Evangelicals and Politics

 

Since the 80s Evangelicals have tended to vote 70-80% Republican. A new study by Duke’s Mark Chaves and Joseph Roso found that their clergy are pretty much in sync with those views, while other Christian groups have other stories.  First they did a study asking clergy if they were more or less or much more liberal or conservative than church members.

                More liberal    same     more conservative

Evangelicals     12%      74%        14%

Black Prot.         15%      70%        16%

Catholic              53%     28%        20%

Mainline             53%      33%        16%

For years it has been known that mainline clergy are more liberal and 21% call themselves much more liberal. Only 1% of Catholic clergy say they are much more liberal.  So as it turns out Evangelical  and Black Protestant clergy say they pretty much the same as their parishioners.  True in practice? They asked how clergy and laity voted in 2016 how many voted for Trump

                     Laity           clergy

Evangelicals  66%           80%

Black Prot.     1%             5%

Catholic         49%           24%

Mainline         49%           16%

So in fact, Evangelical pastors voted more for Trump than did parishioners. Blacks voted very low for Trump but note that pastors voted more conservative than the laity. Catholic clergy were half as likely to have voted for Trump and Mainline pastors were 1/3 as likely. What this shows is that in his first election, Trump did not get very many black votes at all and fewer evangelicals than most R Presidents, only 66%.  This was much hyped in the media. What the Black and Evangelical politics shows is that when there are many like-minded pastors the church can function well in GOTV efforts.

Decline in US churches

 

METHODISM, ONCE USA’S LARGEST DENOMINATION, IS IN CRISIS as are many churches with declining membership.  This year, 16% of the UMC churches have quit and by 2025 an estimated 25% will leave over leftist doctrine.  This doesn’t count the many individual conservatives who will likely leave (44% of members call themselves very conservative). Estimates that the 11 million in 1969 will decline to about 4 million in 2025.  A major obstacle, ownership of all church properties by the UMC, has now been relaxed allowing churches that don’t want to stay to keep their place of worship.

    Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists and many others have faced similar splits and declines. Even the  American Catholic church was shrinking until the Latino surge. What should Christianity do? I Thessalonians 1 has the key.  Scholars say that of all the churches Paul started, only 2 thrived, grew and became large centers of Christianity in the second century—Ephesus and Thessalonica. So Paul’s letter to Thessalonica was to a thriving church and was full of thanksgiving and praise. Thessalonica’s key on the personal level is in chapter 1 verses 9 and 10, “for you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and wait for His Son from heaven.”  An important word is “wait”.  That, to the Hebrews meant to talk to God a lot and then wait for the answer. In present terminology, “have a real close relationship with God.”  Watch Him answer. This fits with my own observations from being in 4 interdenominational groups: Christians who involve themselves in much confession, prayer and reading of the Word often become rock solid in faith and the happiest people.  Once a Christian realizes that God has done the work (saving you), yet one remains a messed-up person in practice, it’s obvious God is after more.   Those who start finding answers to personal problems in passages they’ve read a dozen times before chance upon new meaning.  Hearing His voice nudging your thoughts, hearing it echoed from like-minded friends, perhaps even some wildly cool experiences creates a deep unforgettable bond to God. And nothing can take that away.  This is the Holy Spirit at work. Knowing God is near gives confidence unlike anything else. If then a church has a nucleus of such humble believers, such people often find they can’t shut up about the faith, the experiences, the delight in serving others. When the group focus is Jesus (vs. 8), quibbling mostly stops. When they imitate good leadership and their Lord, despite obstacles(vs.6), they grow. Such was the Thessolonians and many other Christian groups since.

    Face time in confession to God is critical. It is there that the Christian realizes how spiritually dependent they are and the frequent  conversation with God comes about.  Theology isn’t just theory.  Church isn’t just allegiance. Justified by faith in God’s grace means that you must utterly accept His definitions and rules.  If He says it is sin, it is.  To deny that, to label some sins non-sins takes that sin off the table for forgiveness. In political compromises  or indulgence, faith dwindles. The dystopic can’t reach out to God if he/she sees no problem with the self (a recipe for despair).  Yet in God’s upside down economy, a murderer is in the same boat as a the gossip spreading dirt about the neighbor.

     Good News! God’s pushing your boat.

     This writer thinks the problem is more than just leftist views in the churches.  It is more like the seed that fell among the weeds in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower.  The weeds, cares of the world, are choking out Christian belief.  The popular culture convinces that all mankind’s  longings are likely to be solved only by science, economics, politics, etc.  But Christians realize that there’s more than just the physical universe.  There’s a force beyond that reveals Himself to us.  And in the still small voice of God inside, He wants to weld you to Himself to revolutionize the world.

Teaching the Spiritual dimension

 

TEACHING THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS IN ORIGINS

            Geologists, Physicists and Biologists have investigated and found the earth came about as a planet 4.5 billion years ago after a Big Bang 14 billion years ago.  Why so? Well the Big Bang is supported by the continual expansion of the universe and categories of elementary particles found.  Geology examines depositon of rocks and deformation in earth forces. All point to very long times like the physicists say.  Biologists are supporters of Darwin’s Natural Selection as the origin of species and Miller experiments that brought forth amino acids, the building blocks of life.  Yet it’s just theory with problems.  Big Bang requires movement well in excess of the speed of light, whose absolute value is a physical principle. And the expansion indicates the need for 5 times more matter than what we see, hence the postulation of Dark Matter. Darwin’s theory has been shown to not generate enough mutation by a long shot. So everybody believes in evolution, but isn’t sure of its cause.  Yet this is all common in theorizing.  More to come. Science isn’t the “chiseled in stone” stuff many people believeTeachers often leave students with the notion that “It’s all figured out,” when in fact it’s a big room full of arguers.

             When I ask Christians what they think of creation, quite a few say they believe in a 6-day creation as Genesis describes. Well, except that there are 2 stories of the creation—something most folks don’t realize.  This first in Gen. 1 through Gen 2:3 is what everyone has in mind, but Gen. 2:4 says “These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth.”-- quoted from the KJV so in good faith to traditionalists. Literally, one day.  Well, they say, the second passage is figurative, just a shorthand way of writing the creation story, not literally one day. Okay, but what of the firmaments?  You can’t just accept the 6-day thing without accepting the firmaments in the story of Gen. 1. 

            Ah, we are dumb moderns don’t know what a firmament is, do we? The KJV translators have translated it quite correctly from the Hebrew.  It comes from metalworking. And the technique has existed since at least 2500 BC.  A firmer is a hard surface on which metal is shaped.  Start with a once-melted blob of metal (think copper) and pound it with a hammer over the firmer.  The result is a metal firmament, which through the pounding process is further hardened.  But what if you want a curve to make the shoulder piece of a coat of armor or a cup or bowl?  Then the firmer is a hardened stump carved into a dome, with the curve you want.  The toughest, strongest piece ancients knew was a metal firmament. Thus KJV Genesis vs. 7 tells about God dividing an enormous water into two waters by using a firmament that was named the heavens.  That is, the heaven firmament is like an inverted bowl to which stars and moon and sun were attached.  Below this firmament was another flat one that held the land and the seas. 

