Blog Archives - IRONSTRIKES

Blessing and Confessing

10/20/2018

There is an inexhaustible fountain of blessings in that saying of St. Paul's, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." The believing must be with the heart, the affections, THE WILL, and not merely with the head -- the Intellect.

Believing in this way brings one into righteousness. into the principle of right, into the determination and the power to do right. This is a great blessing. But with the mouth -- not merely with the life -- confession is made unto salvation. There must be the frank, outspoken confession. if you would taste in their fullness the joys of salvation.

It was for his own benefit, as well as for that of others, that the Psalmist said, "Come, all ye that fear the Lord, and I will declare unto you what he hath done for my soul." You cannot keep the blessing God has given you unless you declare it.

Confess it to your family, to those with whom you come in contact, and, on proper occasions, to the great congregation.

Roberts, B.T. Pungent Truths (Kindle Locations 1554-1562). Unknown. Kindle Edition.

Two Kinds of Loneliness

10/20/2018

In the spiritual life we have to make a distinction between two kinds of loneliness. In the first loneliness, we are out of touch with God and experience ourselves as anxiously looking for someone or something that can give us a sense of belonging, intimacy, and home. The second loneliness comes from an intimacy with God that is deeper and greater than our feelings and thoughts can capture.

We might think of these two kinds of loneliness as two forms of blindness. The first blindness comes from the absence of light, the second from too much light. The first loneliness we must try to outgrow with faith and hope. The second we must be willing to embrace in love.

For further reflection...

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. - Psalm 25:16 (NIV)

This devotional is taken from Henri Nouwen: henrinouwen.org

Listening With Our Wounds

10/19/2018

To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is healing.

For further reflection...

Then Jesus said, "Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!" - Mark 4: 9 (NRSV)

This devotional was written by Henri Nouwen: henrinouwen.org

Misguided Advice

10/18/2018

“If you direct your heart rightly,
you will stretch out your hands toward him. If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and do not let wickedness reside in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish;
you will be secure, and will not fear." Job 11:13-15

Job’s friend, Zophar tries to give him advice. Zophar believes that Job is being punished for something that he has done wrong and is now suggesting a solution. I’m afraid that many people would find this advice plausible, and may even have been given this kind of suggestion. The problem is that the central focus of salvation becomes Job. There is no savior here, but only a human being who is supposed to get things right on their own power.

Zophar tells Job to get his heart right, because obviously it was wrong if bad things happened to him. However, that’s simply not the case. Job had been a good and righteous man, he hadn’t done anything to deserve what had happened to him.

The friend tells Job to put anything sinful far away from him and basically outlines a works type of faith. If you do all the right things, then you, personally, can lift up your face without a blemish. You do all the right things, then you will be secure and will not fear.

This was misguided advice because it completely misunderstood Job’s circumstances. It also assumed that Job was entirely responsible for his sufferings and that he was the one who could change everything.

Application:

If we read that passage out of context we just may catch ourselves in agreement with what Zophar is saying.

Have we ever said these kinds of things to others?

1 - “If only your heart had been right, these things would not have happened to you.”

2 - “Stretch out your hand toward God, and put all your sins behind you.”

3 - “Don’t let there be any wickedness in your life.”

4 - “Only when you get your act together can God then forgive you.”

My grandmother heard the first sentence when she gave birth to a little girl with Down’s syndrome. Many relatives came to visit and told her that she must have done something wrong in life or she would not have this baby. We wouldn’t say that to someone today, but far too often we find ourselves blaming something difficult on the individual who is suffering.

The second through fourth sentences reflect a lack of understanding regarding grace. This puts all the power of salvation into the hands of the sinner, and that’s a powerless feeling. It also means that we put ourselves in the place of God. Only Christ reaches out to us and through his death on the cross, cleanses us from the sins. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can wickedness be removed from your life. Only through the gracious work of God can we experience the transformational work of the Holy Spirit. Just like the prodigal son, we are invited to come home, just as we are, and there be welcomed in a warm embrace.

Zophar’s advice put Job at the center of his own universe and the power of salvation in his own hands. We are not God and there aren’t enough good works for us to do to be saved. May we never be tempted to give this kind of misguided advice. Instead, may we become channels of God’s prevenient grace, continually pointing people in the direction of Christ.

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for your gracious love that we cannot earn, nor do we deserve. Draw me ever closer to you this day, and every day. Amen.

