Sinner

Some of you may recognize the imagine beside this post. You may have read the book yourself. Or have seen its image on a website. Since you're reading this, I would venture a guess that you likely realize that I have borrowed it as my avatar image.

Trivial facts, in the end.

After much breathless, nail-biting anticipation since June, when I first came upon its release date and read the excerpt provided in the back of ADAM, I finally found myself with a copy of Ted Dekker's Sinner in my hands.

Picture this: me, a petite California surf chick, sitting in the hairdresser's chair, foil in my hair to enhance the blonde. Black apron covering my jeans and turquoise T-shirt. A Starbucks iced drink with only the ice remaining freezing my right thigh.

And on my lap, Sinner.

I think I startled the hairdresser with my squeal of excitement when Mom re-entered the room, book in hand. We had already had a lengthy discussion about family and funny age misunderstandings, and I highly doubt she was quite ready for the mature, serious, yet playful disposition I have to fall away at the sight of a mere book. Grinning wide, I poured gratitude over my mother even as I was flipping pages. I had already read the first four chapters. I wanted to read the rest!

And so I threw myself into the world of Sinner, into the universe of the Books of History, Johnny Drake, Billy Rediger, and Darcy Lange. And Black. Marsuvees Black.

Two and a half hours later, the tale had finished, leaving me to slowly return to reality.

The reality of our world. Which isn't so different from that of Sinner.

[*SPOILER WARNING*]

Imagine. The year is 2033. Thirteen years after Project Showdown. A year after the emergence of Saint, and the rebirth of Johnny Drake. Tolerance is the new religion of the United States of America. To speak of your religion is akin to speaking of moles located in indiscreet places. Not forbidden, but sure to earn you askance looks and strange faces. None except certain officials in the government know of the events that brought Johnny Drake back into the world and drove him into hiding in the desert.

Not even his siblings in the power. The power of the Books of History. Billy Rediger, and Darcy Lange.

All three are equipped with power terrifying in its possibilities.

By the middle of the book, the First Amendment has been rewritten to forbid "hate speech" against other races or religions. Forbidding one from claiming that his or her path is the only true source of enlightenment, and the only path to God and Heaven.

Rewritten to freeze the tongues of Christians.

By the end, Paradise has seen the fulfillment of a showdown that the rest of the world remains clueless about. All they know is that three thousand diehards joined a man named Johnny Drake, and the town was bombed as a result. No casualties, bar one.

No one knows the truth.

[*END SPOILERS*]

I won't say more. Read it for yourself. I'm still trembling. The book was gripping for the story. But I think what sets a buzz through my fingers is how probable Dekker's portrait of a not-too-distant America is.

Tolerance has already makes its apperance in our country. It is already seeping into our culture, winding its tendrils around the hearts and minds of those in positions of authority. We see it every day. Children told not to pray in school, for fear of offending those of another belief system. Christian business owners being sued for refusing to photograph a lesbian couple's wedding, because of the "intolerant attitude" behind their decision.

My tongue...is tied. God, free it!

The need to take a stand has been highlighted by certain circles for some years now. The instution of See You At the Pole, for example. Christian school children gathering around the flagpole, in front of their entire school.

In the name of tolerance, the school board cannot deny them it.

In the name of tolerance, it could very well be banned.

Light in the midst of darkness. Tolerance, like the Raison Strain, like Marsuvees Black itself, is a disease that is darkness at its very core. Hate speech is never okay. Jesus said himself to love.

But love sometimes requires telling someone a painful truth that can be misconstrued as hate. Tolerance is not love. It's the state of the lukewarm. When one is slave to tolerance, what is left? How can you speak out against murder, stealing, and rape? For all you know, the purpetrator might have formed his own religion around what you consider vices. In the name of tolerance, how can you then condemn him? It is the path of the middle ground. Of plastic smiles and falsified laughter.

Tolerance has been disguised as love to cover its hate and true purpose. But love is supposed to free. Tolerance enchains.

Christ is love. He is also the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is God. Messiah. Rabbi. Abba.

He is the exclusive inclusive. Exclusive, because only He is Truth and the Path. Inclusive, because all can come and know his Life.

Satan, like Black, knows the power of light and love. He knows the power of truth. For only God and the angels know how long, he has been fighting this war. The battle is already lost. Satan's tactic now is to see how much of a narrow victory he can make it. How many of God's precious children, lovingly, carefully formed and nurtured, he can steal away before the Judgement Day.

Tolerance is already strangling our tongues. Soon, if left unattended, it will murder our freedom and try to kill our light.

Darkness tempted Paradise, and it fell. Only to rise as a Kingdom of Light.

A Kingdom of God.

Johnny, Billy, Darcy.

Faith, Hope, and Love.

Welcome to Paradise. To Light. To Love. To tongues unhindered by tolerance.

To a world where nothing is as it seems.

The Knightess' Oath.

"Do you solemnly swear to serve the Lord God and to obey Him in whatever calling he doth give, not excepting anything, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem?"

The above is the oath of the Knightesses of the Round Table, a fellowship of girls and women on the Dragons in our Midst forum who come together to pray for and encourage one another.

It looks so simple written down. So, so simple.

So do the words, "I surrender all."