            Here’s the picture.  The universe was like a vast waters within which earth, a flat disk, sealed to a bowl-shaped sky, floated submerged.    The heavens have tiny holes, the stars, which leak and that is where rain comes from as it forms clouds first.  This was the common understanding of what the world was like throughout the Middle East 4000 years ago.  What people thought they knew is perhaps how God talked to them.  Obviously He couldn’t start with a lecture on Quantum Field Dynamics to shepherds.  Yet if you believe a literal Genesis 1, it means you accept it all. An inverted bowl sky is hardly good science today.  Yet maybe God was really interested in sin, death and faith far more than proving what the world looked like. The moral story is what God’s word is all about. Men are sinners from birth.  Even the universe’s laws have been changed by sin

            Secular scientists would hardly care,  but believing Christian scientists do. There are several possible explanations.other than accepting a flat disk earth. Was God clever enough to talk in accurate science poetic language that some ancient shepherd would understand? When He talked about the firmament of heavens was He talking about the barrier between the physical universe and the spiritual domain, but shepherds still think it meant the sky? Or is the answer locked in a prehistory absorbed into all things? Surely Adam was an enterprising fellow who might have noticed a recently split rock with a sharp edge.  He could have attached it to a stick and fashioned an axe.  Then felling a tree, he noticed that there were rings which he could reason, form each year.  Hence the tree might look like it had been alive100 years—but it was only created a week ago Tuesday.  How does Adam explain such things?  Well, he figures that God has embedded a “prehistory” in the tree.  Those narrow rings thirty years earlier indicate drought. (Fun to speculate, isn’t it.)  Indeed He had to have put a prehistory in all of nature that we can track and use it for whatever purpose we can find.

            Like finding oil.  Current oil evolution is thought to start with dead critters settling in the sea so rapidly that they don’t rot fast enough—what’s called a reducing environment. Organic matter forms in a layer.  Heat and pressure then cause a cake of cooked organic matter called a bitumen.  Then with more heat and pressure done over the right amount of time, the blob of organic material yields oil and natural gas.  The gas rises rapidly and often manages to escape ultimately into the air.  The oil most often is trapped in an impermeable rock (tiny porous spaces that don’t connect well to each other.  By process, the permeability increases and the oil migrates into a porous reservoir rock.  Oil company geologists don’t give a fig about Darwinism and the selectivity of species.  They just have a prescription that, if done with modern science, allows us to find oil in one out of 3 wildcat wells--or even better. Old timers who just followed trends found oil in an oily area about once in 12 holes.  “Russian drilling program” of blind random jabs into the earth find oil far fewer times. So the science, or whatever you want to call it, works. “Works” is all Conoco-Phillips cares about.

            Likewise, Christians who work as scientists postulate theories based on facts, not spiritual beliefs. Many have settled on this.  The Genesis story is allegorical in its science.  Ps. 90: In the Lord’s eyes a thousand years are as one day and a day as a thousand years.  Maybe each day in Gen. 1 is several million years. Whatever the case, the 4^th law of thermodynamics states that entropy (a measure of disorder) either remains unchanged or increases in each reaction.  Hence Death is a law of nature. And that is where God, who exists in the spiritual realm, steps in.  The laws governing tiny sub-atomic particles say the states they occupy come about by chance, probabilistic chance. Who watches or determines their outcomes? Quantum physics says there can be nobody.  It is just probability, an indeterminate thing. (The winner of the lottery is just a chance thing.) Faith says otherwise. God is guiding the outcomes. Then God, the author of the play, steps into the play (an unheard of thing!) to change the outcome. Hence any scientist who really considers himself an careful thinker, needs to consider that there might be a spiritual dimension, and a Being capable of making a world of stunning beauty in its laws as well as its scenery (and quite unobservable by normal methods of science). A Creator Being, far higher than all the creatures of the world could even grasp. Would such a Being, be a Cosmic Saddist, such as the God of  Islam, who just watches mankind writhe and go down to hell, or the God of Judeo-Christianity who comes bearing hope for sin and a relationship with Himself?  That’s what we need to teach.

Bill Bright

 

Would you expect a great revival movement to rise up out of Hollywood?  How about Coweta, Oklahoma (population 1318 in 1920)?  But in 1921 a mother prayed over her yet unborn son, dedicating him to the Lord’s service.  It didn’t seem to work.  Little Billy showed little interest in spiritual things.  His dad was a cattle rancher and he had 6 other brothers and sisters, full of Oklahoma orneriness. But Bill Bright (1921-2003) did go on to college and graduated from Northeastern Oklahoma State in 1943. Then he headed to Hollywood, California to make his fortune. There he founded a successful candy company.

            After receiving repeated invitations Bright began attending meetings for college students and young professionals led by Dr. Henrietta Mears at Hollywood Presbyterian Church.  After a particularly challenging teaching on finding happiness at the “center of God’s will”, Bill struggled.  As he recalled, “As I returned to my apartment that night I realized that I was ready to give my life to God…I knelt down beside my bed that night and asked the questions that Dr. Mears had challenged us to pray, ‘Who art Thou. And, what wilt Thou have me do?’ It wasn’t very profound theologically, but God knew my heart and He interpreted what was going on inside of me.  Through my study, I now believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that He died for my sin, and that, as Dr. Mears had shared with us, if I invited Him into my life as Savior and Lord, He would come in.”  Bright sold his candy company, married another young woman, Vonette Bright, who had also been evangelized by Mears, and entered Fuller Theological Seminary.

            One night in 1951, Bill was studying for an exam and had a powerful vision of fulfilling the Great Commission by evangelizing college students.  He lived one block from UCLA.  He told his sem prof, Dr. Wilbur Smith, about the vision.  Smith was exuberant and shouted, “This is the will of God!” and the next day told Bright he had the name for this organization, ‘Campus Crusade for Christ’.  Bill and Vonette prayed and Bill decided that he needed to start immediately. He quit the seminary.  Though they lived right next to UCLA, the college was considered a hotbed of communist sympathizers, as was Hollywood itself. But not everyone on campus was a radical. Within one month, Bright had 250 join his ‘crusade’.  Then he met another young man from N. Carolina who wanted to go into the ministry. Billy Graham used the methods of an earlier preacher, Billy Sunday, to reach thousands, and Graham adopted the Crusade name for his effort. But there were early struggles for Campus Crusade.  Originally Bright wanted to work with many churches but some did little to assimilate or follow-up new Christians.  This can be typical with churches in college towns where students come and go, but established townspeople run the church somewhat oblivious of the students, who, of course don’t contribute much money. But Mears contributed her Bel Air home and spoke numerous times at gatherings.  Bill, the businessman, did arrangements and organization.  Soon they were operating in several colleges, sometimes rubbing liberal college chaplains the wrong way with their soul-winning platform.  They incorporated in 1953 and found a location for their headquarters on Westwood Blvd.   In 1956, Bright wrote a 20–minute evangelistic presentation called "God's Plan for Your Life", which set the tone for Campus Crusade's evangelism and discipleship program.  Billy Graham was receiving invitations for His crusades from liberal pastors and Bright seemed to learn how to do evangelism in the midst of hostile college campuses. He wrote books, pamphlets, articles and Bible studies profusely. Vonette did much the same for college women. The organization grew enormously (2011: 25,000 missionaries in 191 countries).

