Glocal Leaders Network

 August 2009 – Family and Ministry Update 

Dear prayer partners,

 

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and your mails that help us to move forward.  

 Missions Sunday in Secunderabad 

Secunderabad Bible Fellowship  is a dynamic congregation with great potential for missions.  Caleb, Harvest Ministries one of the leaders in the Fellowship invited me to give a special message on urban missions on 2 August.  The Congregation has dedicated the month of August for Missions.  It was good to meet several friends in the congregation including: S. Fullonton, Krishnaiah, Pranay Mukerjee, Calvin and others.  On 1^st evening there was a special prayer meeting in N.K. Sanghi’s home (who were my hosts) where I shared from the Acts of Apostles.  It was good to meet J. Joshua, who is presently executive director of People Builders Trust that sponsors higher education needs of Missionary Kids.

 Writers’ Workshop 

On 9^th Ramanathan and I spoke in the Writers’ Vision Workshop in Hyderabad.  Rishi Paul, of Mahalife.Com had organized this programme.  Rishi and his wife Prasanthi made our stay comfortable and meaningful.   

 US Trip 

Rosy and I travelled to New Jersey, US.  We stayed with Vineta Livingstone.  God opened door to preach in the English service of Jesus Family Church on 16^th August. Pastor Oswin Michael invited us to share the word.   

 Christ Church of India, San Jose 

Then we travelled to San Jose, California.  God opened us door to speak in the Christ Church of India annual retreat.  The Founding Pastor of the Church, Rev. Ranjan Samuel is a great man of God with wonderful set of leaders he has trained from his church.  God enabled me to take 5 sessions on Spiritual Disciplines for Abundant Life.  About 170 people had registered.  The sessions were highly appreciated.  Satyadev and Sridevi (children Sathvik and Sakshi) hosted us in their home.  Pastor Ranjan Samuel took us for San Franciso tour to see the bridge, fishermen wrap, crooked street and other places.  Hours of discussion with him about Diaspora ministries, partnership, leadership development and training was refreshing.  Dr. Rajkumar Gel, who studied in Virdhunagar when I had just finished my course is in San Jose with his wife and two children and invited us for dinner on 24 August. 

  

God enabled to speak to few students in Stanford University that was organized by Dr. Jeyakumar on 25 August. 

 Kansas City 

On 26 we travelled to Kansas City and stayed with Randy and Cindy family.  They had organized for me to speak in a fellowship on 27^th night; men’s breakfast fellowship and lunch meeting with few Christian business people (28 August). 

 St. Joseph, Missouri 

We travelled from Kansas to St. Joseph on 28 evening and stayed with Sudhir & Rachael family.  Visited few Indian families for evangelism and strengthening of their faith. 

 

God enabled to speak in the Representatives of Christ Fellowship on 30 August.  Pastor Diamond is the founding pastor of this church. 

 

Please visit the website:  http://glocalleadersnetwork.com/main/

 

Yours in His Vineyard,

J.N. Manokaran

  Upcoming schedule 

US & Canada Ministries

           

1          Sept     North Park Seminary,  Chicago

2                      Reaching Indians Ministries International, Chicago

4                      Bible Study, Princeton

7                      New York – 4/14 Consultations

8-11                 Global Cities Initiative, Breakout Sessions – Urban Trends

13-14               Boston?

15                    Global Urban Strategists meet, New York

17                    Newark – Toronto

19                    Kerala Assembly

20-27               Mission Week, Richmond Hill (Chinese) Baptist Church

22                    Ministry among Diaspora Peoples, Tyndale Intercultural Mission Centre (Tyndale University College and Seminary)

28                    Toronto-Chennai

 October

3          Oct                  Operation Harvest, Chennai

10        Oct                  Release of “Chennai Insights” magazine

13-16   Oct                  All India Congress on Church and Mission, Hyderabad

20-22   Oct                  Mission Maharastra, Kolhapur

23        Oct                  Mission India Board Meeting, Nagpur

 

1-4       Nov                 Ethne Consultation????