But when you go to live them out, you find it's a much different story. Whatever calling, we swear. Whatever calling? That includes the things we wouldn't think to do. The tasks that require a sacrifice. The ones that leave you feeling as if there is no one for you. Even when it feels as if you're alone in a sea of despair and hatred, pressing onward. Going to the places that you wouldn't have chosen to. Reaching out to those who under any other circumstances you wouldn't speak to.

Whatever calling, not excepting anything.

That's a high bar to set.

I'm not saying it should be lowered. Not at all. I'm just wondering, though, and I'm talking to myself here as well, how many of us are really that ready to give it all up for Him. To not just stick a toe out of our comfort zone and decide we've done enough for God today, but to literally throw ourselves out of what we know into what we don't. To dive into it, not just splash in the edges, but dive and keep diving, pressing on according to His direction and purpose no matter what the obstacles.

The words "I surrender all" pose the same question.

All, my friends, doesn't just mean the things you're proud of. The things you love. Those are actually easiest to give away. Dreams are more difficult, but still easier.

What about the things you would never reveal to the world? The thoughts and past sins you've locked away in a chest and buried, never to be seen.

"All" means those things too.

Our depression.
Our sin.
Our despair.
Our anger.
Our temptations.
Our faults.
All the things we are not proud of.

"Take the beauty take my tears; sin-soaked heart make it yours. Take my world, it all is yours. Take it now. Take it now." *

Thoughts. Maybe it's just me.

But think some. Read the pledge again. Would you go absolutely anywhere, do absolutely anything, to the point of death or alienation from family or friends, for the sake of the cross?

Do you surrender all?

This isn't meant to depress. Please, don't take this as an excuse to cry out from lack of hope. But take hope, I urge you. And be free.

For whomever the Son sets free is free indeed.

*World Apart, Jars of Clay

Introductions: Take Two

Salvete!

Once again I came on and decided to create a blog. Mainly for my own use, as a place to jot down thoughts and questions that may come to me throughout the day. My posting will likely be sporadic, as the things to be done are many and time in which to do them in little.

On that note, my first post will be a bit unique as introductory posts go. You see, I have a very dear friend of the family who is a man of integrity, faith, and discipline. And he has a take on Christians and their behavior that is not claimed by many. He believes that the true Christian is one who is holy, sinless. Not that they were perfect; no, that Christians are still saved by grace and belief in Christ, yet when they accept Christ, they become Holy, as he is Holy.

Which makes sense, in a way.

I am currently involved in a semi-debating regarding- what do you know!- this particular topic. As I am defending his stance, I find myself considering his view more and more. He has the Scriptural backing for it, and actually looking at it from this perspective takes care of many of the "contradictory" verses in the New Testament.

Addendum: I believe that this world was created by a supreme deity who is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. I believe that the only type of evolution that actually takes place is the adaption of an organism to its environment. I believe that two thousands years ago a Man who was also God named Jesus bar Joseph, of Nazareth, walked this earth and was crucified for the sins of Mankind, only to rise again on the third day. I believe that he is alive today, having ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, God. I believe in the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I believe that the Holy Ghost is active in this world today.

I believe that the Bible as was written is inerrant, that it was penned over thousands of years by those dedicated to faith, inspired by the words of God and his Spirit. I believe that the Bible has all authority over the believer's life, and that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the only true, divinely inspired Gospels of Christ.

I believe in the Second Coming of Christ.

If I've deterred any one in declaring these, then this blog is not one that you will find appealing. Even so, I exhort you to hear me out.

To return to my story, the Sinless Christian doctrine has been growing on me. The verses I read that my friend has given for it work. "What about Paul?" some of you who are familiar with the Pauline Epistles may ask. "The 'Greatest Sinner of all?'"

There are such things as translation errors. Hence why I have a desire to learn Greek and Hebrew (and have already spent a year on the former.)

But, you see, Paul seems to contradict himself in his letters, if you look at it as most readers do. In 1 Timothy we find the "Greatest sinner of all" verse, but in 1 Corinthians he exhorts the Corinthians to imitate him as he imitates Christ (the word used that has been translated as imitate also means "follow").

Is he saying Christ was a sinner, thus refuting other verses? Something doesn't add up.

This is where one must return to the Greek and pay attention to the tenses of the verbs. According to my friend, these are often mistranslated, giving us what we have today in most versions of the Bible.

Now, my friend is not the only one who believe this, or to make these observations. A Bible commentary my father received a year ago for Christmas makes the same points.

So in viewing all these and reading multiple documents in which my friend has defended his position, I am left with this question. Does a Christian sin, or does he not?

And if he does, where does that leave me?

From what I've seen of both sides of the debate, the Sinless Christian stance makes the most sense, and has the most backing. But one of the main things that keeps me from embracing this is that I have sinned, even while professing to follow Christ. Am I now made a hypocrite by that which tugs at my heart and even my mind? And what of friends and acquaintances, who have the faith...yet stumble at times?

I am still searching, studying; pouring over Scripture concerning this.

An so I leave you now, Reader, with these points having been made. If I'm rambling, forgive me; I am wont to do so as I puzzle out a theory.

Deus paxque vobiscum.

EDIT: Even as I've posted this, I'm still struggling with it. It seems like something more of the human will, yet my friend insists it's not.

"Curiouser and curiouser," as Alice would say. Not really. More like I don't yet understand what it truly means.