            This was Hollywood, no? And Bright had the idea for a film.  In 1979 he produced the film Jesus. It was not much of a success.  The LA Times slammed it as a "dull Sunday-School treatment of the life of Christ."  Yet critics acknowleged that it had meticulous attention to detail. Nonetheless it began a trend for films, not by Hollywood, but by Christian organizations to share the story of Christ. It went on to be shown to 4 Billion people subtitled in 650 languages by 2020. 121 million have become believers through Campus Crusade and Jesus. It is thought that the recent surge of Christianity in India is largely due to this film. Jesus lost $2 million in 1979 and was declared a failure.  But to be the movie that changed millions of lives, inspired a movement that includes Mel Gibson's Passion, and a new docudrama, The Chosen?  That is not failure.

April 19, 1521

This day contains many historic events—April 19, Lexington and Concord, Waco’s Branch Davidians, and the Oklahoma City bombing. But while April 19 is the shot heard round the world, April 17, 18, and 19 changed the world through a simple monk.  Martin Luther was an Augustinian who found salvation by grace alone in 1513 in his Tower Experience, then posted 95 theses or arguments against the supreme power of the pope, greed in the church and abuse of indulgences. Nothing new there--many in Europe wanted a reformation.  But it wasn’t until about 1519 that Luther realized the grace message split into Law and Gospel that many Christians had tragically missed it, hence had false views of faith that threatened to condemn them. Many historians say he was transformed from a critic to a Reformer with that knowledge.  And it was at that time that he began to write furiously, 30 books in 36 months, often about abuses in the church.  It was too much for the Roman pope and he excommunicated Luther in January 1521.

            But instead of diminishing support for Luther, it fueled the German people. His popularity warped the ruling authorities’ plans.  Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, agreed to hear Luther’s arguments at the Diet (rotating location legislature) to be held in Worms in April. This would include secular rulers as well as church men.  The church leaders all wanted him condemned to death without trial, but Luther was promised a fair trial.  Duke Frederick, Luther’s politically wise ruler talked to Staupintz, his mentor.  He said he knew what was coming.  They will demand Luther recant everything.  Luther would have to agree and repent.  He would be placed on probation for a few years and required to confess, and that would be it.  Staupintz looked at Frederick and said, “Except you don’t understand Luther.  He will never recant.”

            On 4 o’clock, April 17, Luther arrived in the town of Worms where 100,000 people had quintupled the population of the city cheering him on wildly. In the court, Luther was confronted immediately with a pile of his books and asked it they were his.  Yes, they were. And then he was asked to recant everything he had written. He was stunned that he would not be heard out, just given an ultimatum to recant. 

            It was a replay.  In 1414, Jan Hus, a Czech priest with very similar views as Luther on scripture was given assurances that his ideas would receive an audience at the Church Council of Constance, Germany. The Emperor promised his protection. When he arrived, Nov. 28, 1414, he was arrested, imprisoned and the following year put on trial for heresy, then burned at the stake.  As his last words, Hus, whose name in Bohemian means ‘goose’ said, “You will cook this goose but a hundred years from now, you will find a goose you cannot kill.”

            Luther’s response was very measured and nervous, “Thus touches God and His Word.  This affects the salvation of souls. Of this Christ said, ‘He who denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father.’To say too little or too much would be dangerous.  I beg you, give me time to think it over.” After some deliberation, even though the bishops didn’t think he deserved it, Luther was granted a day to make his reply.  Luther spent the night and next day (April 18) in prayer and at six the following evening, gave his famous answer, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture by clear reason (for I trust neither pope nor council alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves) I am bound by the scriptures I have cited, for my conscience is captive to the Word of God.  I cannot and will not recant anything since to act against one’s conscience is neither safe nor right. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand, may God help me. Amen.”

            Luther went back to his quarters and waited for the inevitable summons to execution.  Oddly, nothing happened. It is thought that Frederick and company partied late and were hungover.  Others said he was cautious since there was such an enormous crowd favoring Luther in town. (Charles was 19 and freshly coronated.) Whatever the case, in the afternoon of April 19, Luther uncertainly decided to start walking home to Wittenberg.  He didn’t get far.  Riders disguised as bandits took him captive.  They were knights of Frederick.  He was secretly spirited to Wartburg Castle in Saxony and instructed how to disguise himself as a knight needing R&R.  Martin Luther had 'disappeared'. Sometimes it is almost crazy how God is in control.

Being chosen will fix your church finances

 

I’m one of those Christians who believes Jesus literally when He says, “You did not chose me, I have chosen you” in John 15. So I have had a great time watching the series, The Chosen.  And having belonged to several interdenominational groups, I’ve always tried to steer some of my fellow evangelicals away from the decision-based theologies, and salesmanship gospel-sharing.  If faith springs from the Holy Spirit (and scripture says it does!) and natural man has only the ability to say NO to God until the Spirit enters him. Then what is sometimes called a decision of faith is really just an affirmation of what’s already within.  Same goes for those techniques of frightening people into faith with threats of hell or being left behind if the rapture comes.  A hedge to get into heaven may be more of scheme than a faith.

            I am on an initiative to do the chosen message with church finance and stewardship.  For years I have gone to churches where pastors didn’t talk much about money because of the backlash.  A certain number of people say, “I just hate it when the pastor talks about money!”  And since pastoral training doesn’t have much to do with finances, many pastors comply, talking about personal attitudes with money perhaps only once annually—still too often in the eyes of the money-crabbers. Thus the chore of talking finance falls to the treasurer of the congregation who would often try to humor the people (“Well if giving doesn’t improve, we will all have to start cutting wood this winter.”—to pay utilities even though the furnace is natural gas) or getting tough (“We may have to shut the doors if we don’t get enough.” “We may have to lay off staff and there won’t be any raises.”) Amateurish and abusive talk leaves us poorly motivated.

