Catholicism is More Efficient
The only difference between a Catholic and a Protestant: Catholics have to go to church once a week for salvation, Protestants do 3 times.
— Paul M. Dohse (@PaulMDohse) December 31, 2015
Achieving Total Conquest Over Depression: Paul and Susan Christian Living Series on Blogtalk Radio, Part 3
Achieving Total Conquest Over Depression
Thursday night, January 7 @ 7pm.
Everyone wants to be happy. Happiness is the essence of a quality life. Closely akin to happiness is peace; a relaxed and tranquil state of mind. Clinical depression prevents both and thrusts one into the pits of darkness and despair. Trouble in life can put people into a day by day survival mode, clinical depression puts people into an hour by hour survival mode.
This type of depression is an oppression of the soul that often torments people with out of control thoughts coming from a racing mind. The person may experience psychopathic thoughts that are totally out of character for the individual. Interests and enjoyments vanquish—the depressed person loses all self confidence and believes they are losing their mind.
Depression’s greatest ploy is how it is experienced; it seems to be a foe that attacks from outside of us and oppresses whomever it chooses. In fact, the medical model of depression does nothing to lessen that fear. Can depression come upon us in the same way that we catch a cold? What are its causes, and what is the cure? Is there a cure? Is there hope for those stricken with major depression?
Susan and Paul will speak from their own experiences with clinical depression, and how it has stricken others. The topic of depression has been a focus of Paul’s studies for 35 years, and he has experienced it as an unbeliever and believer. But, ideas that come from experience alone are not adequate; facts must explain why life is experienced in the way that it is.
Don’t give depression another year; join Paul and Susan live and contribute to the discussion.
Live link on 1/7/2016: Achieving Total Conquest Over Depression
Followers of John Piper Continue to be Confused by Him; This Time it’s Gun Control
If you’re going to call yourself something, you ought to know what it is. Few Protestants know what a Protestant is, fewer Calvinists know what a Calvinist is, and most followers of John Piper are completely clueless in regard to what he really believes. Even the who’s who of evangelical academia bemoan things he often says with verbiage like, “Has anybody seen the real John Piper lately?” Uh, trust me, few that follow him have ever seen the real John Piper to begin with.
His latest attention getting controversy concerns an article he wrote on gun control. Apparently, according to a review of the article by Conservative Tribune, Piper believes Christians should disarm. However, the review also states that “Piper’s piece sent a shockwave through Christian and conservative circles and for good reason. While his heart may well be in the right place, Piper’s piece is full of confused conflations, unreasonable readings, and — heartless as this may sound — an ultimate lack of humanity.”
The review continued by citing specific things that Piper said in the article that are clearly a direct contradiction to the plain sense of Scripture. And that’s where I am going to park in regard to the main point of this post. Few followers of John Piper understand his position on state of being; in other words, how he interprets reality. By no means will the full scope of his philosophy be addressed here, but I will address his frequent poo-pooing of the plain sense of Scripture. There is a reason why this happens, and one would think this to be fairly evident.
Piper continually defies the plain sense of Scripture because he is an authentic Protestant. Do you want to find the real John Piper? Then find out what Protestantism was really about. The Protestant Reformation was totally about a whole new way of interpreting state of being and reality. I am going to keep this as simple as I can: it is the difference between “words mean things,” and interpreting all reality through a single prism. Protestantism was founded on interpreting ALL reality through the cross. This is sometimes known as the historical-redemptive hermeneutic which many believe to be a way of interpreting Scripture, and that is true, but first and foremost it is a way of interpreting reality.
The Reformers believed (and again, I am keeping this simple) that all of reality is a metaphysical story (meta narrative) about redemption written by God. So, all of reality is a story prewritten by God. He wrote the story for His own self-love and glory. In order to glorify Himself, he wrote evil into the script to better define His holiness. He created His anti-type, and then glorifies Himself by loving and saving some, and assigning others to eternal torment which also glorifies Him as well. Piper is mentored by the writings of Jonathan Edwards who believed the relatives of the damned would rejoice in regard to their fate because of the glory it would bring God.
Edwards also put feet on cross metaphysics through Idealism philosophy. This is the idea that all of reality is merely perceived in the mind, and all actions begin with an idea or thought. Even though the material world is experienced, it is dependent on mental perception. Hence, by God initiating and creating every first idea, he writes His metaphysical narrative about redemptive history for His own self-love and glory. Also, it is experienced as though we have control in matters of life, but in this interpretation of reality, it is God who creates the first idea of every action that takes place in our minds.
This is why Piper totally disregards biblical examples; that’s not the point. Anything done by the apostle Paul is not an example of what we should do, it’s merely the way God wrote the script. What happens in life, whether good or bad, gives God glory according to what He has predetermined. Hence, we should not be surprised that a “lack of humanity” is perceived in Piper’s writings.
But in the final analysis, it may all be a mute point when truth is based on authority. Perceived truth and personal culpability aren’t the issue, the truth authority of your choice is the issue. Past that, contradictions are totally irrelevant.
Those who care about contradictions shouldn’t be Protestants.
paul
It’s All About Life: A TANC Christmas Card
Between being a fire system inspector for facilities that serve the mentally handicapped, and more recently a HHA, I suppose it was inevitable that I would ask myself the two-part question: Why do we do it? Why do they do it?
Let’s begin with the “we.” Who is the “we”? It’s our country, America. Whether the facilities that I worked in for the mentally handicapped, or the dialysis facility I was in yesterday, why does America stand out as a nation that spares no expense whatsoever for the societal noncontributors?
And why do they do it? That is, those stricken with a severe lack of wellbeing; those who have a “low quality of life.” Why do they take a valiant stand on a small hill against death with the few things they have left to enjoy in life? Why is a hot bath every day enough? And well, if the aid will feed them a chocolate milkshake afterward—that’s really living large!
I am still pondering this mystery, but my best answer right now is that we are created in the image of God, and He loves life. Therefore, we are simply wired by God to love life, value life, and defend life. And as an aside, let me say that any society that will not defend life on the front side will eventually decease from defending life on the backside. This is simple metaphysical math. Morphing from the definition of what a person IS versus defining personhood by what a person DOES is a very short step.
The Bible says God is love—that’s what defines Him, and without life, where would love be? Many who hate life in the name of God answer this way: the only relevant love is God’s “self love.” But at any rate, it seems to me that the war between good and evil started with a rejection of life created by God. If you miss the following theme in the Bible, you have missed the forest because of the trees: life is good—death is evil. Therefore, doing good brings life, and doing evil brings death.
“Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
Something else seems evident to me. God not only created life as good, and loves life, but He created His creatures to have free will. He has ordained His creatures to choose good over evil, and life over death. He beseeches them to choose life, but He will not make the choice for them.
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
One errors greatly if they see God’s guardrails as burdensome commands and rules. The wisdom of the Bible is love and life. A pity infiltrators have detracted from that fact and enticed many to have cold indifference to the pleadings of God. The Bible never instructs us to celebrate the birth of Christ, but it is a most worthy celebration. Indeed, let us take this opportunity to exalt love and life in God’s honor and glory.
In the paramount act of love, Christ came to conquer God’s last enemy, the enemy He despises, death, and though Christ despised the shame of the cross, he endured it for the glory of life that would follow in His resurrection for all men who would love life as well.
Paul and Susan Dohse
Christmas Eve, 2015
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