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Human Sinfulness: A Disease, or a Series of Chains?

(This post was written five years ago, and represents the genesis of the thought that I am expanding upon in Seeds of Confusion.) Imagine that you wake up one morning in your bed, and you are sick. You have a headache, and you are lightheaded. You have a scorching fever, your stomach is violently upset, and you feel like you might vomit. You are so weak and in so much pain that all you can manage is to roll off the bed and crawl toward the bathroom. You realize that even accomplishing the most basic of tasks today will be beyond your capabilities. The next day, imagine that your illness is gone, but now you wake up physically bound in multiple ways. Your hands, your wrists, your elbows, your knees, your ankles, and your feet are all tied together - not in a painful way, but it almost completely prevents you from moving. All you can manage is to wiggle yourself off the bed and along the floor. Just like the previous day, you realize that accomplishing even the most basic of tasks
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Are We Building Our Own Tower of Babel?

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The Tower of Babel is one of the most relevant Biblical stories for these chaotic and confusing times. Here’s why: Found in Genesis 11, the story recounts how all human beings join together in a common project, speaking a common language and working to build a tower that will reach into the heavens. God intervenes, however, confusing their language and breaking their unity, before scattering them around the earth. In the literal sense, this myth is used to explain how human beings came to exist in different parts of the world speaking different languages. It is also used as a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of trying to be our own gods. In today’s increasingly interconnected society, we often think and behave like the people of Babel. We have evolved from tribalism to nationalism to globalism in many ways: 1)   The United Nations is a form of cooperation between nations, based on the understanding that we are one human community who need to look out for one anothe
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Identity Crisis - The Spiritual Issue For A New Era

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Are you feeling divided? Are you living two lives - an inner one and an outer one?  Or perhaps a “real” life and a “virtual” one. Maybe several "virtual" ones? Is there a vast difference between the way the world sees you and the way you see yourself? Or the way you present yourself in certain contexts? Do you feel like you’re just playing a role, or that you have different roles to play in different aspects of your life, and you can never be yourself? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may be experiencing the identity confusion that can described by the word “demonic.” Now, stay with me here. In our culture, “demonic” is too often a facile synonym for “evil.” But historically, it has a much deeper and more useful meaning. A “demon” can simply be something from outside ourselves that divides or confuses our lives, and that disrupts the integrity of our personality identity and our relationships. One of the core id
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12 Chains That Bind Us And Keep Us From Being Free

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Freedom is obtained when we find our way out of the chains that bind us and restrict our understanding of reality. Below are 12 significant chains that I have been bound by, and that I see restricting others. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather a starting point for awareness building. Money The 90’s band The Verve said it best in their hit song “Bittersweet Symphony”: “It's a bittersweet symphony, this life. Try to make ends meet You're a slave to the money Then you die.” Enough said for now. “Success”/Hard Work/Busyness For many in Western culture, this is THE chain that binds (in conjunction with “money.”) How many spend most of the days of their adult lives putting on uncomfortable clothes, fighting traffic, and slaving away for 8-12 hours at a job they don’t enjoy and resent? Once this chain in broken, the flow of freedom accelerates. Physical Insecurity The world can certainly be a dangerous place. But anxiety ove
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Should We Use The Word “Demonic” To Describe Church Conflict?

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Have you ever been part of a church where the actual power structure was different than the stated power structure? This happened in a church I served early in my career. In accordance with Presbyterian polity, we elected a Session of nine elders and a board of six deacons. On paper, the church was governed by these officers. In reality, however, decisions were always made by one of two people. If the matter was related to finances or property, whatever “Mr. Taylor” said was the way the Session would vote. He would make his feelings known in Sunday school, and the current elders never voted against his wishes. “Mrs. Dorothy” lived in the local nursing home, and she would send her directives on all other church matters through her brother, who served on the Session. Mrs. Dorothy had been the matriarch of the church for several decades, a role she had inherited from her aunt - one of the church’s charter members.  To an outsider, this discrepancy in actual vs. stated rol
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When Was The Last Time You Heard A Sermon On Demons?

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When was the last time you preached or heard a sermon about demons? Demons are not something modern, educated, mainline Christians talk much about, even though they are prominent throughout the New Testament. We tend to write off the concept as superstitious and scientifically ignorant. This dismissal happens because we don’t understand what “demon” or “demonic” really means. Typically, we use it to indicate a sort of evil magic, or a creature who serves the devil. Historical usage, however, is much broader. The notion of demons exists as far back as ancient Egypt, and spans over many civilizations and historical eras. They all relate to some sort of outside entity that overcomes, inhabits, or affects humans - but the nature of that entity ranges from “evil” to “lesser” to “genius” to “divine.”  In other words, demonic is not a function of the Christian concept of Satan, as I have often assumed in the past. It has a much deeper meaning, one that has to do with the proc
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Seeds of Confusion - Jim's Next Blog

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Wild Things is a movie that careens through a mind-boggling series of plot twists and character surprises.  The film starts simply enough, depicting the arrest and trial of a young male high school teacher who gets accused of rape by the teenage daughter of a wealthy local businessman. In the courtroom, however, the riveting plot twists begin. We learn that the teenage girl concocted a false accusation, because she has been secretly in love with him and is jealous over the teacher’s relationship with a former student from the wrong side of town.   Soon, however, we learn that all three of these characters are in cahoots, and they have agreed to split the money from a lawsuit that the teacher files against the girl’s father for having his career ruined.  And that’s only the beginning of the deceptions and the surprises. By the end of the film, we learn that former student (who has an IQ over 200) has engineered this entire scheme, which also involves a local policeman a
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