            I discovered the stunning outcome of turning to God while almost going broke in business. As a friend of mine, also a Christian businessman laughed, “One year I had a tithe of 88%.  Didn’t mean it to be that way.  Just had a horrid year.” Caught between a hard place and a rock in business, you catch yourself praying, “I don’t know how this is going to turn out, Lord.  I may go broke, but I want to pledge the first part of this to You.” Well, if you go broke, He will lead you to another career or something because He is always with you. Somewhere along the way, however, funds showed up in a totally unexpected way.  That caused you to lift your eyes to Him in thanksgiving and awe, “You really are here, aren’t you!  I’m sorry that I forget You are with me every nanosecond of every day.”  Talk to Him more. Listen to what His Word says.

            Of course you don’t’ have to be a business guy to learn this.  Many have their own personal stories. Look at almost any church’s contributors and you’ll discover that old guys who have learned to walk close to God and tithe, giving God their first fruits, are the significant supporters of the church.  If then, the church wants to have funds to delve into new ministries and discover where God’s Spirit is working, it needs to work on faith.  Faith=trust and a close walk.  That attitude of, I didn’t chose Him, he chose me and calls me a son/daughter that He will never abandon is not just a lesson in where to put your God-gifted money. It is the incredible joy and peace of living for your Lord, Savior and best Friend.  It isn’t just Heaven Insurance, it is a new life. Deuteronomy says, “It is no trifle for you: it is your whole life.” The non-believer has no assurance but dust and ashes in the end amid a universe destined to die after several billion years.  The believer beginning now, has an eternal close relationship with the One who created the universe.  The relationship is guaranteed not by your own vacillating self, but by Him.  He came for you. Chosen.

A letter to a church about RISK

 This is part of a letter we are getting ready to send to our church congregation.  I'm posting it so you can see the tie between the business of church and spirituality. I thought I would let you  in on the logic used to expand ministry..

Do you know when elite, wealthy entrepreneurs make most of their money? It’s during Recessions. They purchase broken businesses and fix them, buy on the cheap, or start a new venture, hang on, and see it come to fruit when things return to normal. Thus they are one-up on the market and development. FLCS is somewhat like a business.  Income and expenses fluctuate, sometimes like a roller coaster. Yet we know God’s kingdom grows most during tough times—the first 3 centuries, China’s last 70 years. Is this counter-intuitive? No, Christians hold forth the gospel message when the world loses hope.

            God calls us to risk for our faith, not build a fur-lined nest. People often save for retirement thinking they’ll siphon off a bit of interest to make golden years golden.  But businessmen don’t think about savings this way.  They save to have a backstop.  If I try something risky and it blows up in my face or starts too slowly, then there is a savings backstop. Jesus’ final parable was the Parable of the Talents.  3 slaves each received an allotment of talents of gold.  Two of them doubled their money, but one got scared and buried his talent gaining nothing. The master took that slave’s talent away and gave it to the guy with the most. So too must our faith be exercised and shared or it withers.  A church must  find fresh ways of sharing the faith, or it is on its way to death and having its doors closed.

            There’s no way around risk.  But we have the ultimate backstop.  Jesus death and resurrection forgives us, and His relationship lasts forever. Wa Hoo! FLCS, like a business, possesses true faith and a monetary backstop for recession, inflation, and rejections of Christianity. Tough times coming? It is time to find bold new ways to give the world hope. But what would that mission be?

            We’ve appointed a team of 10 people to study this, who have especially followed the clue that we have a young, energetic, Master of Arts, Theology Deaconess in our midst. They’ve seen how a deaconess could play a significant part in this.  What would a bold venture be?  Perhaps it would be an initiative to expand our scholarships and greatly increase the size of our school, thereby teaching our faith.  Perhaps it would be a ministry to young moms and parents of the 71 family units who send kids to our school but have no church home.  Or would it be to serve assisted living and nursing care in a substantially greater way? Or what?

            Here’s where we need your input.  Enclosed is a quick congregational survey.  The last line asks you to dream about new outreaches and ministries. Please take time to think carefully and fill this out. You’ll find a return box for surveys in the narthex. Results will be shared with Pastor, elders, and our mission study team.

Leftist Hippies now come to fruit

DON’T BE MYSTIFIED BY WOKEISM AND IT’S EVERMORE HEAVYHANDED TREATMENT. I ran into some leftist-type atheist/agnostics in college 54 years ago during the Vietnam anti-war era. I went to several Young Democrats meetings. Everything they said then is working its way into society now.  Leftists want control.  So they told me they saw all manner of evil in this world and what God would design something so bad?  Thus they didn’t believe in any sort of God.  And if there is no God, therefore there must not be any set morality. (Many atheists would choke on this. Nature dictates morals too.) If morality is just personal choice, we shouldn’t be too hard on people who do crime or heinous things. They are just acting by nature and can’t be responsible.  So I asked how then, if there are no morals, does one set rules by which government must act.  Oh, that is the design of really smart people like us, they alleged.  That is why we are here at this Party meeting.  The Party tells everyone what to think and do, and anyone who disagrees will be subject to persecution.

            In a nutshell, they want to control people.  Design a utopia and make everyone conform. I left the mtg. thinking how Marxist this was.  Today it is everywhere, many people accepting it dumbly. From the history you learn to the choices you have for lunch, you are threatened with control. It sneaks in. An example: Pocahontas.  Her true story is quite documented.  Young girl comes curiously to meet the Jamestown settlers. Becomes acquainted, learns English, admiring their winter clothing and tools and amazed at how determined and optimistic they are. She disappears for 3 years which her family says was a marriage and child where she was widowed and lost the baby. Came back to the colony stockade, was held in house arrest when skirmishes broke out between her tribe and the Anglos. Asked to become a Christian, was baptized, met John Rolfe who was also young and widowed.  They married, she had a son, Grandpa Powhattan and wives came to see the new grandson.  Big feast, 15 years of good will followed. Then she showed Rolfe how to plant tobacco.  He reaped an enormous profit, thereby providing England with a profitable reason to continue the colony. They went to England and she was a celebrity, but died on the return trip, her dying words were deeply Christian, full of love for son, Tom, and husband John.

            So what are a minority of modernist historians trying to say now?  They insist that they English captured her and made her accept Christianity, made her marry Rolfe and cough up the secret of tobacco cluture. All this flies against the duly recorded stories, but the historians are revisionists, trying to promote exploitation, racism, slavery, and European evil.

            The CRT, revisionism, and wokeism are just the angry demands of the “control leftists.” Truth be damned; they want their utopia. I heard this through the long unkempt manes and Vietcong sandals of these lefty hippies in 1969. 

Elections in December?

 

We should move election day to the first Tuesday in December. Then it would remind many that while your politician may be born in Scranton and rise to be President, we have a King who was born manure-floored sheep stye and placed in a manger.  Who then rose from the dead to rule over all the physical universe. Top that, if you dare.

