You Must Be Born Again !!!

You must be born again !! Come on ! I command you! Be born again! ....what's wrong with you?

I told you - You MUST be born again !!! .....Try harder! Be wise enough to be born again! Come on ! Use that free will that makes you born again !! ........ YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!

Feel encouraged now ?

Of course not.

This would have to possibly one of the most quoted passages from the bible in the world, yet sadly misapplied. It is frequently used in churches to induce decisions by people and I believe it misses the point of the passage this verse is taken from. When most churches use it(mostly sincerely) they nonetheless use it with a massive dose of guilt and obligation heaped upon the recipient.

"You must be born again'' is taken from John chapter 3 : verses 1 - 10. Verses 5-8 specifically speak of the idea of being 'born again'. In most modern day churches this verse is simply ripped out of this passage without any explanation of the context and used as a strong command for people to do something. For many years i did not look at this passage with any real depth, mostly as i was still blinded by my past church culture's accepted and enforced view of this passage.

It's only in fairly recent times that i was able to critically look at this idea of being 'born again'. Why is the notion of being born again used? If Jesus was wanting to command us to do something he could have used a more appropriate term like ''You must commit your life to me!".

But the use of the term 'born again' is there for a reason. How many of us decided that our parents would 'get together' and make us? What say did you have in their conception of you? None! None whatsover!!.......Try all you want and you cannot make yourself be born simply by deciding to. And how many of us (as in verse 8) know exactly where the wind is coming from and going to for any real length of time? Not too many i would think.

Far from being a command John's ''You must be born again'' can only be about hope - that the way to know God is not dependent on us at all. It's ALL ABOUT GOD'S GRACE! And not our effort!

It is not a command but simply a FACT! And in Christ humanity IS Born Again!

Perfect Fear Casts Out Love

Perfect Fear casts out Love This is a quote from 1 John 4:18 Well not quite...The reverse is how it reads: "Perfect Love casts out Fear". But going by the idea taught in most churches as 'good news'...well it might as well read as "Perfect Fear....." cos for some reason they think they telling people they are going to literally burn forever (and i mean trillions upon trillions of years is just the beginning) if they don't make a wise choice is somehow giving them good news..? Huh? Tell me - what good news is there in this if everything regarding eternity is up to you ultimately. This is the "ultimate no brainer" - Ie - people are given the option of going to hell forever or to a place of peace and being known they are totally accepted....Now of course what would you do if someone came along and told you " You have 2 options " I throw u into that furnace over there OR you can come to this great pool party where all your friends and loved ones will be" ...It's obvious! Yet this is seen as the good news in churches everywhere. Good news implies that something is announced! It is not called "good possibility if you make a wise choice" etc....Perfect Fear is what the idea of a literal hell/lake of fire is all about....There can be no more complete sense of fear than what is implied by unbearable physical torment forever and ever.

The above picture is from the back of a magazine I subscribe to ‘Heaven’s Metal’ fanzine – which focuses on the Christian heavy metal scene. Although I like the musical content of this magazine this picture highlights the terrible Arminian theology that permeates much of the Western world, and especially the USA. This picture perfectly shows the idea of “perfect fear casts out love” and it appeals to man’s basest fear of pain. It also infers that people aren’t living up to the pre expected standards of what Arminian theology teaches, and therefore by default leaves open ‘irredeemable guilt’ for not “living like it was true”. It doesn’t give people a sense of free will in the end anyway because I have yet to meet someone who actually wants to put their body into a lake of fire. True free will is when someone can choose from options that don’t have threats attached to them. I would argue that one can only choose freely when love has freed a person.

Hugh Jackman gets it!

Earlier this year i came across this piece from a ninemsn news website. Notice what Hugh Jackman says in the last line - what many people in the world think I would say. They've been told the 'good news' - most of them many times but most intrinsically know that it seems too 'hard' to follow and is not good news in the end, but more like a death threat. Hugh can see that according to most statistics on Christianity it is likely that the vast majority of the world is going to a literal hell forever and he knows this is not good news....Kinda explains why most tend to turn off the instant a christian message is presented to them. Most people involved in churches don't seem to consciously think along these same lines. They just don't think of the statistics or the very low take up of christianity - if they did they would have to wonder how the gospel message is such a hopless failure worldwide, and should despair beyond comprehension.

Or there is an alternative to this madness and only this one i believe is in harmony with a God whose Love never fails - Universal Salvation through Christ for all in the fullness of time.

"Hugh Jackman bares soul over Christianity, karma
Article from:
January 04, 2009 11:30pm
HE'S the down-to-earth Boy From Oz who goes grocery shopping and takes the kids to the beach, but Hugh Jackman has revealed he spent years soul-searching for a spiritual belief system separate from Christianity.
And while probably losing fan support from a few church groups, the Australia star proves his "Sexiest Man Alive" crown was well-deserved by saying he believes in love at first sight.
Following his father's conversion to the Christian faith after being touched by American evangelist Billy Graham, Jackman said he had no choice but to follow suit.
"But ultimately, the Christian religion didn't really click with me - it left too many questions unanswered," he told London's Daily Mail.
"I couldn't get past the fact that 95 per cent of people on the planet are going to hell because they are non-Christian."

'Clayton's Universalism'

Back in the 80s in Australia there was an advert for a beer called 'Clayton's'. If i remember correctly it advertised the beer as "the beer you're having when you're not having a beer".

I've just thought of a new adapted usage for this kind of phrase.

"Perichoresis: The universalim you're having when you're not having Universalism."

I came across the Perichoresis movement in the late 90s. I learnt some great things from the books of Baxter Kruger etc and am still grateful for what i learnt - especially the grand vision of how deep and huge the impact of the Incarnation is, and about the true relational idea of God - through discovering that the Trinitarian concept is fundamentally about relationship.

However, as time went on i gradually began to see inconsistencies in the Perichoresis movement. They would talk as universalists yet always deny they were teaching this. On the one hand it teaches that all humanity IS seated at the right hand of the Father through Christ and is reconciled to Him, yet would say that not All humanity is saved. Or there would be word games - ie - they would say that everyone is saved - but they can still experience hell, cos God respects their free will' etc.......Huh!? There was a lot of talk about 'assurance' yet in the end i found it opened up the door to potentially more 'unassurance'. There can be no assurance if any part of the salvation story is finally up to me.

In the end i found that they merely shifted the goal posts back further....there were still goal posts! And I could only come to the conclusion that it's message was 'Glorified Arminianism'.

I can still enjoy the books put out by Perichoresis, but only if i read them as they appear to be - seeing all creation as actually redeemed and that all humanity is really saved.

I hate labels but if i were to have one it would be some kind of almalgamation known as 'CalBarthian' Believer in Universal Salvation'