Archive for the 'World' Category



False Prophets and Political Christians

I have seen a definite rise in false prophets and so-called “political Christians,” which are those people who use the Bible to defend or justify mostly political issues without much consideration of what Jesus actually said. I have also seen: a number of people using ministries to spread political Christian messages; politicians talking about the “evangelical vote;” and folks acting like simply because the President sat in a room while some people prayed and took pictures, he must somehow be a follower of Jesus.

Watch out, Saints. End times prophesy predicts the rise of false prophets, and so we shouldn’t really be surprised by that. But remember that, whenever anyone uses God or the Bible to justify a particular political, legal, or social issue, Jesus was neither Republican nor Democrat. He is both conservative and liberal, and would likely find fault with parts of both sides. Line everything up to Him. Line it up to love.

By the way, we had to stop giving to a particular Christian legal organization because it slowly crossed that line between doing purely God’s work in this world to representing radically conservative views that only hurt God’s people. Normally I would spot such a change, but I got caught off guard on that one.

Right before the election, I said the current president wouldn’t win, but that if he did, we should watch out because it meant it was a supernatural event. Now that we’re in it, start brushing up on your supernatural principles, end times prophesy, and what you will personally do to get ready.

Denise and I have been a bit too busy to write. She has an excuse, as she works more than anyone I know. But I did want to mention that my new album was just released and it’s being rejected more than usual by the secular radio (probably because I have scripture on the cover and tunes with titles like, “Come Holy Spirit”). It’s still doing pretty good (on 135 stations) but I’m convinced this relative rejection is due to the word “Christian” and what the false prophets have done to it. Every time, for example, a group of us lays hands on the president and acts like everything is okay — i.e., that he actually believes in what’s going on and is somehow following the teachings of Jesus on a daily basis — makes people think that we followers of Jesus don’t know what we’re even talking about.

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A Supernatural 2016 Election?

I’ve been really busy and so I’ve been having a hard time lately with this blog. For the most part, that’s because I really only ever wanted to talk about positive things, and not get down in the negative gutter about Christian issues. Even though I occasionally rag on Darwin Speak, I do it to uplift people so that they won’t let anyone tear God down.

But lately the only stuff in the news deals with the ugliest presidential election I’ve ever seen. This has been weighing on me, so I’m going to post this one negative blog and be done with it.

The other day, Donald Trump was at a rally where he asked all “Conservative Christians” to raise their hands. Apparently, he thinks all “Conservative Christians” are for him, because when some didn’t raise their hands, he said, “Well, I suppose we can let them stay,” or something like that. In the story about this meeting, the reporter also talked about Trump’s support by “Evangelical Christians.” All these labels got me thinking about a few basic notions.

I’ve posted this first notion many, many times, so it shouldn’t be a surprise; I’m sick of the term “Conservative Christians.” If Jesus were here, he would undoubtedly show people that he is extremely conservative on some things, and extremely liberal on others. People who identify as “Conservative Christians” only, are thus missing exactly half the message. “Conservative Christians,” to me, are probably better defined as “Political Christians,” and I would never want to be called that. Political Christians use the Bible only when it suits their interests. They pick choose, and in no way did Jesus ever say, “You can use whatever suits you – feel free to disregard some of my teachings if they don’t line up with your world.”

This next notion, though, is new to this blog, which deals with what it means to be an “Evangelical Christian.” To me, if you’re an Evangelical Christian, then you believe in the Bible and all it teaches, and you feel you have a responsibility to help others understand the good news presented in it. That much is clear. But if you believe in the Bible and all it teaches, you must be able to see that the Republican nominee for president is about as far away from the Bible and what it teaches – about as far away from Jesus as a model – as someone can possibly be. In a previous blog, I already wrote that one of the central tenants of Donald Trump’s existence is his belief in doing unto others as or before they do unto you, which is, by the way, a central tenet of Satanism. And since I wrote that blog, I’ve seen one thing after another that makes me think that he could care less about any person other than himself. Certainly not his neighbor, and certainly not God. In short, there’s virtually nothing that this nominee does that in any way looks or feels like something Jesus would do (by the way, I wrote this draft about a week ago – before the amazingly vulgar things reported yesterday). The Bible talks about recognizing certain people by their fruits, and by fruits it doesn’t mean money, or structures, or any other natural world things. It means by their spiritual fruits. Unfortunately, in the case of Mr. Trump, the fruit tree is incredibly barren, maybe even dead. Yes, God loves Donald Trump, and yes, Evangelical Christians should attempt to reach him and minister to him. But for goodness sake, they should never vote for him.

Now this last notion is based on the fact that this blog is designed for Christians, and, in particular, Christians who are charismatic and open to the supernatural in their lives. If you aren’t, then I can guarantee that you’ll simply find what I have to say silly. But here goes. In supernatural and charismatic circles, I’m what’s called a prophet in the church, which only means that I’m really good at sensing good and evil in people and situations around me. And folks, let me tell you that the Republican nominee for president of the United States is operating mostly – if not entirely – out of evil. Some say he has a demon, which is probably true since most demons are incredibly dumb and often tip their hands, which makes them easier to spot. No, I don’t think he’s the antichrist, because the antichrist is supposed to be pretty smart.

But here’s the bigger deal, supernaturally speaking. We all know that God runs everything, and so if this nominee – a person who continually, day after day, does about a million things that would normally disqualify any other candidate for doing only one – actually wins this election, you will most definitely know that it’s a supernatural event. And if it’s that much of a big-deal, supernatural event, then watch out because that means that God wanted him in there for a reason. I believe we’re getting quite close to what we all call the End Times, and electing a president who is more capable than most of triggering events leading to those End Times is something that actually makes a bit of sense in an otherwise crazy, nonsensical election.

