide we can fix it. It was broken because the people in the banks had issues, and the people with no money had issues, and the people spending the tax money had issues, because everyone has issues. And people with issues make organisations with issues.

It's a broken world, and the last thing you want a rattling car to do is make a five hour car journey to Leeds just to see her boyfriend. The fact that our car was written off by a van before it fell apart completely, is irrelevant. You can't hope things will get better with time. Especially when there have been more and bloodier wars in the last 100 years or so than in the last 4000. The idea that evolution is an improvement over time is a misunderstanding of facts at best. And history testifies to gloomier times ahead unless we finally give up our efforts and put our trust in the One who came to rescue this place from ultimate calamity.

Unwanted comments

I just had to delete a comment advertising penis enlargement. That's
not something you can make up.

Advertising is based on dissatisfaction. Effectively, the whole
premise of sales is to make the customer in question doubt their
fulfilment in everything they own for the sake of a new toaster; with
an LCD display.

I can't help but wonder how the toothbrush was remarketed to brush
tongues as well, and now we also have cheek brushes. This is an absurd
take on turning a simple device into a completely useless money-making
scam.

Like treating marriage as a form of profit, the world is taking the
downturn with hatred and hoping that no-one has noticed that yet
another large company has had to make 10,000 redundancies. And
materialism as rife as it is, convincing people they need to spend
more money to survive, because 350 TV channels just aren't enough, is
easier than changing a lightbulb.

Speaking of lightbulbs, the new way around selling things is to make
any energy saving device overpriced and then make people believe that
it will save them money. I don't know how a £4 lightbulb is saving me
money when I have to part with £4. It's like paying a monthly
subscription to a gym in order to use everything for free. That makes
no sense to me. If I'm paying £40 a month then using everything isn't
free. It's £40.

Anyway, penis enlargement aside, the targetted adverts are promisingly
vulgar, as usual, and no-one has to venture outside to know that the
sun is shining.

Idolatry is common-place. I probably shouldn't just stand by and
watch, should I?

Jesus' Teaching on Money - Introduction (Part 3)

Now we turn to an analysis of a selection of Jesus' parables.

Over the next few posts on a 'Kingdom of God Economy' I will discuss:

• Parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30)
• Parable of the hidden treasure (Matt 13:44)
• Paying taxes to Caesar (Luke 20:19-26)
• Parable of the shrewd (or dishonest) manager (Luke 16:1-13)
• Parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt 20:1-16

All of these are in some way paradoxical, or at least contradictory. And of these 5, about 15 or so more have had to be left to one side.

Are there any initial thoughts you have on these parable and teaching before I set to work?

The Internet Machine (no hostility intended)

Last time I wrote quite a provocative first paragraph:
"[The Internet] machine has created a culture that requires instant access to everything. This is a counterfeit attitude at greater leisure, when everyone knows that the greatest leisure comes from taking things slowly. This machine has made news, opinion and opinion, fact."

Society has certainly changed. Newspapers no longer report, they discuss. It is a presentation of their viewpoint on events. And most newspapers claim things to be newsworthy that aren't even news. Like the dress-sense of Gordon Brown. Or the likelihood of alien invasions being calculated by coma induced students at Brunel University.

And then the obvious: "we don't have any news so lets do a double page spread of gossip, letting us know how many time Lindsay Lohan has married women, and the photogenic nature of Brad Pitt's vegetable patch" (no euphemism intended).

The Internet is both an incredible gift, and a terrible curse. I could quote stat after stat if how much pornography is uploaded every minute. Only 10% of which (approximately) is legal. The rest is even more depraved and depicts animal, children, and a large bottle of Tabasco to eyes of the film maker when I catch him.

Googe has made the Internet smaller, then expanded it again. And all the time we get message after message that we've won the 10000000000000 visitor prize every time we visit that web page. And I get emails every 3-4 minutes telling me my penis is too small when there are only a select few who've seen it and they aren't the kind of people to start working for 'enlargement' organisations (sorry mum).

In all of this we have a smaller world, cheaper products, undiscovered creativity being made readily available, and free thought (within reason) flying left, right, and centre, while wikipedia tries desperately to pick up the pieces of misinformed citations letting everyone know that Hitler was a type of cheese.

Thank you Internet.

Sincerely

Toby (writer thanks to my ISP)  

Everyone else is Wrong

A lot of the church's critics come for he inside.

Weird, no?

I've been reading a few different "Biblioblogs" (blogs from the Christian Blogosphere [where people blog]) that spend the majority of their time breaking down their own church experience, then reconstructing it under their own system. I do it. I have a series of posts in my "drafts" section with clear instructions on where the church has gone wrong, then my great ideas on how it can be better. We're all allowed our convictions, but ultimately I've forgotten that simple truth that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'

All of my innovation, inspiration, and revelation, is all simply new to me. Not the world, not the church, and certainly not all those that have gone before me.

For that, I'm sorry. Slight error, I must say.

Important thing

I've just created a summary page of the opening of Ephesians over at
my other blog.

http://twentypence.wordpress.com/important-things-from-ephesians-1/

Thought you might like it.