7-12     Nov                 BGU, Urban Consultation, Chennai

9-13     Nov                 School of Leadership, Oddanchatram

17-21   Nov                 Akola transformation seminars

26-27   Nov                 Allahabad Bible Seminary, Allahabad

 

3-5       Dec                  Mission Educational Books, 20 years anniversary

6-8       Dec                  Chennai Pastors’s Mission Conference

 2010 

12-15   January            SEANET, Thailand

18-22   January            School of Leadership, Bangkok, Thailand

24-26   January            Cochin

 

1-3       February          TOPIC Trainers, Mentors and Coaches conference, Dimapur

2-6       March              APCOD 2010 – Chennai/Delhi

15-21   March              Chicago

 

10-13   April                CFCC, Bangalore, Contemporary Missions

 

5-7       May                 Colombo, GLOMOS

13-15   May                 Kolkata, GLOMOS

17-19   May                 Kalimpong, GLOMOS

24-28   May                 Summer School of Leadership, Chennai

 

12-14   August                        CFCC, Bangalore

 

16-25   Oct                  Third Lausanne Congress, Cape Town, South Africa

29 Nov-

5          December        Centre For Contemporary Christianity, M.Th. Classes

    Worship Without Word?J.N. ManokaranWorship in Christendom is expressed in several ways.  There are several traditions that are followed.  The pattern and style keeps changing with every generation.  It has particular cultural expression in certain cultures also.  But the basic elements in worship are same beyond time and geography as taught in the scripture.  But, there has been emphasis on certain elements of worship and neglect of some.  It is essential to have an integration of all elements of congregational worship.   These are the elements that are found in the Scripture:  Word, Holy Communion (Breaking of Bread), Praises, and Prayers. And all these are done in an attitude of reverence but with a mood of joy and celebration.  The first century church had all these elements interwoven and integrated.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42)  The purpose of such gathering is edification or strengthening of believers so that the Church is strengthened.  “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” (I Cor 14: 26) Historical developments When we look to history the worship practice has evolved in three stages, in each stage the emphasis was different.  This is the time to have integration of all elements.   First Century to Reformation The Church traditions: Catholic and Orthodox had worship that had Holy Communion as the focus.  It was considered as central for the worship.  The priest had the celebration of the mass as important sacred duty.  It was and is a daily practice in the Roman Catholic Church.  Praise and prayers were also considered important by Eucharist was the central aspect of worship.  A Scripture portion was read but, in the olden times in Latin language; a vast majority of the people were not able to comprehend.  The intellectual climate was ‘pre-modern’ with the Priest controlling the religious life with unquestioned authority.  The priests were generally more learned and had absolute authority over the laity with regards to spiritual matters.   Reformation Martin Luther reformation brought a great change in Christian history.  The Bible was being translated into languages of common people.  The invention of printing press facilitated the availability of Bible for the common people.  Education also became more democratic, that is more people started having access to education.  Science and Technology made great strides.  The intellectual climate was ‘rationalism’ or ‘modernism’ where science and technology was seen as supreme.  The truth is not what the religious authorities dictated, but it could be discovered by science.   In this context, the ‘pulpit’ became the centre of worship.  Preaching was prominent place in the protestant churches.  The mass or Eucharist was there but not as prominent in Roman Catholic churches.  It was not a daily practice to celebrate mass, but weekly and some places it became monthly.  The choir occupied a place that was not prominent but in the background.  There were structured prayers and liturgy.  To appeal to the people influenced by renaissance, pulpit was a wonderful platform to provide spiritual nurture.  With the quest of knowledge in the rational intellectual climate, pulpit was the answer.  Proclamation of the Word was the mark of Protestant movement.   Winds of Postmodernism Post modernism was skeptic about intellectual capacities of humanity and gave emphasis to feeling or emotions.  The modernism vocabulary of “I think” was effectively replaced by “I feel” in day to day conversations.  Objectivism of Modernism was replaced by subjectivism of Post modernism.  Obviously, mysticism became the defining matter for spirituality.  So, praises and prayer became more central in spiritual experience.  Naturally, as seen in the contemporary congregations, worship team occupies the central place.  The Eucharist and Pulpit are marginalized.  The time given for worship teams exceeds the time provided for preaching of the Word.   Warning 

The history of Israel provides lot of examples and warnings.  One of their congregational worship went haywire because the elements were not integrated.  Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights in Mount Sinai to receive the Law from the Lord.  The Word, Ten Commandments was being received by Moses, in the attitude of humility and reverence.  But, the children of Israel did not wait for Moses to return. They went to Aaron and demanded for new gods.  If the leader is missing, they should have asked for a new leader, but strangely, they demanded for new gods.  “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."” (Exodus 32:1)  