This post was written by Rev Carla Sunberg. You can find her original post here: reflectingtheimage.blogspot.com/2018/10/misguided-advice.html

Research: Mental Well-Being in the Religious and Non-Religious

10/17/2018

Abstract: Previous studies demonstrating a positive relationship between religiosity and mental health have sampled from a highly religious general population with little differentiation between weak religiosity and non-religiosity. Church members are typically compared with non-religious unaffiliated individuals, thus confounding belief with group effects (e.g. social support). The present study examined mental well-being, utilising the full range of certainty of belief or non-belief in God. In the first study, we compared church and secular group members on measures of life satisfaction and emotional stability. The second study used a large survey of the non-religious. A curvilinear relationship was found such that those with higher belief certainty (both confidently religious and atheists) have greater well-being relative to those with low certainty (unsure and agnostics). Multiple regressions controlling for social and demographic variables reduced, but did not eliminate this curvilinear relationship. Mechanisms of well-being may involve a confident worldview rather than religious beliefs themselves.

Galen, L.W. & Kloet, J.D. (2010). Mental well-being in the religious and the non-religious: evidence for a curvilinear relationship, Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14(7), 673-689.

Research: Are Atheists Implicit Theists?

10/16/2018

Abstract: The Cognitive Science of Religion commonly advances the view that religious beliefs emerge naturally via specific cognitive biases without cultural influence. From this perspective comes the claim that self-proclaimed atheists harbor traces of supernatural thinking. By exploring the potential influence of the cultural learning mechanism Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs), which affirms beliefs, current disparities between studies involved in priming the implicit theism of atheists, might be reconciled.

Eighty-eight university students were randomly assigned to either a religious or control prime condition. A dictator game was completed to obtain an indication of pro-social behavior (PSB).

Lifetime theists reported significantly higher religious CREDs exposure levels than lifetime atheists, though not convert atheists. Conversely, lifetime atheists reported significantly lower CREDs exposure scores than convert atheists. Convert atheists in the prime condition were significantly more pro-social than lifetime atheists. Additionally, higher scores on the CREDs exposure measure equated to higher PSB in the religious condition than the control condition.

The results are consistent with the view that supernatural belief formation is an interactive process between both context and content biases, and that in order to accurately test for implicit theism, past personal differences in exposure to religious CREDs should be considered.

Hitzeman, C. & Wastell, C. (2017). Are Atheists Implicit Theists? Journal of Cognition and Culture, 17(1-2), 27-50

Research: Six Types of Non-Belief

10/15/2018

Abstract: Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape;
however, only recently has social science research started to explore nonbelief in any detail. Research on nonbelief has been limited as most research focuses on the popularity of the
religious “nones” or the complexities of alternative faith expressions such as spirituality.

Through two studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, this research explored how nonbelievers’ self-identify. Study 1 (the qualitative study) discovered that individuals have shared definitional agreement but use different words to describe different types of nonbelief. Through thematic coding, a typology of six different types of nonbelief was observed. Those are Academic Atheists, Activist Atheist/Agnostics, Seeker Agnostics, Antitheists, Non-Theists, and the Ritual Atheists. Study 2 explored the empirical aspects of these types related to the Big Five Domain, Ryff Psychological Well-Being, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Multidimensional Anger Inventory, Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, and intersections related to religious and spiritual ontology

Discussion: Overall these exploratory correlates of the typology suggest that personality measures have little correlation with varieties of nonbelief. Only the autonomy subscale of the Ryff measure differentiates between various groups in the typology but none of the other subscales reached our accepted level of significance. Likewise, the NEO subdomains offer little in ways of differentiating types with the exception of openness.

More negative measures of personality such as Narcissistic Personality Inventory offers an exception where Anti-Theists (AT) appear to be more narcissistic than others, a finding that may suggest psychological issues involved in strong denial of theism associated with some of the “new atheism”. Other forms of nonbelief may not involve such strong personality involvement that tends towards the negative, a finding consistent with the fact that this group also scores higher on the Dogmatism Scale than any other group in our typology, as well as differing from the Intellectual Atheist/Agnostics (IAA) on the Multidimensional Anger Inventory. Thus, these correlational data are consistent with other empirical studies indicating little power for personality measures to predict either religion or personality.

However, this is not to say that among one type, the Anti-Theists (AT), personality measures suggestive of closed-mindedness as a defense against anger might not be fruitful avenues to explore. However, it is also true that these negative characteristics are not characteristic of the variety of atheists in our typology and remain in this limited sense, an exception.

Just as many scholars have stated that there is no such thing as “religion” in general we put forth that there is also no such thing as “atheism” or “nonreligion” in general – nonreligiosity varies because secular identity and activity is quite multidimensional. More specifically, nonbelieving peoples show great psychological variation in their makeup. Researchers can no longer operate as though a unified psychological profile of “atheists” exist. Past psychological profiles that treat “atheism” as a single entity should be revisited in light of the data presented here.

