Don't They Know Their Soul Is Endless (The Absence of Martyrdom In America)

This is my first blog that’s not written for the Scriptures 1 class I was in last semester and all following blogs are outside of that class; most I think will stay to a religious theme in some respect or another.

It may come as a shock to some to know that I was once a part of a very violent gang. I won’t give names or crimes or any of the such, but suffice to say there is something inherent in them and still in me that I want to bring to the forefront for Christendom.
I can go to anyone in the gang, male or female, Blacks, Whites, Mexicans, Asians, Jews, Romanians, and Poles, and ask them of their illicit, very illegal, activities and they would point blank tell me all that they were doing and in very matter of fact language, no remorse and no holding back. For argument’s sake I could then tell them the consequences of their actions, specifically referring to jail time, or even the death penalty and with a smile or a laugh every one of them would say “I don’t care”.
Three simple, but very powerful words missing from the modern American Christian’s language; “I don’t care”. I will explain a little further on what I mean, for it is not enough to simply not care, but it is a specific absence of care to a specific thing and that is our life; our very living breathing life. The modern American Christian wants to hold onto their life so dearly as to give up even Christ for it – “Then many will fall away” (Matt. 24:10). What a sad and disturbing Christendom we live in. And gosh the rallying cry is “No one in America is hunting us (Christians) down and saying we can’t worship our God”. To that I have two very large things to say. One: I would put a very huge “YET” in that statement. Humans are very weak and evil, therefore a whole government ran by them is death waiting to happen; count on that. Two: I would harshly say that maybe no one in America is hunting Christians down because none of us are actually real Christians.
What fake Christians we are running around today. Going to church every Sunday to the grand mega church that is surely in God’s graces because they have five trillion members, then pissing it away the rest of the week. Relying on a Godless government to support everything we do and “allow” us to practice our practices, forgetting I Samuel 8 which makes it clear that the only reason God puts a government in place is to show how crappy and evil they are in comparison to how perfect and good He is; what a noble concept. We run around buying the next big thing to turn around and clamor five seconds later for the next new big thing that’s even “better”. When can we read the next Pure Get Back to Christ book that makes us feel so warm and great inside because we have finally got back to how the “first church” was; too bad we forget that a ton of the first church were killed for their beliefs, but we leave that part out, because it’s not wholesome. A watered down Christ for a gluttonous nation, raise the glasses, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we don’t die because we did “right” and so God will reward us into luxury; health and wealth baby. It is truly sad to say that the violent members of the gang I was in are far more real than 90% of Christians I know. Is it any wonder then that none of us are willing to die for Christ, or is it any wonder why no one is hunting us down to kill us since none of us are truly living as Christians. Then we have so many denominations that unity is a word that has left the Christian vocabulary so much so that some of us are willing to condemn each other to Hell over our church name, songs, doctrines, etc. and in that case I love both Rob Bell and John Piper equally as brother’s in Christ (see recent news). I am reminded of the first parable found in Peter Rollins’ book called The Orthodox Heretic where a man is arrested for being a Christian. His bible is all marked up and he’s been seen going to church, writing all these beautiful things about God and Jesus and preaching. Except in light of all of this he is found “not guilty” of being a Christian because he did not truly live the life, because to live the life would be in defiance of the governing powers. It so lovingly conjures Matthew 7:22-23 to mind. We have been swept away by this . . . .
You do realize that to truly live as Christ is to live in direct opposition with any and all governing authorities. This is not because you are blatantly breaking laws and railing against the system, rebelling as it were. Rather it is because the human system is so evil and corrupt that when it sees Christ its only response is to put that down by killing it because such Christianity points out the sheer evils of the system and no system will put up with that for long. To truly live as Christ is to be hated by those who do not live by Christ. “Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name” (Matt 24:9).
I take a look at history and I see that the two really major times where there were countless martyrs to the name of Christ I see one: the early church and two: the Reformation period reformers. Kind of makes you think that we really aren’t living as true Christians because no one is trying to get rid of us like in those two time periods.
I am by no means saying that being a martyr makes you a Christian or that you have to die to truly receive your salvation. What I am saying that you have to be willing to lay your life aside for Christ, including up to and not limited to torture and death for doing so. You may never be called to die, or find yourself in that situation, but if you are not willing to die then your claim as a Christian means nothing. But again if you truly live as Christ then I would guarantee that you will most certainly make someone angry enough to get rid of you.
I can look to the sea of gangs, hate mongers like the KKK, dictators, and the like and listen to them say they are so willing to die for their beliefs and willingly do so and then I look to my Christian brothers and sisters and see them cowering in the corner ready to renounce Jesus so long as they get to live. I read Polycarp, Ignatius, and Perpetua and where everyone else sees psycho people with death wishes I see beautifully set free men and women who know what they believe and are more than willing to die for Christ, because Christ died for them. You stand in the pews and pulpit saying we need to Imitate Christ in all that we do, well that includes dying. This is not a call to suicide, but a call to live as Christ did for to do so will end in death, but for us death is life, because they cannot kill our soul for it belongs to Christ and Christ alone and death for us only ends in Heaven.
So let’s live like real Christians, really and truly so, and when they come to arrest us and kill us we can rest assured that they will find us guilty of being a Christian and when they sentence us to death our only reply will be “I don’t care”.