 Worship without Law Unfortunately Aaron obliged them to please them and collected gold and silver from the people.  It was shaped as calf.   “When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord."  So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.  Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. “(Exodus 32:5-6) There was celebration, prayers, singing, dancing, sacrifices but there was no Word.   Worship without Word leads to paganism The worship that was supposed to have Jehovah as the object had a false object – creation of human beings, idols.  The whole congregation failed to see this error.  Aaron as a leader failed to give right guidance to the people.  Moses was angry seeing people indulge in revelry in the name of spirituality.  In anger, Moses broke the tablets containing the Law.  The children of Israel and Aaron were rebuked, punished.  God’s Word is the truth.  Lord Jesus Christ said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)  When there is no patience to receive the Word or regard for His Word, paganism sets in.  When the Word is neglected or relegated to subordinate place in congregational worship, there is a danger of diving deep in disaster of idol worship.   Let us examine and evaluate It is high time for each congregation to examine and evaluate their worship practices.  Is postmodernism life style in the world harming worship in the church and pulling it down to the level of paganism?  Is there a robust integration of Word, Praises, and Eucharist?  Is the whole congregation are together to exalt the Name of Lord Jesus Christ?      

undefinedName of the book: Think ! Before It’s Too Late Author: Edward De Bono Publisher: Vermillion, London Year of Publishing: 2009 Reviewed by: J.N. Manokaran Edward De Bono is a brilliant author who has written several books. This book is fabulous that challenges the readers to think. In this book he brings out creative thinking as an alternative to critical thinking. He promotes design thinking which is future oriented. The author clearly states that the purpose of thinking is to enable us to deliver and enjoy our values. Thinking without values is pointless-for thinking then has no purpose. This thinking is concerned with perception and not logic. For logic do not have capacity to change emotions and behavior of a person. The world has been influence by Greek Gang of Three. First, Socrates was interested in asking questions (usually leading questions). He was also most interested in dialectic or argument. Second, Plato was interested in the ultimate ‘truth’ (he also considered democracy to be a silly system). Third, Aristotle created ‘box logic’. Something was in this box or not and could never be half in and half out. Although he was married twice, he never asked either of his wives to open their mouths so he might count their teeth. He knew that men had more teeth in their mouths than women because with horses this was so. Creatures in the category of males (like horses) have more teeth than those in the category female – this was Aristotle – type logic. The author blames the Church, for promoting the pattern of thinking of the Greek as the Church needed only argument, truth and logic with which to prove heretics wrong. Then the philosophers, who describe the world in concepts, perceptions and values and then put these pieces together again. He blames also psychologists for Psychology arose from folk tales, myths, magic, and astrology as a way of understanding people and predicting behavior. But psychology understood that in order to become a real science there was a need for measurement. Measurement was the opposite of myth. So, psychology became obsessed with measurement. Today, psychology is much concerned with putting people into boxes on the basis of some measurement. But, the human brain is not designed to be creative. It is designed to set up routine patterns and to sue and follow these patterns. That is why life is practical and possible. Creativity is a skill. Idea creativity is a skill everyone can learn, practice and apply. There is a need for specific mental tools, operations and habits which lead to creative new ideas. These tools and techniques can be learned, practiced and used in a deliberate manner. Design is putting together what we have in order to deliver the values we want. Judgment seeks the truth and makes decisions based on the past. Design seeks value and designs for the future. Judgment is concerned with ‘what is’. Design is concerned with ‘what could be’. The author asserts that the schools are involved with literacy and numeracy. They should also be involved with ‘operacy’, which is the skill of operating, or getting things done. With the introduction of computers, children develop the habit of searching for the answer they need. They no longer have to think – they just search for the answer. While the ability to search on a computer is excellent, the ability to think is also important. A lot of brilliant people came out of the Harvard Business School. It is like a lot of brilliant people make their way towards an archway, then a lot of brilliant people will emerge from that archway. The archway has contributed very little. To get into Harvard you have to be brilliant, so when you come out you are still brilliant. Arguments are most of the times destructive, negative and concerned with attack. Being obsessed with winning or losing, they never attempt to design a way forward. A weak idea that cannot be attacked will prevail against a stronger but more vulnerable idea. There is a huge temptation to show off your superiority by proving the other party wrong – even on trivial points. Articulate performers win and good performers lose. The author introduced the six thinking hats that is used for corporate thinking and decision making. 1. Blue Hat: Organizing and control hat 2. White Hat: Concerned with information. 