One and Half Popes and Doctrine

I read an article on the Fox News website about the ceremony where Pope Francis elevated nineteen new Cardinals to the College of Cardinals, the body responsible for electing a new Pope. His predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict was also present at the ceremony. It was quite an interesting article but there was something that struck me quite powerfully about the article. The writer made reference to the fact that the crowds that were coming to listen to Pope Benedict daily when he was in office were one-third of those that now come to listen to Pope Francis. I believe the intention of that particular piece of information (or was it a fact check?) was to show how unpopular Pope Benedict is in contrast to Pope Francis. This is in light of the fact that the writer in the same article remarked that people present cheered when they saw Benedict.

                        

There is a tendency in human beings for comparison even though the Bible tells us that the people who do this are not wise. One of the most obvious means of comparison is numbers. Therefore a person in an office who attracts more people to his sermons or meetings is deemed more popular and from that position we believe that he must be more effective. However I tend to see things differently. I believe the fact that Benedict drew smaller numbers of people than Francis says a lot more about the people than it does about Benedict.

There have been several reports in the mainstream media about Pope Francis comments. These comments have been analysed, dissected and analysed some more in the mainstream media. From their analysis of his comments one would be forgiven for thinking that he was about to abolish all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. It seems the mainstream media have got this idea between their teeth and their running with it so much so that it culminated with him being on the cover of TIME magazine as their man of the year. And it seems a lot of Catholics seem to have this idea as well. So it seems that while a lot of them see Benedict as a strict and unbending conservative, Francis is the flexible and conciliatory liberal. Hence the great love.

G. K. Chesterton said that the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, rather it deemed to be hard and so left untried. I have always said I do not believe in labels when it comes to Christianity. You are either a Christian or not. I do not believe you’re a conservative Christian or a liberal Christian. I also reject the terms fundamentalist unless by that you mean someone who believes in the Bible. I believe the Bible is the final authority on all things that has to do with the faith Christ gave us. Like C. S. Lewis said, doctrines were given to us as maps by men but these men had deep relationships with God. I believe we live in a fallen world with fallen minds which need renewal in the word.

I admire Benedict. He felt trapped in a position that was not allowing him fellowship was God which he missed deeply. So he gave up his position and all the trappings and stepped aside for someone else who could handle everything so much better. I do not believe the fact that Pope Francis is drawing bigger crowds reflects badly on his predecessor. I believe some of the people who come to see Francis are already living the liberal lifestyle they want him to endorse. They want him to endorse their own beliefs and make them happy and comfortable by breaking down doctrines that have served the Church for centuries. We’ll wait and see if he’ll oblige them. Although I wouldn't hold my breath.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

Piers Morgan Thinks Pope Francis Is A Religious Bigot (And Mohammed Too)

Thanks to the interview with GQ Magazine, we all know that Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame is true to his faith. In the firestorm that has followed his comments; we have discovered some other interesting things along the way. One of those things we have discovered is that Wilson Cruz believes that those of us that believe the Bible is the word of God and obey it are not good Christians while those that disregard it and support the homosexual lifestyle are the good Christians. We have also discovered that CNN anchor, Piers Morgan thinks that Pope Francis is a religious bigot. So probably does the leader of all liberals, President Barack Obama, CNN and all liberals.

When I heard about Piers Morgan’s comments, it got me thinking. When I hear such incendiary comments, I like to think about what the comment means. It occurred to me that what Piers Morgan meant was that, I along with other Christians who shared Phil Robertson’s view that sex and marriage should be between a man and a woman were all religious bigots. When I thought about it some more, it further occurred to me that not only was he calling us all religious bigots, he was also calling Pope Francis, the head of Catholics, a religious bigot. Make no mistake, from Piers’s comments; we can deduce what CNN, TIME Magazine, GLAAD and all liberals really think of the Pope. While some people might say that Phil Robertson could have been subtler or less coarse with his comments or that the Pope would never say such things, the fact remains that the Pope and Phil Robertson literally believe the same thing. While Pope Francis has come out to say that Catholics should focus less on hot button social issues, he has never come out to disavow the Catholics church teachings on the subject, especially on same sex relationships.

At the last Democratic convention before the elections, there were reports that the party wanted to remove all references to God from their constitution. It reportedly took concerted efforts from President Obama to avert that. Not that he believes in God but he realised how that might look during an election year. The fact is that liberals really don’t believe in God. At best, they think that we are crazy to believe in the myth of God. At worst, they think we use the myth of God to spread hate and prejudice. They don’t believe in God but their gods are fame, money, position and power. The liberals say they want equality. That’s a lie. What they want is homogeneity where everyone looks and sounds the same. Which is not possible. Camille Paglia in her recent article in TIME Magazine, liberals are now even denying Biology and the very obvious differences in gender by saying gender is not something that comes naturally with birth but something forced on a child by society. Yet this is the same Biology they have always relied on in their support of the theory of evolution. Now it seems they have decided to pick and choose the parts of Biology they want.

