Appendix

Modern evangelicalism of the last 200 years has trashed or perverted the relation of God to this world in which we live and have our being. In so doing, the specific intent of the Bible revelation has been hidden from us.  Those who say that sin, in all its forms, is the central roadblock to God access are liars.  The Bible doesn’t so speak. The Bible says that a lack of loving concern for others, all others, is the only so-called sin that damages the God-Man relationship in this world of ours.

One of my spiritual heroes was the Reverend John Wesley (1703 to 1791). Because of one eight-word verse in the Bible, taken out of context, his memory has been largely misinterpreted and debased by the evangelical mindset. Matthew 5: 48 reads “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.  Evangelicalism uses these few words to condemned all God believers to a life of spiritual failure for none of us are or ever will be perfect.

Should we not ask, what may be the motive of such theologizing? The motive is power over the people. Everyone is guilty of some sin or other somewhere and evangelicalism offers partial relief, within its own cultural context. Thus, the pulpiteers of evangelicalism are impartial guilt merchants. For them, playing the guilt card feathers their nest in very practical terms. The church of my birth, crazily, from it’s beginning in 1906 had a long list of “don’ts” that somehow proved authentic spirituality.

John Wesley has been called the man of one book, the Bible. His understanding of Scripture wasn’t perfect but it was better than most other interpreters. Rev. Wesley makes the following comment in his book, “Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament”, Epworth Press, p. 35. Speaking of Matthew 5: 48, “So the original runs, referring to all that holiness which is described in the foregoing verses, which our Lord in the beginning of the chapter recommends as happiness, and in the close of it as perfection.” The only so-called sin in this passage is a lack of love or acceptance of all others, friend or foe.  Perfect love does not judge any other persons as beyond the boundless love of God and therefore the love and acceptance of all God believers. The context of this verse is King.

Why not ask of your theology, how does it measure up with the Old Testament and Jesus command to love God and our neighbors? Could our theology also be in the appendix?               

G. Goslaw

Landers, ca.

 

Drudgery

One of these days I’m going to hire a housekeeper or break down and marry one. I do so hate that unavoidable job. Oh, well.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Sculptor

God is like a sculptor working on a plain piece of rock, “without form and void (Genesis 1: 2)”. God sees a future world within that rock as a sculptor sees a particular form within a pile of clay or a chunk of marble. Slowly the excess matter is whittled away exposing the sculptor's desired vision. So it is with the Master Sculptor who whittles away on our world. The form is in process. In the meantime, we trust the Sculptor.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

 

Christmas

I believe in Christmas.  Jesus was not a God but I believe in Christmas.  In Christmas we celebrate those times when the God among us dramatically invades one or more of our personal spaces. This God invaded the personal space of Jesus. Christmas is, therefore, more of an event than a person. In the language of a long-ago generation, “Christmas is what’s happening brother”. Every religion of this world is rooted in a Christmas time happening.    

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

same O

1376 England

“The failure to conclude peace at Bruges had brought to a climax public resentment of corrupt royal officials, a pointless war, military mismanagement, and waste or embezzlement of the people’s money.”

Resulting in ………“the great murmur of the people”.

“A Distant Mirror”, Barbara W. Tuchman, 2014 Random House Edition, p. 304.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Pork Again?

 

No last-minute pork bill Republicans!  Our government needs a one-month vacation. Sissies be damned. Give disaster money to the Biden administration? Congress is killing the people.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Goodness (Grace)

We arrived with nothing and will end up with everything.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Surrender

Senator Warren is the latest Democrat politician to go schizoid.  Face reality lady, you and yours lost the November Presidential election in a resounding landslide. You are done. Here you are making “demands” of the incoming Trump administration. You and your Democrat, Biden led, cronies have so trashed our country that cost cutting leadership is imperative for our survival. Trump and Musk, Ramaswamy and DOGE have the high ground. Take it like a man.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

 

Eternity

We shall all live eternally through the contributions we make or don't make to the next generation and beyond. Our lives are serious business.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Now God

There is no old school cosmic disciplinarian God. That God was invented by religion, unconsciously or otherwise, to have power over and control the people for its own survival. The true God is not out there adrift among the stars for he or she or it is in the midst of our God created world.  God is among us consistently reshaping all things toward a planned future we know not of. God’s creative process can best be summarized as, "every ending is a beginning".

