He is Risen, Indeed. As the Orthodox will say when their 'Easter' Pascha service comes around.
As an old-time atheist, long before my own conversion, I always wondered how both atheists and Christians got the question of sin wrong ...
If you believe in a supernatural God who allows Free Will to choose between Good and Evil ... and offers an afterlife in which all of our debts in this life will be paid one way or another ...
Why would you think God should intervene to stop someone choosing Evil and doing Evil?
Think about it. What's the point of taking the test ... if you're not allowed to answer?
You don't even have to believe to understand why such a God does not intervene: And you can hypothesize that such a God was invented by men to explain what appears to happen on Earth after the fact.
Atheists argue that God does not exist because He does not intervene to prevent Evil or to provide restitution, reparation, or retribution. I'm generalizing of course. But if He did exist, and He intervened to prevent Evil, would an Atheist agree or cooperate with such micro-management? Atheists don't like this line of thinking because it will blow holes in the 'why bad things happen' problem, but it's just being intellectually honest and fair to accept the presumption of Free Will is an axiom for believers even if they find it to be a post hoc rationalization to correct what they see as a mistake in Creation.
Pardon the long-winded response, but the anger - the heated, deranged, irrational skepticism - arising from arguing with my fellow atheists on this point led directly to recognizing that Atheism is just another religion.
And from there it was a hop-skip-jump to faith.
I could go on and on, but just for Christians who may have lost loved ones: Christ is Risen. If your loved ones were taken in an act of evil, they will be fine. You will see them again. Don't let pastors with their 'seminarian' theology worry you. God is fair as well as just.
God bless. And thank you for letting me post here.
Reparations to be paid by people who never owned slaves and in most cases are not descendants of slave owners to people who were never slaves and in most cases are not descendants of slaves. The only relation the payers and the payees have to the original parties is the immutable characteristic of skin color. This is the definition of shakedown. Should radical leftists pay reparations to sensible conservatives for assaulting our sensibilities? Should school teachers pay reparations to children mutilated by gender affirming care when they come to regret it?
Amen! Jesus forgives each individual who believes and asks for forgiveness. Likewise, I can forgive you, but I can not make you forgive me, no more than a Christian can force someone else to believe or live "like a Christian." Christianity, like most religions, is based on personal volition. The issue of "reparations" has nothing to do with the Church. Slavery, like Japanese internment during WWII, was a crime sanctioned and perpetrated by the State. The Japanese-Americans incarcerated in violation of their Civil Rights received an apology and reparations from the State. Native Americans are still waiting for their reparations or restoration of their stolen land. African-Americans are still waiting for their reparations for 83 years of chattel slavery + 110 years of "Jim Crow" discrimination under the laws of the United States. I agree with Andy - none of these reparations have anything to do with Jesus or the Church, the reparations must come from the State that condoned, perpetrated, and benefited from them. Even though my ancestors never owned a single slave or killed a single Indian, they were citizens of a Nation that allowed slavery to exist and they willingly took possession of stolen land making them, and all of us, "accessories-after-the-fact."
As imperfect followers of a perfect example — Jesus Christ — our response is to be charitable to all in need every day. To the orphans, the widows, the sick, and those captured in sin.
We do these acts of compassion knowing we are all prisoners to the binds of sin. The Good News is one day we will be set free from this earth of hate, hopelessness, pain, and death.
What breaks these chains? Embracing this gift of Truth — not cash — will set us free.
One day, when we are welcomed Home by our Heavenly Parents we will sing songs of freedom. Until then, we sing songs that our black brothers and sisters wrote in the 1800s as slaves and sang that encourage us all:
“This world is not my home,
I’m just-a passin’ through.
My treasures are laid up,
somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.”
Our Forever Friend paid the ultimate price of full reparations for our sin on the cross and claimed victory over death.
The question is, “Will you accept this free gift and full payment of love?”
Thank you Current for this story of the meaning of the Redurrrction! He is Risen is the most important story in human history
Today I cancelled the Noozhawk and Edhat, neither of whom think the Resurrection deserves mention in between rain, sports scores and fallen trees. Glad to see the Current stepping into the gap
Over 90% of local press revenue comes from advertising, not subscribers. Succumbing to the advertisers' desire not to offend any potential customer has focused much of our local press on bland public relations (be it commercial events, weather, sports, nonprofits, etc.), not uncomfortable truth-seeking.
Do those self-hating people who support reparations believe that once the demands are met that the goal posts won't change and then more demands will be made? Wasn't affirmative action as well as inner-city housing projects supposed to even the score?
A United States of America passport is one of the most coveted documents in the world. Acceptance of post Civil War US citizenship by former slaves was an affirmative choice, made in the in the names of all subsequent unborn generations.