            And it was this singular man and His life that caused Jefferson, with at least 3 dozen men looking over his shoulder to pen the Declaration of Independence.  That famous line about all men being created equal was lifted almost verbatim from John Locke, the Father of Modern Psychology who considered what kind of government men would truly love and prosper under in his Two Treatises on Government. A Christian author, Locke resonated with the Americans who had just undergone an enormous religious revival, the Great Awakening.  We were born of Judeo-Christian ethic that also accepts the non-believer to “live life as you want to live it,” within the bounds of our social contract, with self-evident rights.

            “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This rules out a theocracy of priests, nor divine right of Kings or a a power-elite who refuse to be questioned.  Instead it is a system where the people governed grant power to their government.  We the People give consent.  It is not God over Government over People, but God over People over Government. How does this square with the Almighty?  Well, if God gives some person a mission in life, who can abort such a mission without ultimate judgment from God?  And none of us knows the heart of another, where the mission lies. Voting in December would remind us of something. The guy born in the manger, the One who said, ”Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called  you by name, you are Mine.” gave us the love to extend those rights to all who live in our country. Some thought to refuse those inalienable rights to slaves, some thought Native Americans were savages and should be excluded as well.  Republicans fought them both times.  Republicans fight again to preserve religious liberty, free uncensored speech without woke demands, right to bear arms, property stewardship with limits on government unreasonable surveillance and seizure, due process of law, rights reserved to the states and the people, a limited government, free enterprise and a free people.

            Whether a December voting date would remind us of these core principles is open for debate.  Certainly if our schools taught them, it would make some sense.  Like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, some of us wonder if some of the rest of America lives in a crazy dream world such that even a 12 year old girl can figure out won't work.

What did Josh say!!!

 

JOSH HAWLEY GAVE A SPEECH AND THE LEFT WENT APE. There were incensed editorials from numerous lefty newspapers.  Good grief! What did Hawley say? “We are a revolutionary nation precisely because we are heirs of the revolution of the Bible.” This caused the Kansas City Star editorial board to scream, “No. Our constitutional government, and therefore our nation, isn’t based on the Bible, or any religious text.” Sheesh! Where did Hawley say “constitution”?  He was just voicing a platitude.  Hawley noted the Bible “gave us equality between men and women.”  This caused the Star to erupt over the Bible and the founders who definitely disliked inequality, loved slavery and were racist.  They continued to slam this “inaccurate history, dubious theology and extreme hypocrisy that should worry every Missourian who believes in the separation of church and state…theocracy…White Christian nationalism overtaking the Republican party, endangering religious freedom for everyone.” Hmm. It always makes me suspicious of an author when he has scant proof to offer and extends to to wild accusations.  That’s usually a writer who is dead wrong.

            To wit, the 1787 Constitution was a political compromise to re-write the Articles of Confederation which created a system that had resulted in discord between the member states and monetary problems.  Yet the Constitutional Convention wanted to preserve the Declaration of Independence in both sense of moral reason for the founding and in the actual union of 13 colonies into one federal system.  The Declaration claims that the people of this revolt were “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Who would have written this? Does an atheist believe in a Creator?  If said rights are ‘inalienable’ doesn’t that imply an active Creator?  What deist would write such a thing?  If all men are created equal, would a Hindu or Muslim assert such a thing? And it seems the Quran certainly doesn’t hold a right to life applies to pagans.  In short, these words fit only the Judeo-Christian beliefs. Indeed the quote, by Thomas Jefferson is almost exactly lifted from John Locke, the Christian and Government philosopher of Oxford University in Two Treatises on Government, 1675. In his day of divine right of kings, Locke was considered far out, but he took his ideas from Martin Luther’s Liberty of a Christian. The logic is simple. If a person has a god-given mission is life, no one has any business interrupting that lest they transgress God.  Therefore the Liberty is to let every person live the life they want to, unless it goes against the social contract (laws) of a nation. So when the Constitution calls for the “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our children” that’s the same blessings gifted by the Creator of the Declaration. Oh, and by the way, 19 of 56 signers were clergymen. Only Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were deists. Most of the deism movement came after we'd won our independence.

            And we have long been a nation of neither theocracy (where the priesthood rules) nor White Christian Nationalism. Tell me, do you know anyone who attended a White Christian Nationalism meeting in your neighborhood?  Moreover, such a social contract allowing Liberty to all seems acceptable to a good card-carrying atheist or agnostic as well. And those snarky comments about inequality not being a Christian tenant?  Then what do you make of the passage, written twice in both Gal. 3:28 and Col. 3:11 “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith…There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Um, I hope the leftist writers of the KC Star can understand that 2000 years ago when they referred to “all sons of God” they mean daughters too-- a common literary style--and that the reference to slaves and Greeks doesn’t change the position of such people but means spiritually, not physically. 

          Perhaps we can send the Gideons over to the Star with a complementary Bible so they can read it.

Complete Grace

 Before there were long Christmas seasons, people used the season of Advent to consider what God was going to spring on us in Christmas. The next few days I will post some of these thoughts from several hundred years ago.

 Grace, God’s undeserved kindness of salvation, is something every Christian loves dearly.  Think of the characters of the Bible—Mary and Joseph, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Ruth, David, Daniel, Peter, John, Paul. All received the grace of God.  But some Christians struggle with their own end of the deal.  Faith and Trust are the same words in Greek and Hebrew.  What if I’m not too trusting? Deep down they hope God is not just some kind of made-up figure that naïve people believe in. Maybe He exists and maybe he is Lord of all, but does he care about me?  Why am I the only one of my age who isn’t married yet?  How come I got laid off?  Why did my health go bad? Why did my kids abandon the faith? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil.4:13) but sometimes I wonder what He can do with me.  Perhaps many regular church attenders have doubts like this too.

            You’re not alone in agonizing with God.  David in the Psalms wrote about it, “How long, Lord, how long? I am worn out from my groaning.  All night I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.”Psalm 6:3,6 Habakkuk said it too, “How long, Lord must I call for help, but you do not listen?...Why do you make me look at injustice?  Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” Habbakuk 1:2,3.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve (hell).  Grace is getting what you don’t deserve, including God’s salvation.  But what we really struggle with is God’s Love. Does He consider me? “But Zion [Israel] said, “God has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child that she have no compassion on the firstborn son of her womb?  Even these may forget but I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Is. 49:14-16. (Have Jesus show you His hands some day in heaven.) “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.”Jer.1:5.  Yet how can He love someone as messed up as me? Simple answer: Because He is God.  We must get away from thinking any of this is our own doing.  It’s not about you; it’s about Him.  Should He suddenly appear to Saul of Tarsus amidst seething hate, intent on killing Christians, He can and did.  “Love that found me, wondrous thought!  Found me when I sought Him not,”

God loves you from before time began. He sent His only Son to die for you and pay for your sins.  He gives you faith to believe as a free gift.  His Spirit indwells you, quite stunningly in a relationship with Himself.  He adopts you as His own child, seals you with His Spirit, and will take you home.  This is what Christians in one way or another believe and it gives one a peace that passes all understanding.  But does God really say this? In Ephesians 2:8,9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” The Greek word that refers to all the previous nouns—the grace, the saving, the faith. Everything was a gift from God. It doesn’t go away. “ In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” Eph. 1:13. God has done it all.

