______________________________

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Oh man! This is a little bit belated post, supposed to talk about what my prof shared during school ermmm last year but HMMMM paisey ah! haha

ok, so the topic she was speaking about is the Christian's role in the public square. The following is a summary of what she shared.

The Christian's Role in the Public Square
Friend of God
Who are friends of God? Friends of God know God's heart, John 15. They are in essence disciples of Christ. The difference between disciples and converts is the cost of disciplehood, Luke 14. Jesus may not have favourites but He did have intimates like John.

Being Successful
Success in life is determined by how intimate we are with God and how much we discover our destiny in this world. It is like we started by having a meeting with God in heaven. God tells us our life mission on earth and assigns tasks to us. But when we come to earth we forget what we were told to do. And thus we are supposed to use the rest of life to figure out what it is.

Religion and State
Should we separate religion and state? It is not unconstitutional for religion to be separated from state. Singpore has a managed democracy. Being secular does not mean that we are earthly or worldly but secularism provides a public square as a forum for competing faiths. Faith is actually what we believe in and what we don’t believe in. So can a Christian talk abt government and politics? Yes. And why not? The popular assumption why this is wrong is because religion = prejudice = wrong. But this is in practice the same as an atheist.

In context of the s 377A debate:
Should Christians be compassionate about gays? What does it mean to have compassion? Do we really know the bible? Compassion is love which involves telling the truth and exposing the sin. It is not only exposing the sin but also to make hope obvious to the person.
The hard thing about being a Christian is that we have a conscience and we cannot retaliate if we have to. There are 2 schools of thoughts about law. 1- harm principal. All man should be free. 2- social function of law. Law is just a mechanism to create a sense of law and order.

It is possible for us to disqualify ourselves from God's plan:
Judges 7:3 Gideon. First thing that disqualifies ourselves is the FEAR of man, future etc. we disqualify ourselves from being used by God or to execute His plans.
Judges 7:5. Those who lap with the tongue and those who get down on their knees to drink – all were disqualified because they were not vigilant enough. It reflects the current situation. A lot of Christians are not watching and praying.

Book of life vs. BookSS of record
Every word, deed that we do will be called to account. Eph 6.

Some Philosophical Concpts:
3 main philosophies influence our ethics. It changes the way we do things.
Relativism – anything goes.
Humanism – man is the measure of all things. If there is no God, there is man
Materialism – physical things.

4 ungodly notions: Heterosexualism; Racism; Sexism; Economic exploitation

4 bad philosophies of the whole world may be summed up in Gen 3:4-5. The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil
1) Reincarnation: Idea that we all get second chances and we’re not being held accountable for how we’re living our lives now
2) Esotericism: Idea of hidden knowledge (eyes will be opened)
3) Pantheism: There is no difference between good and evil, between man and God
4) Relativism: Man becoming deified and how we’re the source of all morals

It is very easy to fall prey to moral depravity:
Rm 1:18-31 is our Moral Barometer. For example,
Stage 1: sexual immorality, fornication. But Christianity teaches chastity before marriage, fidelity after.
Stage 2: sexual impurity, homosexualism
Stage 3: moral anomaly. Depraved minds. Inherent ways of evil. Not only flaunt, celebrate evil. People are shameless. What happens at this stage? National sins begs national judgement.

What is our best defence then?
Christians only have 2 weapons: truth and compassion.
The fight for truth must stem out of a heart of compassion for people. Truth hurts but it will set free in the end.

xian...out!

+ yixian was here 10:13 PM