Because also at that time, freed slaves could participate in the African repatriation movement to Liberia. The highly recommended book "Mississippi In Africa" was written by a modern day ancestor of a former Southern slave holding plantation family. The author wanted to learn what happened generations later to the ancestors of his own family's freed slaves, who had made the choice to return to Africa. His unfolding tale and the impact on his own life is captivating.
-----Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today is a 2004 non-fiction book by Alan Huffman, published by the University Press of Mississippi. It chronicles Americo-Liberians who originated from the Prospect Hill Plantation in Mississippi and who settled Mississippi-in-Africa.
What a fine example of using the lord’s name in vain! The author must be a fine follower of the prosperity gospel- Jesus absolves us of our responsibility to our community? Absolves us of our responsibility to be working for justice? The crimes of slavery and the genocide & land theft against the original people of the Western Hemisphere are so convenient for people today to absolve themselves of. Look man, that happened in the past so what does it have to do with me??? Everything. Everything nice that we have we got that we are not sharing, giving up our possessions so that our neighbors can have sufficient food and clothing and shelter. Don’t worry folks, we don’t need to be troubled today while we are on earth. It’s embarrassing mental gymnastics to twist the word imo. Jesus was a communist and God’s economy is gift, not capitalism. But keep worshiping that golden calf in your bank account and don’t worry about what they’ll ask you at the pearly gates about if you did enough while you were alive…. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Hell is for sinners and purgatory for the hemmers and hawers- heaven is for those with Christ in their heart.
Dear Rob, you are missing the point entirely. Do we owe it to our fellow man to help them and care for them? Yes. But it is another thing altogether to ask me to pay for the sins (that is what the word atonement means) of our ancestors when WE CAN'T PAY FOR OUR OWN SINS!!! Only Jesus could pay the price for our sins. That is the Easter message, not reparations. Not washing people's feet with cash! All of mankind has sin. White people did not invent slavery or racism! Nor did we invent wealth. And, we certainly did not invent original sin.
Do you make the connection between welfare programs and the breakdown of the Black American family? Without this understanding, you will remain confused.
I am no apologist for the pro-slavery sentiments of many of the Founding Fathers, but then again, as a Christian, I am not to worship any human. Having said that when do we ever get past assigning the roles of helpless victim/oppressor?
If you look at mainstream Black music back in the early 1970's as well as Black culture you will find there was strength, a sense of strong dignity, men called each other "brother" and called women "sisters", whereas today the model is Gansta' Rap where "Nig*a", "Bi*ch" and "hoe" are the terms, as well as "baby mama" and "baby daddy". Very few kids grow up knowing their biological fathers, instead being subjected to an itinerary of Mom's boyfriends, half-sibling, and near zero-stability in the home and almost nonexistent family structure. Add to this the excuses made for the low academic standards of the public school system. (Any wonder why in-the-know Black parents are opting out for Charter Schools?) Whatever one may think of the crestfallen Bill Cosby per his criminal convictions, the man always held the bar high and promoted the idea of educated, self-reliant Blacks. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, Vernon Dahlmer, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. du Bois, and even the once-enslaved Fredrick Douglass all knew the power of literacy and education, whereas today we have the anti-Semitic/homophobic/racist Al Sharpton pandering to ghetto culture and "keeping it real". Even the Black Consciousness comedian Richard Pryor, who unlike today's rappers grew up in segregated southern Illinois in the 1940's/1950's at a time when a Black man could be hung for looking at a White woman the wrong way renounced his own use of the work "nigg*r".
We can keep pandering to guilt, keep throwing money at government programs that ultimately have resulted in Black females being seen as brood mares and Black males as sperm donors, we can pander to the misogynistic culture of Rap, we can make 14% of the American population into 70+% on t.v. commercials and ads, repeat the "Black Lives Matter" mantra while in fact Black lives only matter when the killer is a White cop, but don't matter when (as is overwhelmingly the case) the killer is another Black,
What we also don't talk about is the fact that the Blacks who excel academically are derided as "acting White", because they don't conform the role assigned to them by Poverty Pimps protecting their womb-to-tomb government jobs.
Throwing money at the problem is only making it worse, so if we are to close the gap between the races, look at the historically-discriminated against demographics of Jews and Asians, and how they consistently outperform non-Jewish Whites. Would you say that their disproportionate wealth and power are a case of "Jewish/Asian privilege"? Or to the fact that they have hard-wired into their cultures the realization that education and intact families are the key to overcoming the historical oppression they have face in America, and like the true civil rights leaders of old, apply this to Blacks?
He is Risen, Indeed. As the Orthodox will say when their 'Easter' Pascha service comes around.
As an old-time atheist, long before my own conversion, I always wondered how both atheists and Christians got the question of sin wrong ...
If you believe in a supernatural God who allows Free Will to choose between Good and Evil ... and offers an afterlife in which all of our debts in this life will be paid one way or another ...
