Midweek service

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Praise God.

I just had todays service eliminated by a software crash. I'll just praise God, and head off to my appointment.

God is certainly big enough to have let me post without the message disappearing. He knows what I need to write, and who needs to hear it, if anyone.

Since I was finished, the message was probably for me. I'll give you a quick cut and paste from JrPM. org as a message instead.

Jesus is Lord! Praise God.

Listen as popular media talks about religion being the focal point of violence; Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq. Notice the distinction could also be along ethnic, economic, and political lines, or other dividing issues. Anglo Saxon vs. Celt, socialism vs. capitalism, and controlling government vs. freedom are just some of the conflict sources. With the current troubles in Iraq, are the Shi'a Arabs Babylonian and the the Sunni Arabs Persian? They know, we aren't told.

Hitler didn't care if you were of Jewish faith or a professed Catholic, he hunted the Jewish nationality, traced though their parentage. Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian, was imprisoned with her sister for protecting Jews from Nazis, (her book is recommended, The Hiding Place), her sister died in that prison. Corrie said of Christianity, "Just because you were born in a garage, it does not make you a car." Religion is a personal choice, on a personal level. A claim of national religion is a claim for emotional power, not religion.

The founders of the United States instituted a small and passive central republic to ensure stronger freedom. They put forth separation of church and state to protect people from interference with their personal choice of religion, not to protect people from religion. They saw that what is a personal choice of a free person could become a claim for allegiance to a despot's goals. A stifled domination of religion by government limited one tool of emotional coercion. With a weak union, composed of 13 separate nation states competing for citizens, freedom and the right to pursue personal goals were temporarily insured.

To have a personal relationship with God is your choice.

Regardless of the political climate in which you live.

Those who engender war may fraudulently demonstrate religious passion as an emotional propaganda tool. A unified front can stabilize factions that would dissent: "Our Country Right Or Wrong," Fatherland, Homeland, Motherland, Our god, Our people. These statements do not normally represent reality beyond tribal size groups. These are calculated slogans to unite diverse team members, artificial teams sometimes called nations.

References to religion may reflect one surface factor of war, but diverse root causes always extend far deeper. Commentators love to sound as if they have inside, specific knowledge. In reality, events happen for myriad reasons we will never fully fathom. Media will not go to the trouble of understanding and explaining complex issues, or admit they don't know. Especially when slighting the "opiate of the masses" parallels their world view.

God's Love to all.

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