Yeah, but what if I screw it up? Consult the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).

What’s this like? Martin Luther had a story.  Imagine you are a child and you pushed your brother down the stairs and he broke his neck.  You are mortified over this.  What will your father say?  Will he say, ‘Get out of my life.  I never want to see you again—you killed my son!’? Apprehensively you go in to see your father and just as you open your mouth to try to explain, in bounds your brother.  He’s perfectly okay!  And he takes over pleading for you with Dad. You had nothing to do with your salvation! So encourage your fellow Christians by asking them, “When you came to faith, who gave it to you, and the faith to believe?” It’s God, is it not! Luther concluded, “If you believe it, you’ve got it.”

   This is enormously assuring.  Don’t worry about what you have done. You did nothing! Don’t worry about the sincerity of some prayer done long ago when you first believed. Or how well you understood.  He’s been there beside you from before you were a twinkle in your dad’s eye or when your mom started her hope chest at age 5. Faced with COVID or some other terminal thing, talk it over with Him, “Lord, my life is in your hands.  If I have done enough, beam me up!  If I have work to do, let’s get cracking!” This is called Complete Grace.

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s Grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.—Luther

Christianity 101--How did it start?

                                 1 How Did Christianity Start?

 

Let’s think about history. How did the Christian movement manage to survive and thrive in the first hundred years?  How did it inspire the believers long term and how did their children not abandon it?  Other than the gospels (first 4 books on the New Testament) and epistles (letters of the New Testament), there is almost nothing written by these earliest followers of Jesus who were perhaps 10,000 people by 100AD. Besides God’s Old Covenant Word, what did those early churches have?

            There were no sermons, a later invention. It is thought the early church spread by quiet networking. Music was not a big thing in ancient Rome.  The early Christians met in their homes built around a central courtyard.  Worship services would remind one more of home devotions than a modern church . Nobody said, “Come hear our great preacher and our wonderful music this Sunday!”

            Jesus died about 33 AD and the first gospel, Mark, wasn’t written until at least 56AD.  For a generation, there was no written New Testament scripture. Yet we know apostles were travelling. Thomas went to India in 52 AD according to royal records. Even 100 years later, a church might own only a partial hand-copied gospel and a couple of epistles.  How did these people not wander away from their first beliefs? Secular historians presume their beliefs evolved or there was a secret text somewhere. That’s unlikely.  We know they had firm beliefs from the earliest days. Moreover, a confused person who doesn’t know what to believe will hardly bring about persecution by the authorities. Moreover, a religion won’t last if it doesn’t remind people constantly of what they are to do. The kids will walk away if it doesn’t solve or put in perspective life’s problems.

An answer is buried in Acts 2:23ff, Peter’s Pentecost address. “Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified…But God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. (vs. 24)…And they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. (vs. 42-43), praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number…”(vs. 47)

            From the earliest days, Roman pagans claimed Christians believed the Resurrection.  This was attested to by Julio, the Prefect that succeeded Pontius Pilate.  He wrote home to Rome about a new group of Jews, harmless but weird.  They believed that their leader had risen 3 days after he died.  Romans snickered.  In 3 days a dead body will start to stink.  Roman soldiers knew death! But if Jesus was raised, why? Did Christians simply say he was sinless? That alone would only save a man from God’s eternal wrath and find him a place in heaven. The grave, Peter and the Christians insisted, “could not hold Him.” Hence Jesus must be God. This answers the first of the two fundamental questions of Christianity —“Who was Jesus of Nazareth?” The second question is “What does that mean for me?”  Jesus Died For My Sins. As soon as you claim this you have also said that Jesus is God.  A 3^rd party person can’t forgive 2 people who are at odds. That person isn’t part of what happened.  Only the offended can forgive.  Hence Jews say, “God alone could forgive all sins because all sins offend God.” 

Early Christians had some apostles right there teaching them (if one lived in Jerusalem).  They had the 5 functions of the church (worship, fellowship, discipleship, service, witness) just as today (Acts 2:42ff and the visible signs of the Spirit).  Yet they actually did have the New Testament.  This was not written scriptures, but “This is the New Testament in My blood.”  The Old Testament (covenant) was the Law.  But what if you messed up?  Then a sacrifice was required to make things right. Sacrifices were the atonement--a sacred act, ordained and commanded by God, with physical elements, which required the believer’s faith, worked forgiveness and sometimes brought about other inexplicable benefits from God.  What if you forgot some of your sins? There was a “clean-up sacrifice” at Yom Kippur to forgive all the sins of the prior year.  Jesus claimed in this New Testament, that He was the “forever sacrifice”--forgiveness from a God who loves you so much to come for you in your utter unworthiness. This new covenant brings you extraordinarily close to God.

  Jesus came forward with this New Covenant in the Lord’s Supper, a sacrament (consecrated act) like the OT sacrifices to remind that every day, every second, God was saving them. Was it really His blood and body they believed they ate and drank? They must have. The Romans were horrified by what they heard. Perhaps a Roman asked, what are you doing in there?” Christian: “We are eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ!” Cannibals!, the Romans thought—the worst form of barbarianism! But what if the Christian had said, “Well, we kind of figuratively think this.” The Romans would have just rolled their eyes and laughed had that been the case. In the Lord’s Supper, Christians became forgiven and then amazingly, bonded with God’s family of saved believers.  That’s why Passover is celebrated. Jesus picked up the Passover bread and announced flatly that it was His body, given for them.  (How could that be?  God made it mysteriously happen.) When someone was invited to share bread in that society, it meant, “you will be part of my family for the night.”  When we come to eat His body, we are pledging to be part of His family.  And then Jesus took the Passover cup of blessing and pronounced, “This is the New Covenant in my blood.”  He must have shocked his disciples. Asking someone to share the cup with you was what grooms did to ask a bride if she agreed to marriage! Week after week, the Christians did this, cementing themselves to each other and their Savior. 

So Christians were reminded and partook of forgiveness, but how does one progress in faith and draw near to God? It came by Baptism and the Spirit.  Like Lord’s Supper, baptism is a Sacred Act with elements requiring faith, forgiving sins—a sacrament. To be baptized one has to confess and turn away from sins. Years later, Paul would tell the Roman Christians (Rom. 6:3-4)  “we are buried with him in Baptism, and just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.” Dead to sin, alive to God, our sins forgiven, we are again bonded to Jesus and to God’s family as in Communion. The Holy Spirit, given as God’s sealing gift in repentance at Baptism, will raise the believer and internally walk with Him. Early church fathers wrote that people were sealed by baptism. ‘Sealed’ i.e.,you aren’t getting away; you’re now a child of God.  God often comes during troubles, whether they are your own fault or not. The saving is all His doing. Nothing on earth beats such certainty.  Talk directly like a child to Dad, hang onto His words, pledge your life!