Silvera, C.F., Thomas J. Coleman III, T.J., Hood, R.W. & Holcombec, J.M. (2014). The six types of nonbelief: a qualitative and quantitative study of type and narrative. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 17(10), 990–1000

Return, O' Backslider

10/14/2018

If you have, in the slightest degree, wandered from God, come back to him at once. Do not wait till you have broken some great commandment before you bring him a broken heart.

Open disgrace is not essential to true penitence. The sooner you confess wherein you have been wrong, the less you will have to confess. Nothing can possibly be gained by waiting. You are constantly growing harder, and you may grieve the Spirit until he leaves you.

"Wanderer from thy Father's home, So full of sin, so far away,
Wilt thou any longer roam?
Oh, wilt thou not return today?
Wilt thou? Oh, he knows it all.
Thy Father sees; he meets thee here! Wilt thou? hear his tender call. 'Return, return!' while he is near."

Do not wait for some great occasion, or for some eminent saint to help you. You have now the best occasion -- a time without distraction, the best and greatest of helps -- the Holy Spirit. And God is saying, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you" (Mal. 3:7). Then come back at once, however slightly or however widely you may have wandered.

Roberts, B.T.. Pungent Truths (Kindle Locations 1486-1496). Unknown. Kindle Edition.

A Sure Foundation

10/13/2018

The Spreckels Building on Market Street, San Francisco, is eighteen stories high. It is a tall, slender, tower-like structure, square in form and apparently without sufficient base for a building of such height.

When the great earthquake of 1906 occurred and the whole surface of the earth along the line of the "Portola Fault" was in a tremor, it was estimated by scientific men that the swaying of the tall Spreckels Building carried the center of gravity beyond the base line many times during those fearful forty-eight seconds.

But when the building was erected, the wise builder "dug deep and laid the foundations" aright. The building has a steel frame and the frame does not rest upon the loose sand which underlies so much of San Francisco -- the architect pierced through the loose material at the surface and anchored the steel frame in great wells blasted from the solid rock and afterward filled in around the bases of the steel frame with cement.

When the 18th of April came, testing every man's work of what sort it was, the huge weight of the swaying building was held in place because it was founded upon a rock. It gripped that which was abiding.

written by Rev Chas. R. Brown, page 37 in One Thousand Evangelistic Illustrations, edited by Webb, A. (1924). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers

A New Way of Measuring

10/12/2018

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matt. 20:16).

According to the official rules of Major League Baseball, the closest that an outfield fence can be to home plate is around 320 feet. The closest that center field can be from home plate is around 400 feet. These are the bare minimums, and since nothing more is said about these dimensions, it is uncommon to find two professional baseball parks with the exact same dimensions.

Arguments have been made throughout the history of baseball that certain players would have hit more home runs if they had played a majority of their games in parks with smaller dimensions. There are also arguments that some good pitchers could have been great pitchers in parks that were bigger. Statisticians, players, and fans watch the games closely, recognizing that a sport that does not always have consistent dimensions and ways of measuring can never be an exact science.

Differing standards and measurements are common outside of baseball, too.

In our lives, we are confronted with a myriad of voices that tell us the definition of “success” or “beauty” or “goodness.” Though these measurements vary depending upon the voice, the overall idea often balances out to something like this: be bigger, richer, faster, smarter, and more attractive, then you’ll be great! Or, in the words of a bumper sticker, “He who finishes with the most toys wins!”

Jesus comes proclaiming the Kingdom of God—God’s new way of doing things. In the process, Jesus completely redefines what it means to be good, to be great, to be successful, and to find meaning. According to Jesus, it is those who are not afraid to be “last” or “least” in the world’s eyes whom the Father blesses and calls “first” and “great.” Those who, instead of being good in their own eyes, allow God by His Spirit to teach them what is “good” will be acknowledged as righteous or holy.

Those who humble themselves become exalted. Those who seek God’s way first—even above their own—receive life to the full (John 10:10). Those who find their identity in Christ truly discover who they are and who they are created to be.

Let God’s ways of measuring define us. Let us live our lives in such a way that those around us sense a new set of values. Perhaps they too will find a new way to live—the ONLY way to really live!

Prayer:

O God, seeing as there is in Christ Jesus an infinite fullness of all that we can want or desire: May we all receive from Him, grace upon grace; grace to pardon our sins and subdue our iniquities; to justify our persons and to sanctify our souls; and to complete that holy change, that renewal of our hearts, which will enable us to be transformed into the blessed image in which You created us. O make us all acceptable to be partakers of the inheritance of Your saints in light. Amen. (John Wesley)

This post was written by Charles W. Christian the managing editor of Holiness Today. You can find the original post here: holinesstoday.org/a-new-way-of-measuring