God Bless all of those who have died for His name.
Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

Why Not Name It Judah?

Unless I can maybe argue extra credit points for more than 20 blogs this will be my last blog for my Scriptures I class, but stay tuned for more fun shortly. For this blog I wanted to go simple. In reading I and II Kings recently I have gained a better understanding of the time period of what has become known as the "Divided Monarchy", which if you don't know refers to the time when the Hebrew nation was two separate nations. The one in the North was called Israel and the one in the South was called Judah. Now if you do your history homework you'll discover Israel was wiped out in 722 BCE and then Judah fell in 587 BCE. However, Judah wasn't really completely destroyed as Israel was and most of it's people went into Exile, but those eventually came back out of exile returning to Judah; again Israel did not exist at that time or any time after that, at least not as it once was anyway. As I have stated before I am half-Jewish by blood and my Uncle Rosh (full blooded Jew) served and fought in Warsaw in WWII and then when he got out of the camps he and surviving family came to Israel and there he fought in the early wars for Jewish independence in a country that we all know as Israel today. Well, that is odd I think, and Uncle Rosh and I have discussed it on many occasions as he thought the country should have been called Judah, as do I. It just seems really ironic that the newly formed modern Jewish state would choose to name themselves after the Northern Kingdom of Israel when the Bible clearly presents that this country was the worse of the two, hence its annihilation. It fell hardcore into Baal worship and it's leaders stuck to "Jeroboam's sin" continuously. Granted Judah was no angel by any means, but the biblical text makes it clear that Judah was the one who returned from exile, indicating that they weren't as bad as Israel. It just seems to me (and Uncle Rosh) that it would mean more to name the modern nation Judah instead, i.e. the survivors of exile. The holocaust was a form of exile on the most extreme level and those that survived (many of them anyway) flocked to Palestine. I guess it just seems more fitting to call it Judah. This would really mean a lot to the Christians as Jesus was from the tribe of Judah and so was David and Solomon for that matter. But of course, maybe, like many people feel, Israel was not only the name of the nation originally (which I am inclined to slightly argue with), but now it would be fitting to honor that fallen Northern nation by naming the modern nation Israel. Maybe one day they'll get around to changing the name. Who knows. As always food for thought.

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

Really That Wise?

