Rev. Dustin ParkerWhy I choose Anarchy Part 2
Apologies again. Me and Natalie had our 2nd wedding ceremony and our honeymoon. I've only been back for a few days and this is the first chance I've had to really sit down, think and write some stuff here.
I promise to post pictures as soon as we get them back.
As Jordan so wonderfully ruined with his comment, the position that I take as a christian anarchist is one that I must acknowledge governments and other similar bodies as much as to keep the peace. Peace being one of those things that christians ought to work towards. But as christians should work together towards a vision what should not be forgotten is that every person may be a link in a chain, each link is far from being anything other than individual.
My experiences in this area were at the very least, fairly traumatic. There is a particular leader (who I will refrain from naming) who taught me that no matter how well an argument may be made, no matter who you quote from the same church that you both go to, they have little actual regard for anything that you have to say. The greater vision is the only vision allowed. Which of course is crap.
One of the most evident truths of the Bible is that God gave, and always did give, the ultimate choice to Man. He gave man freewill, and due to His perfection, He gave man perfect freewill. One of the most well known verses from the Old Testament is "I put before you life and death, choose life." In this way God never pleads with man. He at times orders, He offers and a lot of the time, He even reasons with him. There are times when God almost point blank refuses to answer man's questions (the end fo the book of Job where He answers all of Job's questions with more questions) yet He does not take the luxury of choice away from man. It is something that has been given, and this God has given, and God hath not taken away.
It is this ultimate choice within each and everyman I have come to respect. Many christians do not believe as I do. There are those that say that God is the authority and that man has no choice at all. If this was so, then good and evil would be a moot point as we could not choose between them. There are also those that say that church authority somehow has some kind of overruling factor over their freewill.
As you can tell, I'm not one of those people.
My choices here were very simply reasoned out. God has given me the right of choice. He has also given me a brain with which to think, a voice with which to speak, and ears to hear. CS Lewis once remarked that God must like matter as He invented it. My theory is that God likes individuals, or He wouldn't have gone to the bother to have created so many of them.
It was this basis of thinking that I took to understand that (and this is the track record that I have found in my life) alot of the time, church leadership if not properly trained (and by trained I don't mean brainwashed or indoctrinated to the point of mental inflexibility) turns out to be its own worst enemy.
At this time, I don't really have a good set of instructions to hand out that would make everything better. All I really have, are my choices and my gifts. And my intent to use them.
JZ
I promise to post pictures as soon as we get them back.
As Jordan so wonderfully ruined with his comment, the position that I take as a christian anarchist is one that I must acknowledge governments and other similar bodies as much as to keep the peace. Peace being one of those things that christians ought to work towards. But as christians should work together towards a vision what should not be forgotten is that every person may be a link in a chain, each link is far from being anything other than individual.
My experiences in this area were at the very least, fairly traumatic. There is a particular leader (who I will refrain from naming) who taught me that no matter how well an argument may be made, no matter who you quote from the same church that you both go to, they have little actual regard for anything that you have to say. The greater vision is the only vision allowed. Which of course is crap.
One of the most evident truths of the Bible is that God gave, and always did give, the ultimate choice to Man. He gave man freewill, and due to His perfection, He gave man perfect freewill. One of the most well known verses from the Old Testament is "I put before you life and death, choose life." In this way God never pleads with man. He at times orders, He offers and a lot of the time, He even reasons with him. There are times when God almost point blank refuses to answer man's questions (the end fo the book of Job where He answers all of Job's questions with more questions) yet He does not take the luxury of choice away from man. It is something that has been given, and this God has given, and God hath not taken away.
It is this ultimate choice within each and everyman I have come to respect. Many christians do not believe as I do. There are those that say that God is the authority and that man has no choice at all. If this was so, then good and evil would be a moot point as we could not choose between them. There are also those that say that church authority somehow has some kind of overruling factor over their freewill.
As you can tell, I'm not one of those people.
My choices here were very simply reasoned out. God has given me the right of choice. He has also given me a brain with which to think, a voice with which to speak, and ears to hear. CS Lewis once remarked that God must like matter as He invented it. My theory is that God likes individuals, or He wouldn't have gone to the bother to have created so many of them.
It was this basis of thinking that I took to understand that (and this is the track record that I have found in my life) alot of the time, church leadership if not properly trained (and by trained I don't mean brainwashed or indoctrinated to the point of mental inflexibility) turns out to be its own worst enemy.
At this time, I don't really have a good set of instructions to hand out that would make everything better. All I really have, are my choices and my gifts. And my intent to use them.
JZ
(just because he swallowed a f%%^&g dictionary when he was a kid doesn't give him the right to steal my thunder).
JZ