Why would you think God should intervene to stop someone choosing Evil and doing Evil?
Think about it. What's the point of taking the test ... if you're not allowed to answer?
You don't even have to believe to understand why such a God does not intervene: And you can hypothesize that such a God was invented by men to explain what appears to happen on Earth after the fact.
Atheists argue that God does not exist because He does not intervene to prevent Evil or to provide restitution, reparation, or retribution. I'm generalizing of course. But if He did exist, and He intervened to prevent Evil, would an Atheist agree or cooperate with such micro-management? Atheists don't like this line of thinking because it will blow holes in the 'why bad things happen' problem, but it's just being intellectually honest and fair to accept the presumption of Free Will is an axiom for believers even if they find it to be a post hoc rationalization to correct what they see as a mistake in Creation.
Pardon the long-winded response, but the anger - the heated, deranged, irrational skepticism - arising from arguing with my fellow atheists on this point led directly to recognizing that Atheism is just another religion.
And from there it was a hop-skip-jump to faith.
I could go on and on, but just for Christians who may have lost loved ones: Christ is Risen. If your loved ones were taken in an act of evil, they will be fine. You will see them again. Don't let pastors with their 'seminarian' theology worry you. God is fair as well as just.
God bless. And thank you for letting me post here.
Reparations to be paid by people who never owned slaves and in most cases are not descendants of slave owners to people who were never slaves and in most cases are not descendants of slaves. The only relation the payers and the payees have to the original parties is the immutable characteristic of skin color. This is the definition of shakedown. Should radical leftists pay reparations to sensible conservatives for assaulting our sensibilities? Should school teachers pay reparations to children mutilated by gender affirming care when they come to regret it?
Thanks Andy, for a beautiful Easter message.
Amen! Jesus forgives each individual who believes and asks for forgiveness. Likewise, I can forgive you, but I can not make you forgive me, no more than a Christian can force someone else to believe or live "like a Christian." Christianity, like most religions, is based on personal volition. The issue of "reparations" has nothing to do with the Church. Slavery, like Japanese internment during WWII, was a crime sanctioned and perpetrated by the State. The Japanese-Americans incarcerated in violation of their Civil Rights received an apology and reparations from the State. Native Americans are still waiting for their reparations or restoration of their stolen land. African-Americans are still waiting for their reparations for 83 years of chattel slavery + 110 years of "Jim Crow" discrimination under the laws of the United States. I agree with Andy - none of these reparations have anything to do with Jesus or the Church, the reparations must come from the State that condoned, perpetrated, and benefited from them. Even though my ancestors never owned a single slave or killed a single Indian, they were citizens of a Nation that allowed slavery to exist and they willingly took possession of stolen land making them, and all of us, "accessories-after-the-fact."
So true.
As imperfect followers of a perfect example — Jesus Christ — our response is to be charitable to all in need every day. To the orphans, the widows, the sick, and those captured in sin.
We do these acts of compassion knowing we are all prisoners to the binds of sin. The Good News is one day we will be set free from this earth of hate, hopelessness, pain, and death.
What breaks these chains? Embracing this gift of Truth — not cash — will set us free.
One day, when we are welcomed Home by our Heavenly Parents we will sing songs of freedom. Until then, we sing songs that our black brothers and sisters wrote in the 1800s as slaves and sang that encourage us all:
“This world is not my home,
I’m just-a passin’ through.
My treasures are laid up,
somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.”
Our Forever Friend paid the ultimate price of full reparations for our sin on the cross and claimed victory over death.
The question is, “Will you accept this free gift and full payment of love?”
He is Risen, indeed!
Thank you Current for this story of the meaning of the Redurrrction! He is Risen is the most important story in human history
Today I cancelled the Noozhawk and Edhat, neither of whom think the Resurrection deserves mention in between rain, sports scores and fallen trees. Glad to see the Current stepping into the gap
Actually, tge Publisher of Noozhawk is a devout Christian
Who won’t mention the Resurrection on his publication
Over 90% of local press revenue comes from advertising, not subscribers. Succumbing to the advertisers' desire not to offend any potential customer has focused much of our local press on bland public relations (be it commercial events, weather, sports, nonprofits, etc.), not uncomfortable truth-seeking.
Do those self-hating people who support reparations believe that once the demands are met that the goal posts won't change and then more demands will be made? Wasn't affirmative action as well as inner-city housing projects supposed to even the score?
A United States of America passport is one of the most coveted documents in the world. Acceptance of post Civil War US citizenship by former slaves was an affirmative choice, made in the in the names of all subsequent unborn generations.