Oh, and because someone once questioned my street cred, politically speaking, I should tell you that my family is and was incredibly political. My grandfather was Republican Party Chairman for Kansas and ran around with Alf Landon, who was the Republican nominee for President in 1936. My dad was the state’s youngest party chairman ever, and gave a nominating speech at the Republican National Convention in 1968. I grew up attending conventions, party meetings, and various political campaign events. I worked on countless campaigns before I knew any better, and a presidential campaign when I did know better. My brother worked on two. I’ve been registered as a Republican since I was 18, even though I don’t always vote that way and I vote so less and less every year.

I say all this merely to note that in the natural world I suppose I’m a Republican. In the supernatural world, though, I’m a follower of Jesus, which means I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m a follower of Jesus. I suppose most would call that a Christian, and maybe even an Evangelical or Charismatic Christian, but I’m definitely not “conservative” or a “liberal” Christian. And in any event, I can’t possibly vote for Donald Trump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotable Quotes

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“Darwin Speak” Casual Quote of the Day

“An evolutionary change like that can take millions of years.”  

(Matthew Fox, in the movie Extinction, describing a zombie mutant).

And On The Other Side

“In one graduate class, the professor told us we didn’t have to memorize the dates of the geologic systems since they were far too uncertain and conflicting. Then in geophysics we went over all of the assumptions that go into radiometric dating. Afterwards, the professor said, “If a fundamentalist ever got hold of this stuff, he would make havoc out of the radiometric dating system. So, keep the faith.” That’s what he told us, ‘keep the faith.’”

(Biologist Gary Parker, in From Evolution to Creation, quoted in James Perloff, Tornado in a Junkyard.)

The Big Question

Why are sunsets orange and blue?

 

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Because God is a Broncos fan!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

 

Tim and Denise

Let’s Try This Again . . .

When we first formed the “Arming the Saints Ministries,” Denise and I were figuring that we’d actually be ministering. And, in fact, we have been. It just hasn’t appeared that way, though, and so I thought I’d at least explain why.

Those of you who know us know that we try to follow God wherever He takes us, and we try to do whatever He tells us to do without question. But that doesn’t always lead to the kinds of lives that we would have predicted for ourselves. For example, until God wanted me to go back to live with my dad when he was so sick, I never would have predicted that I would become a 24-hour-a-day home health care worker. But that’s what I became, and I soon realized that my ministry was right there, taking care of my dad. So until all of that happened, and until Denise got a new job not too long ago, I think we both just figured that we’d gradually work on our ATS ministry until that was what we would be doing full time. We predicted a certain life together, but it turns out that God had other plans.

In fact, what God wanted me to do after taking care of my dad was to help re-design our country’s system of criminal justice to be more fair and more loving (if you can call a thing like a criminal justice system “loving”) for all people. For the last two years, that’s all I’ve done, but I could never have done it without God also guiding Denise into a job that would pay for all of my free work. If you’ve read her book, you know that Denise and I don’t believe in coincidences, and so we believe that everything has worked out exactly the way God planned it. We still consider ourselves blessed; we’ve never really wanted or needed much, and God has allowed us to continue a ministry through our work.

Still, there’s so much going on with us and our walk that it would be a shame not to at least write about it here. Unfortunately, Denise simply doesn’t have the time; she’s doing what she probably does best – spending her entire day (and well into the night) helping people through their world problems with a supernatural perspective. A lot of folks call it a “workplace ministry,” and that’s exactly what it is. There’s no pulpit and no pews, but she demonstrates God’s love by showing how that love can play out in the world each day. But that’s no excuse for me. I have time. In fact, I’m going to start making time because I honestly just feel a lot better if I spend a portion of every day talking about God.

So, anyway, I’ll be the one writing this blog for a while, but Denise will always be right here with me. We pretty much think exactly the same way on just about everything, anyway, and so you might not even notice too much of a difference.

And since I was talking about trying to predict our lives, let’s start with something about prediction that I saw the other day in a magazine. The editors of the magazine asked a variety of historians, legal scholars, and authors, “What is the greatest upset in history?” The answers were all over the map, and included sporting events, battles, and other historical happenings. But the one that got my attention was from a legal type (like me), who said that Christianity was the biggest upset because nobody “would have predicted that today the faith of billions would bear [Jesus’s] name.” Of course, we know that’s wrong. God knew it, and in fact Jesus even told his disciples, just as the scriptures foretold, that the story of Christ, and repentance, and forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations. When Jesus told them this, the Bible says that he “opened their minds” so that they could understand the scriptures. The phrase “opened their minds,” according to John MacArthur in his Bible commentary, “seems to convey a supernatural opening of their minds to receive the truths He unfolded.” But really, these truths were foretold as prophesy in the OT, and so pretty much everyone back then had some ability to predict that when the Messiah came, his following would ultimately span the earth.

So even when things seem like they don’t go as predicted, when you follow God you should take solace in the fact that they are likely going exactly as predicted by Him. God has us all in His hands, there’s nothing to fear, and if you decide to follow Him, you’ll end up doing a ministry somewhere, somehow. He has it all figured out, and it’s all part of that amazing plan that He has for your life. There are no coincidences, and there really aren’t any upsets. There’s only the truth as unfolded by Jesus.

I’m Denise’s husband, Timothy Crane, and I’m going to do my best to talk about our walk with God more often because I think that’s what God wants me to do. I hope you will, too.


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