Round and round we go.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Hell

If there is a God that can make sense of the goings on of this world, that God is a God for all of us, red and yellow, black and white, rich and poor, sinner and saint. We are all precious in his sight. Unless God is thus defined, then this must be a hellish Godless world.

G. Goslaw 

Landers, Ca. 

Dark Times

These days when problems seem too big to handle, I read another chapter in “A Distant Mirror”, by Barbara Tuchman. A chapter at a time is all that I can tolerate. The cover says the book is a narrative history of France and England in the 14^th century but 350 pages and I am not there yet. The 13^th century was dark enough being mostly doom and gloom, the Black plague pandemic, the strong preying on the weak with extreme brutality and everything had a price. Life was a short lived daily fight for survival for the vast majority of us.

In the midst of all this craziness, The Roman Catholic Church was there selling free passes to eternity, as if they were the gatekeepers. Some of us say that not much has changed.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Traitor

Drones or balloons, they wouldn’t fly in our skies if Joey had not given them the green light. No evidence?  If your not looking for evidence, you will find none until it is to late. Again, we continue to be sold out by traitor democrats!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

 

Obvious

Christian doctrine dumped on us so long ago, can have shaky grounding in the Bible. Who was Jesus? Was Jesus also God? Is the one God of scripture also the confusing triune God of three persons?  Some of us say that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus was and is only a God powered testimony to the spiritual reality of the one God among us. This being said, the biblical Jesus record does not include the assumption that Jesus was also God.  This is the obvious conclusion asserted by Forrest Maready in his little book, “why Some Christians don’t Believe in the Trinity”.

The book is neither a deep dive into a biblical theology nor is it a thought-out theology. The book is a plain verse by verse, common sense, summary of all that the Bible says about the nature of God, from Genesis to Revelation. No where is the Triune nature of God in three persons to be found. The biblical, so-called scholars, will make excuses for the absence of such an understanding in the words of the Bible but all of them have jobs to protect, they can’t state the obvious. Mr. Maready, whoever you are, thank you for stating the obvious.

Despite this minority opinion, the author rightly considers himself to be Christian, clinging to the remaining Christian doctrinal orthodoxy. Some of us, if only me, believe that another Christian doctrine is even more perverse and makes the Christian label, if defined by the “Creeds” of doctrine, quite impossible. There is only one God and we humans have never been angels sitting around heaven smoking a peace pipe with God. We humans are and have always been highly competitive, self-centered creatures existing for only a moment in this dog-eat-dog world. The nature of God is an issue and the nature of mankind is an issue.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Camouflage

God lives hidden among us. Who knows where? God may be hidden in the air we inhale, the pooch on the front porch, our neighbor, our friend or even our enemy. God may be hidden in the midst of what we recognize only as a hell on earth. We never know for sure. Maybe, this reality is what Jesus found in Palestine 2000 years ago.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Wrecking ball

President Biden’s pardon games are not about the traditional use of presidential pardons. Biden's pardons are rather sweeping criminal or even traitorous "confessions". Joe, what else are you hiding? As with President Nixon, admit your guilt, resign and then you can have your pardon. This would be the honorable path. Do you and yours know about honor?  

As always, the Biden path of deceit will be to pardon himself, all of his family and at least his administration’s major players as a coverup. No president has ever attempted a blanket pardon for all crimes not yet exposed or charged. Such thinking and hoping is wonder lust and not the expressed intent of the U. S. Constitution. Maybe, the Supreme Court needs to speak up.

The Biden wrecking ball against our democracy will stain the fortunes of all Democrats and America for 30 years, if we remain standing. 

Goslaw

Landers, Ca..                           

 

Bubble

Christian Doctrinal history is a bubble, it proves nothing, there is only our moment. Every attempt to give spirituality supposed historical boundaries has failed to be supported by modern investigations into their cultural and language contexts in the last hundred years. One thing that the Bible is not, is history. The Bible is faithed out religious history. This is true of both the Old Testament and the supposed God became flesh New Testament. In response the doctrinal folks only refer us to the orthodox doctrinal bubble as truth. 

What if, this bubble is a merely a succession of best guesses intended to give the few power over the many? 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.