3. Red Hat: Feelings, Emotions, Intuition 4. Black Hat: Judge robes – critical thinking 5. Yellow Hat: Focus on the positive and Green Hat: Concerned with Creativity. One of the attractions of argument is that you can show your superiority by proving someone else wrong. You cannot do that with the Six Hats. If you want to show off, you can only do it by performing better under each hat. ‘Lateral thinking’ also implies that you cannot dig a hole in a different place just by digging the same hole deeper. It may be necessary to change the perceptions, concepts and approach rather than work harder with the existing perceptions, concepts and approach. While language is immensely valuable for thinking, there is also a downside. Language freezes perceptions into concepts and words. Democracy was designed to prevent tyranny, not to facilitate progress. The emphasis is on attack, criticism and argument rather the generation of new possibilities. This has to change. Most people in democratic politics also tend to be lawyers, journalists, and teachers. This is because architects, engineers, business executives, entrepreneurs and scientists cannot risk entering politics. If they are elected, they have to give up their current job. Six important values are portrayed as Value medals: Gold Medal: Human values; Silver Medal: Organizational values; Steel Medal: These are the quality values; Glass Medal: innovation and creativity; Wood Medal: Ecology values; and Brass Medal: Brass looks like gold but is not. This metal is concerned with perceptual values. In Cambridge University medical finals examination the author found: “Only about 5 per cent showed some spark of originality or even thinking. Student and academicians think they got almost the required knowledge from books. So maybe the role of the university was just to recommend the right books. Since the author writes his own ideas, he does not add references to his books. One academician suggested that he should ‘fake’ a reference list, whether or not the author had read the works, because this was what was expected – this is termed ‘the academic game. People need information skills, thinking skills, people skills and professional skills and Operational Thinking Skills: Perceptual thinking, Exploratory thinking, Value thinking, Action thinking, Creative thinking. But schools in the European Union spend 25 per cent of their teaching time on mathematics. But most people only use about 3 per cent of mathematics they learn at school. There is a real need for much more positive stuff in the world. The fundamental problem is that it is very much more difficult to write a positive piece than a negative piece. “In Australia they have what is called ‘tall poppy effect’. If you are walking through a field and there is a tall poppy that stands out above the rest, the temptation is to take your stick and lop the head off that poppy. The attitude is, of course, inherited from England and the days when society was rigidly structured into classes. Anyone who was seen to be getting above himself or trying to rise out of his or her class bracket had to be cut down to size. This silly attitude never developed in the USA, where success of any sort (even criminal) is respected. (p.135) If newspapers are to have any function in society, they need to develop positive products that television cannot easily offer because of the nature of the medium. Perception is a key part of thinking. Professor David Perkins of Harvard University has shown in his research that 90 per cent of the errors in thinking are errors of perception. In Australia, a five-year-old boy called Johnny was offered a choice by his friends between a one-dollar coin and a two-dollar coin. The one-dollar coin was much larger than the two-dollar coin. Johnny took the bigger coin. His friends laughed and giggled at Johnny’s stupidity. Whenever they wanted to make a fool of Johnny, they would offer him the same choice. He never learned. He always chose the larger coin. One day an adult saw this and felt sorry for Johnny. He called Johnny over and told him that the smaller coin, even though smaller, was actually worth twice as much as bigger coin. Johnny smiled and thanked him politely and then said: ‘I know that. But how many more times would they have offered me coins if I had chosen the two dollars the first time.’ It was a matter of perception. If you saw it as a single occasion, you would take the two dollars. If you knew your friends, a Johnny did, you would know that they would keep on offering the coins and you would get many dollar pieces. Perception is the key. Logic will never change emotions, but changing perception will always change emotions. Logic from a wrong perception can give the appearance of truth with a resulting action that can be dangerous. Our minds naturally want to jump as quickly as possible to the conclusion of ‘truth’ and ‘certainty’, because that will determine our action. As a result, our perceptions are very often mistaken and our actions will also be mistaken. Three important aspects in perception: Attitude; Perceptual tools and Perceptual maps. Putting aside the ‘problem – solving’ attitude and adopting creative thinking attitude; instead of having judgmental attitude use ‘movement’ attitude - where can I move ahead or forward from this position? Another attitude is the willingness to look for alternatives. This means making an effort to go beyond the obvious alternative to seek further ones. There are several Basic Tools: PMI: Plus, Minus and Interesting. CAF: Considering All Factors. C & S: Consequences and Sequels. AGO: Aims, Goals and Objectives. FIP: First Important Priorities. APC: Alternatives, Possibilities and Choices. OPV: Other People’s Views. Having critical thinking alone means to have a motor car with brakes and without engine which is creative thinking. So critical thinking may be enough if we are in the state of decline – but not if we want to make progress. While acknowledging the great importance of criticism and complaint, we need to make it very clear that this thinking is inferior to design thinking, creative thinking and discovery thinking. We need to be able to produce new ideas. Just waiting for chance to produce new ideas is much too slow. One of the major uses of creativity is simplicity. Over time procedures and operations get over more complex. While there is a natural tendency to ever more complexity, there is no natural tendency towards simplicity. Simplicity saves time, money, hassle and stress. The habit of looking only at problems means that we stagnate. Confliction refers to the factors involved in the gradual build-up of a conflict before it becomes apparent as such. De-confliction is the removal of these factors. There are two main types of conflict. These are ‘bullying’ and ‘sillying’. Bullying is when one party is oppressing another party for some gain to which it is not entitled. Sillying is when a conflict arises for no real reason. It may be a matter of national pride or something equally trivial. Corporations take finance very seriously. They take legal matters very seriously. They take research very seriously. They do not take creativity seriously at all. Motivation and skill go together and they build on each other. Success in creativity increases the motivation, which increases the skill. It is a fascinating book that could helps each person to change the style of thinking, learn mental tools for effective thinking and be future oriented in thinking. I recommend that all Christian leaders should read this book.