Because also at that time, freed slaves could participate in the African repatriation movement to Liberia. The highly recommended book "Mississippi In Africa" was written by a modern day ancestor of a former Southern slave holding plantation family. The author wanted to learn what happened generations later to the ancestors of his own family's freed slaves, who had made the choice to return to Africa. His unfolding tale and the impact on his own life is captivating.
-----Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today is a 2004 non-fiction book by Alan Huffman, published by the University Press of Mississippi. It chronicles Americo-Liberians who originated from the Prospect Hill Plantation in Mississippi and who settled Mississippi-in-Africa.
You can stick your reparations where the sun don’t shine!!
Jesus was treated WORSE than slaves and chose to FORGIVE those who crucified him!
Maybe these people if they really knew Jesus would do the same.
But nope,money is their God!
Yes
Mr Segal
Please read John-14:6
Mr Caldwell didn’t say it.
Jesus did.
Don't want to be the skunk at the garden party but is Caldwell saying all non-Christians can't go to heaven?
What a fine example of using the lord’s name in vain! The author must be a fine follower of the prosperity gospel- Jesus absolves us of our responsibility to our community? Absolves us of our responsibility to be working for justice? The crimes of slavery and the genocide & land theft against the original people of the Western Hemisphere are so convenient for people today to absolve themselves of. Look man, that happened in the past so what does it have to do with me??? Everything. Everything nice that we have we got that we are not sharing, giving up our possessions so that our neighbors can have sufficient food and clothing and shelter. Don’t worry folks, we don’t need to be troubled today while we are on earth. It’s embarrassing mental gymnastics to twist the word imo. Jesus was a communist and God’s economy is gift, not capitalism. But keep worshiping that golden calf in your bank account and don’t worry about what they’ll ask you at the pearly gates about if you did enough while you were alive…. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Hell is for sinners and purgatory for the hemmers and hawers- heaven is for those with Christ in their heart.
Dear Rob, you are missing the point entirely. Do we owe it to our fellow man to help them and care for them? Yes. But it is another thing altogether to ask me to pay for the sins (that is what the word atonement means) of our ancestors when WE CAN'T PAY FOR OUR OWN SINS!!! Only Jesus could pay the price for our sins. That is the Easter message, not reparations. Not washing people's feet with cash! All of mankind has sin. White people did not invent slavery or racism! Nor did we invent wealth. And, we certainly did not invent original sin.
Do you make the connection between welfare programs and the breakdown of the Black American family? Without this understanding, you will remain confused.
I am no apologist for the pro-slavery sentiments of many of the Founding Fathers, but then again, as a Christian, I am not to worship any human. Having said that when do we ever get past assigning the roles of helpless victim/oppressor?
If you look at mainstream Black music back in the early 1970's as well as Black culture you will find there was strength, a sense of strong dignity, men called each other "brother" and called women "sisters", whereas today the model is Gansta' Rap where "Nig*a", "Bi*ch" and "hoe" are the terms, as well as "baby mama" and "baby daddy". Very few kids grow up knowing their biological fathers, instead being subjected to an itinerary of Mom's boyfriends, half-sibling, and near zero-stability in the home and almost nonexistent family structure. Add to this the excuses made for the low academic standards of the public school system. (Any wonder why in-the-know Black parents are opting out for Charter Schools?) Whatever one may think of the crestfallen Bill Cosby per his criminal convictions, the man always held the bar high and promoted the idea of educated, self-reliant Blacks. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, Vernon Dahlmer, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. du Bois, and even the once-enslaved Fredrick Douglass all knew the power of literacy and education, whereas today we have the anti-Semitic/homophobic/racist Al Sharpton pandering to ghetto culture and "keeping it real". Even the Black Consciousness comedian Richard Pryor, who unlike today's rappers grew up in segregated southern Illinois in the 1940's/1950's at a time when a Black man could be hung for looking at a White woman the wrong way renounced his own use of the work "nigg*r".
We can keep pandering to guilt, keep throwing money at government programs that ultimately have resulted in Black females being seen as brood mares and Black males as sperm donors, we can pander to the misogynistic culture of Rap, we can make 14% of the American population into 70+% on t.v. commercials and ads, repeat the "Black Lives Matter" mantra while in fact Black lives only matter when the killer is a White cop, but don't matter when (as is overwhelmingly the case) the killer is another Black,
What we also don't talk about is the fact that the Blacks who excel academically are derided as "acting White", because they don't conform the role assigned to them by Poverty Pimps protecting their womb-to-tomb government jobs.
Throwing money at the problem is only making it worse, so if we are to close the gap between the races, look at the historically-discriminated against demographics of Jews and Asians, and how they consistently outperform non-Jewish Whites. Would you say that their disproportionate wealth and power are a case of "Jewish/Asian privilege"? Or to the fact that they have hard-wired into their cultures the realization that education and intact families are the key to overcoming the historical oppression they have face in America, and like the true civil rights leaders of old, apply this to Blacks?