It is interesting to me how famous and well known and well loved Solomon was and is, but we have so very little of him in just I Kings. Regardless it is Solomon's so-called wisdom that I wish to discuss today. In I Kings Ch. 3 we have the infamous story of God telling Solomon that he can have anything that he asks for; anything! So Solomon asks for wisdom and God is pleased with this request and grants it. His wisdom encompasses "a mind to govern God's people" and "able to understand between good and evil". Okay that's all well and fine and then he even goes on to display this wisdom in the same chapter with an interesting story between two women and a baby. The text further says that people from all over the world came to hear his wise sayings. Alright, so apparently Solomon was a wise guy. Of course then we come to Ch. 11 of I Kings and we hit a big roadblock where it says he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, if you do your math correctly that is a 1000 women, which puts any polygamist to shame! A wise man knows one woman is enough to handle, this is not chauvinistic because the adverse is just as, if not more, true in saying a wise woman knows that one man is enough to handle. Solomon has a 1000! Okay okay I can get past this, I guess if he is so wise he can easily juggle all of them, but then we quickly find that many of them are foreign, oh whoops. Solomon did ask for discernment between good and evil, well crap hasn't God repeatedly said to the Hebrews not to marry foreign women (see Deut.), let alone a thousand of them! His heart turned from God to them and boom there went his wisdom right out the door. Any man will tell you that women have this power and not necessarily because they can but because we more often than not let them have it. The whole point of it is that if we are so wise then always keeping our hearts on God should be key at all times not matter what power the opposite sex may or may not have over us! So maybe Solomon was just wise selectively . . . .

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

Paved With Good Intentions

There is an interesting section in II Samuel Chapters 13-19 involving one of David's sons named Absalom. Starting in 13 David's daughter Tamar is raped by David's son Amnon (Yes that would make Amnon and Tamar brother and sister). Now David gets mad over this but does not kill Amnon because he is David's first born, but this is unacceptable to Absalom (as it should be). We see this same sort of instance earlier in Genesis with the rape of Dinah in ch. 34. Jacob did not want to seek vengeance but his sons Levi and Simeon saw other wise. Now, in my neighborhood in Midland it is a Ghetto to the max and there used to be several rapes in the area and it was very distributing to me and I have a very particular hatred for not only the act but the one who did it as well. I am working on this hate, but all of that to say when Absalom took it upon himself to kill Amnon I did not shed a tear for Amnon, nor will I ever I think. It disturbed me most of all that David did nothing. I understand it is his son, but if not death, there should have been some very very heavy repercussions! So Absalom kills Amnon and goes into hiding from fear of David. Absalom starts off with some good intentions, I think, by avenging his sister. But somewhere along the way those intentions take a hard left and he decides he should be king instead of his father David. I dislike that he did this, but part of me can see why. I mean David did absolutely nothing to Amnon when he raped his sister, David's daughter. I know the world is a man-centric world and sons, especially first born sons, are everything, but daughters are children too and for his daughter to be raped by her own brother is an immense travesty. So for David to do nothing about it is really a slap in the face to the already deeply shamed Tamar, something Absalom could not stand for and this I think is what really led him to believe that he should be king and if that is the case then that is not the worst logic. Absalom eventually goes into civil war with David and everything becomes a mess. He eventually dies very oddly, by getting caught in a tree and is killed by Joab while he hangs there helplessly. If we remember, Deut. 21 tells us that anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed, i.e. one of the many reasons the Jews do not hold Jesus as the Messiah since he died on a wooden cross; a tree in other words. The whole thing plays out like a very tragic drama, something Shakespeare would write. It is more sad that Absalom started out good (as good as one can be in that situation) and then it all just went down hill. Who needs a Soap Opera, when you have the Bible!