Emotional Baggage of Postmodern Generation

J.N. Manokaran

I was in a consultation that was discussing about the recent Delhi High Court judgment that decriminalizes ‘unnatural’ consensual sex.  There were activists from Faith based organizations, liberal theologians, evangelical theologians, Bishops, Pastors, Christian professionals, Social Activists and others.  The discussion was typically within postmodern paradigms. 

Modern generation emphasized on ‘reason’ or ‘thinking capacity’ of human being.  But, postmodern generation is obsessed with ‘feeling’ or emotional aspect of life.  The whole advocacy movement for obtaining special rights for People of Different Sexual Orientation (they do not like to be termed as homosexuals or lesbians).  And they have included transgenders into this category to become politically vocal and powerful.  “There are something like 7.5 million gay men and 3.5 million lesbians in America.”[1]  And they are powerful vote bank and politicians like to get their votes to gain power. 

First couple

Adam and Eve were the first human couple of humanity.  God created them and placed them in the Garden of Eden.  They had the freedom to eat all fruits except from one tree.  But, the first couple made a choice to disobey God’s commandment.  They rebelled against God’s commandment, chose to be independent of God and thus disobedient to Him. 

First Sin had holistic impact

The First Sin was very costly for humanity and it had holistic impact on human beings.  They were not only affected spiritually, they were affected emotionally, mentally, socially, economically, physically…etc.  That means the impact of sin was ‘holistic’ embracing all aspects of human life. 

Emotional impact

The emotional impact on the first couple was enormous.  At least, these negative emotions overwhelmed them:  Guilt, Shame, Fear and Rejection.  The consequences of disobedience and rebellion were obvious.  Even today, human beings suffer and struggle with these emotions.  The root is disobedience; the fruits are: guilt, shame, fear and rejection.  But, in the whole history of humanity, people tried to handle the negative emotions (fruit) without dealing with the disobedience and rebellion (root).  And every generation failed, but generation after generation people do not like to deal the real issue.  A good case study is regarding the homosexuals. 

Handling negative emotions

1.      Guilt

Adam and Eve were guilty of violating God’s commandment.  How can this emotion be dealt?  There are two ways: positive or negative.  The positive way is to acknowledge they were guilty of rebellion and seek forgiveness.  The negative way is to justify the action or blame somebody or something or some situations.  Adam and Eve chose the negative response.  Adam blamed his wife, Eve blamed the Serpent.  In fact, Adam was blaming God Himself for providing an incompetent wife. 

This game of life is played over and over again in the lives of individuals daily through out history.  Human beings are not willing to acknowledge that they are sinners. The Postmodern generation likes to justify homosexuality as ‘natural’ and rebels and questions, “Who defines ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’?”  Each person desires right to define his/her experience as ‘natural’, best and valid.  Instead of looking up to God’s standards, human beings want to create their own standards or bench mark. 