This established what became known as Orthodox (correct, ‘square’) Christianity. If all they’d had was the memory of their leader rising from the dead, within a generation that would have become a distant legend. If sacraments had no power, they would become dull rituals over time.  Christianity would have died out. Later, books were written by the apostles but then other fraudulent books came along too.  Which were right? Christians measured everything against the fundamentals of Orthodoxy.

But how did Christianity spread? Knowing God loved you and saw you from the very beginning, saved you, gave you faith to respond, and now puts His Spirit inside you, changes everything.  All the world was then and is now searching for God.  Christians weren’t. God found me! Sealed me forever!  Yet they faced huge troubles—we know by what’s been unearthed.  30 house churches have been discovered and plaques and stones with names on them-- church members.  2/3 of the names were of women who in those days were treated like sub-humans. Half the names were just a single name, likely slaves. The Hebrew word for struggle means also to wrestle.  When life is a struggle, one wrestles with God in prayers. “Why, God, did you do this?  Why did you make me this way? Help me, please.” Jesus wrestled with God as well, in Gethsemane.  Did God take away his death? No but Jesus became closer to God in his struggle.  God often does not heal a situation but brings one closer. A new door is opened as a new way of knowing God to be close arises.  Through our struggles we learn empathy for others, we become experienced in their difficulties too, we become a witness with love and joy, seeing God’s love for us and behind us all. That is how the early church grew and how modern churches can grow.  Share your life with others.  Listen to their situations. Share the Good News with Love and Joy. This is a kind of compassion that supersedes the worldly politics of doling-out favors.

            More than tradition makes Lutherans love Word and Sacraments.  God comes in many ways, but there’s 2 places He promises--Word (Jn 1:1, Is 66:1-2) and Sacraments (I Cor. 11:23, Rom. 6:3-4).                                 

Christians have much in common.  97% of church denominations agree on 9 doctrines-- Triune God, Salvation by Grace through the death of the Jesus Christ who is both God and man, Virgin birth, Resurrection, real Heaven and Hell and 2^nd coming of Christ, Bible is God’s Word, use of Creeds, practices of Lord’s Supper and Baptism, holiness of the Church. (Baptists omit creeds yet believe in their content.) Doctrine means a belief considered absolutely true and key to faith.  Dogmas are teachings that are considered to be true. Adiaphora (Greek) are issues “free to choose”.  

Europe's collapse into the Dark Ages

 How Europe fell into the Dark Ages is perplexing and complex. England in the 400s still had houses with glass windows and cities had aqueducts and baths, even though Celts (now Romanized) were running things. Yet by 546, a Welsh monk, St. Gildas, first wrote about how a certain “Arthur” was engaged in a desperate war to “break the heathen and uphold the Christ.” (Such was Camelot?)  In Gaul (France), Visigoths and Franks overran the country but assimilated to Roman ways.  In Spain, first Vandals then Visigoths did the same.  Theodoric the Ostrogoth (who was educated in Constantinople), was encouraged by the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno to invade and take over Italy from the former Hunic tribes led by Odoacer that had taken over with the fall of the Roman emperor in 476.  All these barbarians had lived on the edges of empire and admired the Roman system.  What happened to make civilization fall so far? 

            An answer may lie in the turmoil of the church and the climate.  Emperor Justinian in the East was a very able politician, not a warrior, who spent most days administrating.  He started in behalf of his father Justin, a senator who usurped the throne in 518. Justin was frugal, lowered taxes, and limited government leaving a full treasury for Justinian.  Justinian was a spender with an eye towards restoring the empire, winning the West back from the barbarians, and building up Eastern governance.  His capable general Belasarius was dispatched to fight back Persia, then take back N. Africa from the Vandals, then Italy and Illyria (we’d call it Yugoslavia) from the Ostrogoths. But due to Justinian’s big spending on Constantinople, Belasarius was forever shy of troops and pay.  How could he have conquered so much? He had to let his army loot.

             In 535, Krakatoa erupted.  This volcanic ‘hot spot’ lies between Sumatra and Java. A hot spot is a weak spot in the crust where magma can repeatedly break through.  It exploded with a monstrous eruption in 1883 but chronicles left in Indonesia tell of a much greater eruption in 535. It completely obliterated 50 miles around it separating the two large islands with a crater that blew away enough island to make 30 miles of ocean. It created 120’ tidal waves, and, it has now been verified, put so much ash into the upper atmosphere that for 15 years the mean temperature worldwide got colder by about 10 degrees (compare this with a mere 2.5 degree rise predicted by climate scientists by 2200).  Low temps meant meager crops, famines and pitiful economies.  Thus weakened, the defending kingdoms couldn’t hold off Belasarius’ army which foraged and robbed peasants for food. It was an ironic reverse of the old story of barbarians invading Rome.  Add to this, the genius of Belasarius as a general.  Much of the West was reconquered while Justinian spent severely over budget. The conquered peasants were then plunged into famine and ruin and the Dark Ages began when cities, skills and education died.

            Justinian also fashioned himself a musican, architect, poet, lawyer, and theologian.  He rewrote Roman Law into the Code of Justinian that lasted almost 1000 years. In theology, he decided to favor the Trinitarianism of the Western Pope of Rome (perhaps as a way to force-unify the Arian Goths and Egyptian Monophysites).  Arians denied the complete divinity of Jesus; Monophysites, his humanity (was a ghost spirit).  But Empress Theodora (who had a sort of Hillary Clinton co-President role) sympathized with the Monophysites and softened Justinian into tolerance for that heresy. And thus the later part of their reign was filled with riots over famine, religious clashes, and the 542 plague. The plague is also a derivative of a sudden cold climate change.  [Another sudden cold occurred in 1309 according to Chinese records and this caused an 8 degree drop in European temperatures followed by the Black Death.]  When it gets cold, scavengers like rats thrive, and they carry fleas--vectors for bubonic plague.  It is thought bubonic plague occurred in 542 AD as well.

            So while civilization collapsed, orthodox Christianity not only overruled the heresies of east and west, but became the one sure hope of Europeans.  What survived in the West were not pagan verses of Virgil and Homer but Augustine and Patrick of Ireland. Yet it was a faith confused with superstition and un-Christian practices of the barbarians, and a lifestyle of poverty,malnutrition, pitiful technology and illiteracy. So what would one predict from such an outcome? God, through the Dark Ages, preserved the land from conquest and faith played out  through other Christians still to come.  

