I received an e-mail from “Frequent Commenter Ken” linking me to iMonk’s new article which linked me to this excellent article (read all the bullet points) about the Southern Baptist Convention’s new “40/40 Prayer Guide” specifically designed to ‘covertly’ tell us via ‘loopholes’ who to vote for.

Another flawed formula, another failed promise

This, combined with the Pulpit Freedom Sunday to take place September 28, 2008 shows us that the American church is deeply flawed and too busy fighting wars the Don Quixote way instead of the Bible way. Instead of reading from the book of Acts, it holds the U.S. Constitution in higher esteem where Christian Reconstructionalism is more important than the Christian Great Commission. I have always found it interesting that the leaders of this movement would adamantly denounce charismatic dominionalism but literally disguise it and reword it as theocratic christian reconstructionalism and get the charismatics on board with them.

You made a vow to the government by accepting 501c3 status that you would not talk politics. So, are you going to break the laws that the God you worship tells you to obey in order to ‘politic in God’s name’?

Let me tell you something here, if American Christians from all denominations unite to create the Christian Theocracy instead of living out the Bible, we will then see after the ‘victory’ the Christians start warring from within and deeming ‘weaker’ and ‘less affluent’ denominations as ‘liberal and compromising’ and go out to ‘kill them in the name of God’.

It is what happened in Afghanistan during the Soviet Invasion. The Taliban got funding and weapons and therefore was seen as ‘anointed in the eyes of Allah to lead the fight’, was able to convince the people victory in the name of Allah if all the religious factions united, and late in the conflict / after the Soviets pulled out, began singling out the ‘weaker’ and ‘less Islamic’ factions and started killing those people.

We had eight years of “God’s Man”. Is abortion outlawed? Is prayer back in the public schools? Is the land flowing with milk and honey? Are there no more gay people in America? Has the powerball lottery been eliminated? What we have here didn’t just come into existence and became ‘invented’ on June 17, 1963 as every right-wing Christian tries to convince us. It has been around for centuries and spoken about in the Bible and plainly identified as sin.

However, unlike Islam and the religious right who think you conquer and overcome temptation by extincting and outlawing it, the Bible teaches us that we conquer and overcome temptation by choosing to say no to it, walking through it and coming out on the other side in victory and free from the snares. The Bible tells us in II Timothy 2:22 to:

Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Analyze this for a moment. If the Bible tells you to flee it, that means that the temptation of lust is present and can exist again and again. In fact, the Bible telling us to flee the temptation instead of trying to permanently eliminate it should raise up the red flag to say that the focus and the fight is wrongly misguided and that walking through temptation not eradicating it is the correct Biblical way to approach temptation. In fact, it should even tell us that temptation in and of itself can not be eliminated but can be overcame.

What is more interesting is that the way of walking through the temptation and fleeing youthful lust is in the same verse by pursuing righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

We can try all the formulas all we want to… We can do a 40 day prayer rally… We can give you ‘unbiased news coverage’ (and be biased when telling you so and biased by saying we are unbiased)… We can do a republican rebellion from the pulpit all we want to…. We can hold ‘The Call Rallies’ and blow all the shofars all we want to…. We can mega-repent for invented sins, shout at the sky in divine delirium in the name of strategic-level spiritual warfare, and hold ‘fast-a-thons’ until we are skinny and emaciated……

However, if we fail to obey the Scriptures and not learn how to overcome temptation instead trying to eliminate temptation, we will fail as individual people who will one day have to give an individual account for our life because we wanted dominion instead of discipleship, domain instead of divinity, and domination on Earth instead of a domicile in heaven’s unearthly estate.

Faith…….. Not Formula

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