Another ploy of Postmodern to deny that there is guilt.  For them experience is always valid way of arriving at truth.  They forget the proverbial blind men who tried to experience elephant and failed.  A homosexual experiences pleasure in that experience, and that becomes the yardstick for evaluating.  So, it is not wrong or sin but relevant and good.  In the similar way, a man feels he gets more pleasure with other women than his wife, his experience is valid and there is no sin or stigma in this.  As Adam and Eve perceived that eating the fruit would mean ‘good’ for them; but their perception and decision was a delusion that led to human misery. 

Repentance, which includes being sorrowful for sinfulness and sinful behavior and resolving to turn from it, is not in the vocabulary of post moderns.  But, the bible demands repentance. 

2.      Shame

Adam and Eve were ashamed when they committed sin.  They could not tolerate one another.  Shame is an emotion that emerged from sin and rebellion against God.  This emotion drives people in many cultures crazy.  ‘Honour and shame’ culture has been merciless in ‘honour killing’.  To retain the imagined or perceived honour of a community, individual deviants are murdered or lynched.   Value judgment of every act is determined by the perception in the eyes of public, what it brings – honour or shame for a particular community.  . 

Adam and Ever tried to solve this problem by covering themselves with leaves.  They lost the divine glory or halo provided by God and had to opt for leaves as hiding material.  The emotion of shame had kept people from becoming more wicked or weird.  One of the strategies is to brazen out, if the public opinion is not favourable.  At the same time, when there is some vocal support for such acts, they turn the shame in glory.  The things that should happen in bed room, is done in public view.  Female and male stripping is matter of pride and not shame for postmodern generation.  So, Postmodern homosexuals and lesbians need not be ashamed but should be proud of it, celebrate it.  And media is happy to declare them as celebrity.  It is no wonder they organize ‘Pride March’ in various cities around the world.   

3.      Fear

Adam and Eve were afraid when they realized, they have rebelled against God.  They went into hiding.  They were not able to be in the presence of Holy God.  The fear was reverential fear of God, and also fears of facing the consequences of sin.  God had to summon them into His presence.  The fear could be dispelled only with the knowledge and experience of God’s mercy and grace.  They had to trust God that was based on God’s love and mercy. 

But, postmodern would prefer to remove the ‘source’ of fear.  Or redefine those sources. God is the ‘source’ of fear for Adam and Eve.  Now God would be redefined for postmodern as one who loves and never judges. They magnify his attribute of love and banish his attribute of justice.   As he is loving god there is no need to fear him.  Postmodern deny the moral laws or redefine and reinterpret the moral laws.  "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters." (Psalm 2:3) Another ‘source’ of fear is law of the land.  These laws should be repealed.  The other source of fear is people or traditional society.  They should be intimidated to silence, by imposing ‘hate crimes law’.

4.      Rejection

Adam and Eve were banished out of the Garden of Eden.  The sense of being rejected by God and exiled from Eden overwhelmed them.  It was painful for the couple to move out of familiar surroundings into unknown place.  But, they had no other option and had to go. 

But, postmodern homosexuals and lesbians seek acceptance by law, government, and society as fight against rejection.  They are unable to adjust to this rejection: morally, socially, physically, spiritually and mentally.  Very diplomatically term this rejection as ‘discrimination’.  They  want to come into the society in their own terms.  So, they make this as political issue by making alliance with transgenders (and other sexual minorities) and fighting for equal rights.  Collective bargaining tactics is used to achieve this.  Politicians who are power hungry are willing to give concessions and develop a loyal ‘vote-bank’, 

Challenge

As the society becomes more and more individualistic, individuals are unable to see beyond themselves.  Worshiping themselves as god seems to be the new lifestyle.  The body is not the ‘temple of Holy Spirit’ as Christians believe; but is both temple as well as deity for self serving postmodern.  Instead of dealing with the core issue of sin and rebellion; postmodern tries to handle the just the fruit or consequence, i.e.  Problem of emotions- disconnected from the central issue.  Hence, it is not possible to find solution, but only complicate the existing problem.  As Lord Jesus Christ taught, it is essential to acknowledge the sin, feel sorrow for sin, repent from the sin, forsake it and take refuge in God’s Presence, Provision and Protection. 

 

 

J.N. Manokaran

Political Freedom