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

Why I Am A Christian Anarchist

Many would would say to be a Christian Anarchist is a double negative or a oxymoron. After all a true Anarchist holds no one as leader, including God. Of course this being the case no anarchists are true anarchists as all of them at least hold themselves as their leader. Regardless, a Christian Anarchist is this: Someone who does not hold humans as their leaders but only God alone. So my question to other Christians is why are they not anarchists? I repeatedly come across I Samuel 8:4-22 and I am disgusted as this is our stupid culture today and will forever be. So here's that story in a nutshell (please look up the actual verses): The Hebrews are moving along with God as their leader chiefly and they continually distrust him and fall back on their own ways and for some odd reason they believe they need a human leader in addition to God. Their reasoning: They wanted to be like everyone else who had kings around them. Huh, that's funny I do recall God explicitly telling them not to be like the nations around them for they are set apart (see Joshua 23). And what a horrible illogical reason to want a king in the first place. The motherly phrase, "well if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you too" comes to mind. Sadly the answer is often yes. So the Hebrews beg God for a king. God tells them that a king will take everything they have; their children, their livestock, their money, etc. Hmmm . . . gosh is this sounding familiar, seems like I pay a ton of taxes. Notice God says the king will take take take take take and take, but never once does God mention that he will give anything back and we who actually pay attention have noticed this still holds true. No government/king/president has ever helped me or my family so I and friends and family have had to do it ourselves and yet we still pay those taxes that are somehow supposed to benefit us! This past election I was flipping through the TV and came across the inauguration and people were being interviewed in the streets and they came across an elderly black woman who said "Oh thank the lord, President Obama is going to pay my bills, buy off my house and my car, we are saved". I could not believe the idiocy I was hearing, but Lord help us all so many people think that way. "If we can just get the right man or woman in office all of our problems will be solved, they just have to be right?". But God says they will only take and take and take and then when you have nothing left they'll take some more. Very curious that God does not mention that they will give anything back. But the people begged God still. What an offense to God. You can spin these verses any way you like but this instance is a hard slap to God's face, followed by spitting in his face. After all God had done for them, getting them out of Egypt, making them numerous, giving them food and water, giving them everything they needed and then some. Then to have the audacity to ask for someone else to lead them. I don't understand this. Historians can argue their political reasons for the "need" for a king, coming into a land surrounded by enemies and superpowers, surly they would need a good strong leader to lead them through all of that so they could be a strong nation. Yep that's true, the leader is God. The fact is even when they got a king that when they failed to believe and trust in God then the king failed and so did they. So why not just leave it in God's hands. It is beyond me why they and why we want a human leader who will always fail us, take from us, and never give anything back to us. I have to wonder are we really that dumb? God relents to the people and gives them a king and anyone with a history book can easily see that it went nothing but downhill from there and continues to do so. I have to wonder how far we will fall before we finally realize that God is the one and only leader who would ever do us justice. Even better in I Samuel 9:2 the scriptures makes it very known that Saul, the Hebrew's first king, is ridiculously handsome. Big whoop, who cares, I want to know if he can freaking lead us not win a flipping beauty pageant! This too has not gone away as I hear people remark how handsome our leaders are. And as all the good little Christian's quote Jesus says, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's" and I say yep you should probably really pay attention to that last part because it's the key especially in light of I Samuel 8. God warned us that Kings will take from us and one day said King is going to tell you to bow down to him as opposed to bowing to God as you should, what will you do then? You should probably consider that God very reluctantly gives into the people as he probably does today since we still beg for a king over him, so I have to say that the only reason their is human leader is to show how bad they are in comparison to how great God is. You can rely on that worthless human leader, "but as for me and mine, we will serve the Lord!"

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

Oh Gaza . . . .