Pocahontas, the real story

 This is a result of the best research I can muster about, perhaps the most significant person in American history, who made British colonies possible and USA.

Disney made a great movie about her but much of the legend isn’t true at all. The real story is much better! Her real name wasn’t Pocahontas.  That was a nickname which meant “Little Playful One”. Her real names were Amonute and Matoaka. But she liked Pocahontas. Daughter of Chief Powhattan of the Algonquin Indians’, they lived along the Virginia coast.  In 1607 when she was about 12, English settlers landed at Jamestown. She was curious and visited the new people, learning English.

            Why did the English want to settle in Virginia?  Columbus found America and then some other Spanish warriors-of-fortune conquered two huge Indian empires—the Aztecs and the Incas.  They found gold and silver, beans and corn and shipped it back home to Spain making the country very rich.  Other nations wanted to get rich too, so they tried to settle the Caribbean and North, what is now USA and Canada.  In those northern areas, they fished and traded for furs with the Indians. The first time the British tried to settle in America was Roanoke, a small group of people were left in North Carolina in 1584.  But a few years later, their settlement had disappeared.  The Carolina coast is a bad place to choose because a barrier bar reef island off the shore wrecks ships and hides the rivers necessary to find a settlement.  In 1607 the English tried once more, knowing that if they failed, the Spanish would expand into this area.  They settled  63 on the Virginia coast and claimed land from 35 to 45 degrees latitude.  It was named Jamestown after the king, James I.  Here were the Algonquins and Pocahontas.

            Most Indian women had little gardens where they raised vegetables and berries.  That way they didn’t have to go miles to gather these things.  Women did all the “farming”.  Men hunted and fished. There were no farm animals. But the Algonquin men helped a little with planting corn, squash and beans.  They grew these all together with the beans and squash climbing over the corn, called “3 Sisters” agriculture. The English men did the farming.  When they saw a new plant they dreamed of planting a big field. The Englishmen rotated crops, used manure and had iron tools like axes and hoes. This is a big reason why the Europeans succeeded in taking over much of America.

            Pocahontas was thrilled with what she learned.  The new people had cool stuff.  They had interesting food and clothes that would keep you warm in winter.  Algonquins wore nothing above the waist in summer and in winter wrapped themselves in a blanket.  For two years Pocahontas made new friends and learned English.  But Jamestown had troubles.  Most of the settlers were soldiers who guarded the village and they didn’t think they had to work at farming or building.  Only about 20 men and 6 women actually worked to raise crops or hunt.  A year later, Captain John Smith arrived and found the colony starving and idle.  He got tough and told everybody they must work.  He traded for food with the Algonquins, then left.  There is a myth that Pocahontas saved Smith by laying her head on his when the Indians were going to kill him, but it is unlikely, and wasn’t told until over a hundred years later. John Smith kept an official log and never mentioned it.  However, Pocahontas was a spunky girl who served as Smith’s translator.

            Matoaka disappeared from the settlement for 3 years.  The family’s oral story says she was married to another Indian man and had a baby girl.  The baby died and somehow tragically so did her husband.  In 1612 she suddenly appeared at Jamestown again, befriending the women there.  There were some violent disagreements between the Powhattan Algonquins and the English.  Fights broke out and the Indians took several settlers hostage.  In return, the settlers took Pocahantas hostage.  After almost a year, a peace was agreed to and all hostages were released.  But Pocahontas wanted to stay in Jamestown.  While she was under arrest as a hostage, she was guarded by the chaplain of the soldiers, Reverend Whitaker.  When he shared the gospel, that all people sin and that sin gives us a messed-up life, it resonated with the young widow and she deeply wanted to be a Christian, a believer in Jesus.  And on Jan. 14, 1614, she was baptized and took the Christian name of “Rebecca”.  She was the first native American in the lands north of Spanish America to become a Christian, the first Protestant (Anglican is Luther’s theology). Then she met John Rolfe, a young man who had lost his wife and child just as Rebecca had lost spouse and child.   We know that by about the time of Valentine’s Day, 1614, she and John Rolfe decided to get married.  They were married in April of that year.  And in 1615 she had a baby boy, Thomas. 

            Of course everyone knows what happens when a new baby is born.  The grandparents had to come see the new baby! So Powhattan and his two wives came to Jamestown for a visit.  The settlers put on a big feast and other Indians were invited warmly.  Thus began almost 20 years of peace and goodwill between the two peoples.

            But Jamestown still had a problem.  They had no reason to exist since they couldn’t produce anything of value to sell back home.  No gold, no silver were found. Furs and fish were not very valuable.  Rebecca asked John what they could do.  He told her that tobacco was a pricey trade item back in England.  How to grow it? That was a no-brainer for an Algonquin woman! She showed him how to plant, harvest and cure the leaves.  So Rolfe raised a huge amount of tobacco and shipped it back to England where it brought a profit of 12,500%.  Suddenly Jamestown had something to sell and it saved the colony.  In 3 years John Rolfe and Pocahontas grew rich and others started raising tobacco as well.

            The Rolfes grew famous in England. In 1616 they sailed to Britain and were feated as the wonderful people who had made Jamestown profitable.  They met the king. And for the winter, they lived with Rolfe’s family in England.  The English were very interested in how she became Christian and wanted very much to convert the natives of America.  In March 1617, the Rolfes set sail for America but before they even got to the mouth of the Thames River, Pocahontas became very ill.  They stopped and took her ashore where she died of unknown causes.  She was just 21.  Her dying words were, “I am going to heaven but I still have my husband John and Thomas.” It was the tragic story repeated thousands of times as Indians died of Old World diseases when Europeans came.

            Meanwhile, in Jamestown, many things were happening. In 1619, a slave ship which had endured a terrible storm came floating into the bay.  The Jamestown people didn’t like slavery and helped the sailors repair the boat just so they would leave quickly.  As payment, the ship dumped 20 sick slaves for farm labor.  The settlers signed contracts with the Africans to be indentured servants, that is, someone who agrees to work for free for a time period, like a slave.  But things didn’t go well.  The winters were cold and all the Africans died tragically within a few years. 

            That same year, the British crown hit upon the idea that they could exile convicts to Jamestown. Many had mental problems but others were determined to turn their lives around with faith and farming.  A ship of poor women arrived as well, available for the price of 125 pounds of tobacco. Settler-families started to emerge.  And on July 30, 1619, the first General Assembly of Virginia met in the Jamestown Church.  The colony designed a miniature parliament.  There was nothing like it in all the Americas, the First Popular Legislature.  At a time when kings were thought to have divine rights, this was an important telling of America’s future.  And by the way, proud Rolfe descendants are numerous in Virginia today.  Do we know what Pocahontas looked like?  There were no cameras then and no one painted a picture of her.  But there is a picture painted of her niece with her little boy 50 years later.  Everyone said how much her niece looked like Pocahontas.  Here it is.