Their denial of the existence of God means that they think that all of us, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus and members of all other faiths in the world are crazy, hateful, religious bigots. That means everyone the world over who doesn't adhere to their secularist view is a hateful, religious bigot. So if Muslims think it doesn't concern them, that’s not true. The last I heard, Prophet Mohammed’s teachings in the Koran prohibit same sex relationships. So in essence, this is bigger than Phil Robertson. To put it bluntly, what CNN, Wilson Cruz, Piers Morgan, Martin Sheen, President Obama and all liberals are saying is that Prophet Mohammed and every devout Muslim who adheres to his teachings are all religious bigots. How do I know President Obama thinks this way? He along with Prime Minister David Cameron has at several times threatened to withdraw aid from sovereign countries that do not do their bidding and decriminalise same sex relationships. Even deeply religious and conservative countries. So if we are to take their word for it, then the US and United Kingdom will cut aid to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other countries because the leaders of those countries are religious bigots. Now King Abdullah, Mr. Karzai and Muslim leaders, you now know what Piers Morgan, President Obama and CNN think of you.

I am an ardent Anglophile and that might be as a result of the fact that we were colonised by the British. I love their traditions and sense of history. But it pains me to see the depths the country that gave the world Smith Wigglesworth and C. S. Lewis hand sunk to. Martin Bashir, a compatriot of Piers Morgan gave us a glimpse of the general hatred liberals have of people who hold conservative views with his attack on Sarah Palin. Now Piers Morgan along with CNN has just told us what he thinks of the Pope and all of us who don’t agree with him. A few weeks ago, TIME Magazine honoured the Pope with the prestigious TIME Man of The Year Award. Now a sister company to TIME has told us what they really think of him. Make no mistake, an attack on Phil Robertson is an attack on all of us. Even the Pope.

Just because we don’t see eye to eye on issues, does that mean we have to resort to name calling and threatening people’s livelihood? GLAAD, CNN and Piers obviously think so. They talk about tolerance an acceptance and they talk about taking the high moral road. However when someone says something they don’t like, they attack like vipers. We say what we believe and they respond with insults and abuse. And they say their tolerant. They’re only tolerant with those who agree with them. But it’s not something that should surprise us. Jesus said a servant cannot be greater than his master, if the world hated him, it would definitely hate us. I respect the Pope as the head of the Catholic. And neither he nor Phil Robertson nor I or any other person deserves such abuse.  

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

  

Same Difference

“Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from strange wives.” Ezra 10: 11

Sometime ago, I read an article by Kay Warren where she was talking about her new book, “Choose Joy”. The article was in the form of an interview and she told the interviewer how she had suffered from depression and how she was different from her husband, Rick Warren in their outlook to life. She talked about how she hoped the book would help those that suffered from depression. The article was lovely and enlightening. However what disturbed me were the people commenting. One and all, they were all complaining about “the church”. Their grouse was with how the church did not understand what it was to suffer from depression and how the church looked down on those that suffered from depression. Their complaints were enough to make anyone feel depressed since I assumed they were Christians themselves to be reading an article from a Christian magazine. I might have been wrong. One of my thoughts was that if Christians were complaining about the church so much, why then would anyone want to become a Christian? Another thought was that the people who were complaining about the church so much had forgotten that they were part of the church.

I recently read another article via a link on Michael Hyatt’s Twitter feed that got me disturbed. The link was to an article by Joel Miller (I think). Mr. Miller was flabbergasted at the comments by Christians who saw nothing wrong with the pornographic content of the book, 50 Shades of Grey because according to some of them, “they got married in the end”. There were other comments by "Christians" along the lines of how the book could help married couples with their sexual lives.

These two things got me thinking about how there seems to be no difference between those who say they believe in Christ and those who don’t believe in anything. Christians now swear and use the F word because we think it cool, drink alcohol, dress provocatively in the name of fashion and looking good, we think the Bible is a story book filled with recommendations at best and totally old fashioned. We have as much divorce and extra marital affairs in the church as out of it. In fact, there is practically no difference now between those that say believe in God and those who curse God.

I believe the problem is that instead of letting the Word shine through us, we have allowed the world into our hearts. Because we do not know what the Words says and we are not living it, we have allowed the world to tell us how to live. Instead of being like Jesus and reflecting him, we have become like the world. Because we reflect the world and are like the world, the world sees no reason to change. Like the verse of scripture above and several other verses of Scripture in the Bible, God has always called us to be separate and not to be unequally yoked. We have not done this and therefore we are not expect from the upheaval that is in the world.

Over the next few weeks and months, I hope to share the ways in which the church has refused to give the world an alternative and had refused to reflect Jesus and has become like the world around it.

In your opinion, in what ways has the church become like the world around it?     

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
― G.K. Chesterton

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO, a novel published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers:

http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx

He is also the author of LOST, BUT FOUND, a story of love and redemption:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/