In reading Joshua, Judges, and I Samuel I noticed something curious. I guess I should note that from a half-Jewish perspective who has been many many times to Israel and the ever fun area of Gaza (he says sarcastically) I really noticed this. And this is that Gaza in the Biblical texts is a Philistine city. Now if you pay attention at all to Joshua to II Kings and really beyond you will quickly notice that the Philistines are an ever present enemy/problem/nuisance/annoyance to the Hebrew peoples. Well to the modern Israelite this peaks the interest if nothing else. And this will be a bold possible projection on my part, but it seems there has to be something to the fact that Gaza is still in existence today and is still a thorn in Israel’s side (in which I must admit that they are not always the instigators in all cases of recent instances, we have had our fair share of mistakes as well, which is to say I am not bias as I may sound). There has to be at least a little bit of something of a parallel if not direct relation to Gaza-Hebrews then to Gaza-Israelites now. I guess for me the similarities are too . . . well, similar. Once again, this could very much be conjecture on my part, but I had to say it nonetheless. On a different note, yet similar, I must say that I used to be a hardcore Zionist until I actually went into Gaza. I am very much still behind Israel, but my perspective is not as blind as it used to be in terms of Israel doing no wrong. Food for thought . . .

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle

And I Burn

I am going backwards in time a little bit as far as staying on par with our subject matter in Scriptures I, but this particular subject has been on my mind a lot lately especially since I am taking Scriptures I and II together and finding the infinite parallels that are there in the Old Testament. I guess I should tell those who are not in the know that Scriptures I covers Genesis through II Kings, while Scriptures II covers everything else that is in the Old Testament. Anyways, what I wanted to discuss is the use of fire in the book of Leviticus. Every time I have been reading my bible for one of these classes when fire shows up I write in the margin “ultimate cleanser”. All of the rituals and cleansing in Leviticus are done mostly through fire and with fire being a common element in a theophany (revealing of God) I have to say that fire is the ultimate cleanser. It often makes me think of the Toadies song “I Burn”; I know this is not their particular context per say, but gosh it sure fits well regardless, plus isegeting (probably spelled this way wrong, it’s the word that is the opposite of exegesis if that helps any) into a song is not so bad, ha ha.

"Driftin' upward
Gently lifted
Lazy on the wind

Rollin' over
Turnin' slowly
Beginning and the end

Fire is bright
Fire is clean
Never so alive

Smoke is freedom
Flame is mercy
I am free tonight

And I burn
I burn

Stoke the embers
Cleanse the spirit
A prayer in every spark

Feel the lick of
Bad religion
The finish and the start

In the beginning
We were smarter
And the flame was heaven-sent

Through the ages
We got stupid
Now we must repent

And I burn
I burn

Save the ashes
For reminders
Stony things remain

Tooth and bone
unimpressive
I have left these things

Because fire is bright
Fire is clean
efficient and divine

Tooth and bone
Charms and dolls
I am free tonight

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I BURN
THE AIR
YOU BREATHE

I burn
I burn
I burn

Shameless plug, but this whole album is great, I suggest a heavy listening of it. I digress, skipping ahead to the New testament we have this interesting instance with John the Baptist and some words he says:

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

This is in Luke 3: 16 and we find a similar verse in Matthew 3:11. When I first heard this I was like “okay I understand baptizing with the holy spirit, that just makes sense, but then I came to ‘and with fire’” and this threw me way off. Fire! Who and why would anyone baptize with fire, isn’t that destructive, well, no, after reading Leviticus I have to say no. There are these commands to completely burn something to cleanse it or offer it, to “turn it into smoke” the text sometimes says. This is very interesting to me. Obviously we think of water as the ultimate sane cleanser to wash away whatever it is that needs washing away. But it is fire that completely burns away that which is bad. We see this when a forest ranger tells us that it is good for the occasional fire to happen in the forest (contained of course) because not only do new trees grow back but they come back even better than before; more rich, more fuller, and more productive. Fire to the sensible mind is of course painful and avoidable, but it seems more often than not that pain is almost always synonymous with really learning a lesson so to speak; hence the reason the bible encourages punishment to children and the like. It just seems to me like there is something to this heavy use of fire all throughout the Bible in a positive light (pardon the pun). It really does come across as the ultimate cleanser in the way that it is presented especially in the Old Testament and even occasionally in the New Testament. To add to that, as scary as it is to think about this also feeds into our western thought of a fiery burning Hell, where an eternal ultimate cleansing would happen so to speak. Something to think about.

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle