Propriety

Propriety is one of those words without much meaning outside of certain churches any longer.  My guess would be that certain of those churches are responsible for the loss of value of that word today.  Those churches whom stressed elaborate lists of do's and don'ts, willing disfellowshipping those whom do not agree and those whom transgressed some part of the THEIR law ... yeah, you drove an entire culture away from the church, their children from God and any awareness of sin or salvation.  Congratulations, you did good (and you get to be judged for that in the here after...).

However, propriety is a valid issue within the Christian body today, does need to be expressed and adhered to - however, adherence is the question of the individual's heart and maturity - not disfellowshipping, judging and condemnation by the pious.  Yeah, as you can tell I do have some strong feelings on this hypocritical standard within the church.

Basically we have two camps within the "church", (within quotes as I do not believe most churches are actually Christian in nature,) however we have to use something to speak from and against.  One the one side we have the Charismatic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Episcopalian and Lutheran movements and style of churches, where basically anything goes these days.  Contrast this against only a hand full of the Four Square's, most of the Baptists, Memmonite, Quaker, Amish and even my beloved Hutterite brothers and sisters - whom have no difficulty at all in calling you out for what they believe to be a forest in your eyes - completely ignoring their own logs in their eyes.  So, very opposite opinions and few willing to say, "Hey, I disagree with you and would you consider contrasting your behavior against these Bible verses?"  Instead, it is more like, "The Bible says, hence you are out of here..."  Rarely does the Bible match what they think it says.

So, what does the Bible say?   

1 Timothy 2:8-15
⁸ Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. ⁹ I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, ¹⁰ but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
¹¹ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. ¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve. ¹⁴ And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. ¹⁵ But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Paul calls upon the men of the church to be in prayer, at peace with all mankind.  Some people like me not longer can lift up their arms (back injury) but you can pray on your knees, sitting, standing, laying down, driving a car!, it does not matter - it is the posture of your heart that Paul is referring to, it is important, you are yielded to God in true humility.  You are supposed to be a spiritual leader, you expected to be one, by God!  Are you?  Probably not, so you can already see that propriety within the church context is not even possible, from those whom it matters most - because of you and your heart.  I say that to my own condemnation as well.

Paul calls upon women of the church to watch how you present yourselves.  You are supposed to not dress suggestively, yeah  you have breasts, guys are visual creatures, perhaps not displaying them is a good idea?  I smack my head every summer when even in my fairly conservative church, girls grandly parade themselves - and not oblivious to the attention of the males!  And they never figure the disconnect out!  The males are riveted 12" below their eye level.  And disasters happen all of the time in that church - whether it is some unused room during a service, in the parking lot, etc.  Everyone complains, everyone points fingers, no one confronts the parents.  In fact, often the mothers are just as bad or worse than their daughters!  Sickening!

Continuing, since I side tracked myself - women are not to dress fancy and not to put on "airs"!  How unlike the churches my mother went to while I was in high school!  You would have thought it a fashion show the way the women dressed and paraded themselves.  Even as a non-Christian it made me want to vomit - the hypocrisy levels were so high.  I hated God because He must be blind and unable to see past a nice dress or outfit, to the blackness of the heart within.  Yeah, I might not have known God but I knew from others what many of them were up to my own little town!  Grrrrrrr!  And as for guys, I might mention that ought to be true for you as well!  Many years ago I was approached at the end of the service by a woman whom told me that some of her husband's old suits would fit me and be more respective of God than what I was wearing.  Really?  I told her my soul wore a tuxedo and God does not see our clothing.  Yeah, she was offended.

And probably the most important aspect for women is their ability to SUPPORT the leadership within the church.  Of course we are discussing Godly support, of Godly men, involved in Godly pursuits for the church!  Three big qualifications there and the insinuation that there are some mighty powerful Gifts of the Holy Spirit in those women to be used in working with each other in the support of the leadership.  Just pointing out the obvious that no one really pays much attention too....  Yes, the Holy Spirit IS IN women as well, if you don't think so, read you Bible and stop listening to others.

And now we hit some of the hardest verses to discuss within the modern church: 1 Timothy 2:11 - 15.

My mother went to seminary, mostly just to embarrass the Baptist Church over this problem.  I never thought she actually had a desire to be a pastor, and could do so in most of the denominations even back in the 1970's but she wanted to take down the Southern Baptists - and she was successful in court over this issue.

If you want to argue, as my mother does, that Paul was a male chauvinistic pig whom hated women and a reasonable person would not even listen to him, well what were his other problems if you want to kill off more of his writings?

If you want to argue that this was only cultural and applied to just the church of Ephesus because of their female problems in that society, well what other parts of the Bible are also either regional or cultural and therefore can be explained away to fit your view of God and the Bible or to negotiate around your sin nature?

When was the last time you were in a church and had your feet washed or shoes shined for that matter?
When was the last time the women of your church covered their heads when speaking or praying publicly?
When was the last time you prostrated yourself in church?

Just asking, after-all, if the Bible is only cultural, then it is no big deal for you not to do any of these!
And you are told to by the Bible instead.

It is a slippery slope when we want to argue that the Bible is only cultural, then do what we believe is right in our own mind and eyes.  That would be a violation of two of those "Ten Commandments"

But, Paul does not appear to be arguing culturally but from a viewpoint of Creation.  So, it is God's viewpoint we are called to consider, not our own, not history, not culture - just God's view.  Make no mistake that is a rough one because it takes maturity plus humility, to see with the eye's of God.

Of course, every time there is a call to take the Bible literally, there are jokes made by bringing up the Jewish laws, which the Church was NEVER under.  You can take the New Testament literally without much problem, when placed in a first century context - just to kill the stupid arguments.....

Something for you think about, especially if you are seeing problems in your church body.

Is This Justice?

Otto Eichmann, one of the designers of the holocaust, escaped Nuremberg trial by moving to Argentina and remained there until captured by an Israeli group, hustled off to Israel to stand trial and eventual execution for crimes against humanity.  It was 1962 and as I struggled as a seven year old to read the newspaper accounts, I really was thinking about my great-uncle.  What if this was him?  How would I feel to have one of my family ripped away and murdered......  Yeah, I was a precocious 7 year old.

I had no idea what a Jew was, did not know that my father actually was one, nor that my mother was - genetically anyway, but I went to my father and demanded an explanation for this whole holocaust deal.  He was old German, I expected an answer and he was honor bound to give one.  I anticipated he would lie about anything which would point to him, because I already understood that my father was a liar.

At the beginning of grade seven, even though I was in Canadian NATO schools, I was still forced to tour a concentration camp.  There is nothing un-appalling about one, but I was not like my German peers, I pushed back and demanded explanations for each and every statement made.  Yeah, I learned a great deal, between the beatings from the older Germans.  Towards the end of the day, an elderly man came up to me and sat by me as I cried in anger at the justice being denied me.  He explained the problem of "history" and history.

As I grew older, I came to understand this elderly man's opinion even more and to see how right he really was.  We have what is politically correct to know and then what is politically incorrect to know.  Being correct does not equal right nor true, it equals acceptance by society.

Kurt Mathesius, was a family friend - before my time, and commandant of Nordhausen.  My uncle was violent in his reactions when you mentioned the Nuremburg trials or that fact that he was accused of murdering 300 prisoners.  The same prisones whom were photographed being dug out of the rubble when the Allied bombers flattened Nordhausen thinking it an ammo dump.  Yeah, he was innocent and his association with  Nordhausen' scientist camp, was considered the entire Nordhausen complex.  So facing a death, he hung himself in his cell.  My uncle was livid.  How could a prisoner, stripped of almost everything, hang himself?  He believed this just another Eisenhower move to kill Germans without trial.  Yeah, my uncle was vocal and history has show he was correct, however, "history" clearly shows he is wrong....  Get the picture now?  As for truth, uncle's brother was one of 15 guards charged in that complaint and remains at large.  No even when my uncle died a few years ago, he still had no idea where his brother was.

The Dutch women, captured in Holland in the 1980's, were all over the press when I moved my work to Europe.  Imagine, there were a small group of Dutch women, accused of siding with the Germans during the war and of course, people they turned in, never came back. Oh were both sides of the press arguing that one!  Do you prosecute a group of grandmothers, whom have lived exemplary lives for 40 years or do you mow them down for what happened when the world turned upside down?  But, if you don't - then how do you deal with Anne Frank, patron saint of Amsterdam?

Anita Bryant was crucified in the press for her stand against the gay agenda in the 1970's.  Well, she was not wrong then, she is still not wrong today and in fact all she predicted has come to pass.  Yet, what she said was politically incorrect in the 1970's, she was even outright rude in my book, but the agenda is even worse too day!  And like so many others, she was tossed upon the waste can of history for not being relevant, espousing an ideal as old as the Bible itself in virtually all cultures.  Of course, the entire issue really deals with sexual sin and this is lost in her argument.  I stopped drinking orange juice for decades as my protest against the state of Florida and its banning of Bryant.  No, I did not like her, and no one was forced to listen to her viewpoint either, but a state of this Union decided to shut her up because about 1.7% of the population announced a boycott.  Yawn.....

And today, another person I do not care a wit about, Paula Deen, is being attacked for having actually lived in a racial and bigoted south.  She even used the "N" word, though could not give an example.  Her real crime was attempting to throw a birthday party based upon the old south plantation system and wanting to hire color waiters.  Oh wait!  She was gong to pay them?  They really were not going to be slaves there?  Gees, America, grow up!  As I said, I have no use for her and as a celebrity "chef", she isn't.  Might be a good cook though....  Don't know, don't care, but again the populous destruction of someone based upon vague rumors and to silence them.  She will probably become the patron saint of Mississippi now.  Sigh...

And what of my father?  He, along with some 10,500 other German scientists, were politely excused of their pasts in order to gain the lead in the nuclear Cold War and entry into the rocket age.  Should he have been executed or jailed for life for helping to invent the Godzilla of all weapons of mass destruction?  I can not answer that question; he is my father and even if I never could have loved him, I did respect him.

Is the justice we are looking at today really just revenge under the guise of political correctness?

Y'all gotta wonder.....

Labels

My mother is one of those people whom has to label everyone and once so labelled they are stuck with whatever it was in her mind and they are never allowed to change or act differently without her then  trying to figure out what they are scheming to do to her, because - well, change is not allowed in her so ordered world.  Yeah, and people wonder why I do not do well with her around me!  "Say mom, I've got an idea, how about you change!!!!!??????"

Of course, in Christianity, we have labels which have stuck and others which never seem to have come down to us through time.  Even the Apostles had labels for one another, though a few of their references have been translated out of existed because in English we lack the richness of words.  For example we know that Peter was called the 'Rock', a little rock in Greek, meaning he was just about as dumb as a rock by the other disciples.  Jesus instantly jumped on them and told them that Peter would be 'The Rock', a big rock, upon which the church would be founded.  I am sure they were uncomfortable with that concept!

Of course, we know that Judas, got labelled the Betrayer and the other Judas went by Thaddeus, even Jesus' brother Judas was renamed to James in order to keep him separate from the Betrayer.  Just think on how many people you have met through the years named Judas.....

How about poor Miriam, aka Mary of Magdalene, thanks to the Roman Catholic church.  She is a prostitute.  Really?  We know that how?  She is Jesus' wife, really?  yeah, she got tagged with miserable titles.  She certainly was rich and I will allow that even in the ancient world there were rich women, we know of one whom financed Jesus' ministry for almost the whole three years! 

And then there is Thomas.  Everyone instantly can think of him as 'Doubting Thomas', a label given him by the Roman Catholic church, not by the Bible.  In the Bible he was referred to as the "Twin".  Is the label of 'Doubting' actually deserved?

John 20:19-31

Doubting Thomas, in light of scripture:

• Luke 24:10, "no one believed" the tale that Jesus was not in the grave
• Mark 16:11, "no one believed"

Jesus' resurrection from the grave was literally the last thing anyone expected!  They all doubted these women's tale.  As you might remember, Thomas was the one whom was ready to go with Jesus to die with Him!  Peter was willing to start the fight at the arrest.  As things went the way, they did, the Apostles and Disciples went into hiding!

We have to allow people to not be classified or labelled, they need released from these, often times unearned titles!

The Apostles and Disciples were in process.  They had to go through grief.  This man, whom they had followed for three years was sentenced as a criminal against the religious order and thus executed. In order to believe, they had to understand what had just happened.  Then they could be lead in truth.

When Jesus reappeared to his followers, He allowed for their questions and did not start off with a sermon.  Instead, in their grief, He said, "Peace be with you."

Questions are what allow for us to grow and to understand.

For us today, we need to cling tightly to His words and in order to do that, you need to be READING the Bible!  It is full of question askers, just like you and me!

We need to wait for the rest of the story.  We need to see the lives of others beyond the labels applied to them.  Jesus sought out Thomas and said, "Thomas touch ..."  Of course, we are not told if he did or didn't go for it!  I think the realization of the offer was about as great a proof as he would need!

Of course, Jesus offered that "greater are those whom do ot see ....".  Faith is what is required and by not believing the woman, Thomas certainly was a doubter, just as they all were.  But, he was no less the Apostle for it, loosing his life in what is today India according to tradition.

And our modern world is full of labels, often used as put downs.  Geek, nerd, flake all instantly come to mind.  They were my labels when I was in high school and then in the world of writing operating systems.  No one could envision what I saw and so I was labelled to set me apart.  'Smart' might have been nicer than 'flake' though.  I really did not mind being geek and nerd when those words came into being.....

So this week, think on how you label or categorized people and work through the idea that maybe they are in process - just like you and those labels do not allow for them to grow.  Nor do they show the respect we should hold for all people.

Prejudice

Prejudice is something I managed to grow up without.  As a child in post-war Europe there were some resentments evident throughout the cultures I lived in.  The French had some hard feelings towards the Germans.  The Germans had some strong words concerning both the French and Italians.  And, everyone hated the Romanians - they are after all gypsies.....

If a gypsy caravan was within twenty miles of our town the police were warning everyone to tie down their stuff and lock their daughters away!  Apparently there were no "gay" gypsy bands. 

As for my parents, father hated "christians", whom he blamed for the war and the defeat of Germany.  Mother hated blacks and indians - odd mix for her since she was to see her first black man in Germany and he was a really nice guy.  As for the indian part, her father was a Umatilla indian, whom had a drinking problem (hence my 25% American indian).

So, I have never had any real understanding of prejudice because my mind does not acccept someone else's beliefs without understanding them first.  Child psychologist would argue that one, except you have to understand that I always identified more with my grandmother and Danish great-uncle than either of my parents!

In any event, the reason I am writing on this subject is because I got an answer from my resigning volunteer - he is quitting because he does not believe that minorities should be spotlighted to be candidates for working within the scientific realm!  Yeah, that is our project, how to encourage young minority females to consider the sciences and engineering as an occupation!  I was left quite speechless.

Amazingly, this 19 year old male does not seem to be genetic throwback, at least around here.  I have been stumbling across several dozen "Bubbus Americanus" types, almost all under 25 years old.  What on earth, within our local rather permissive culture, is suddenly breeding  George Wallace types? 

Unfortunately, I have to include my own son in that one.  Also at 19, he reflects none of my beliefs nor core values.  I can blame his first five years in a Russian orphanage, or look real hard at the local school district - because the vile that comes from his mouth and his deeds - were never mine.....

When I came to America (1969), I toured the south and checked out all of the sites of the on-going civil rights war.  Swiss-white Boy was not only the wrong color but not "southern" enough to not go unmolested in my travels through those hotbeds of emotion.  But, I learned a great deal about the injustices done to the blacks - as well as, I did understand the situation because I was extremely well versed on the South African situation.  So, much of what I found was nothing but ignorance.

It was actually almost with glee that in a South Carolina high school my first American friend was a young black man by the name of Clarence Gunn.  First it was a shocker to the adults and he was someone I could trust my back to - important when you are a foreigner in a land with foreigner phobias!  Both important to any teenager.  And one day I do hope to catch up with him and find out how the years have gone......

As for my ex-"employee"?  Good riddance to white trash.

Musical Saturday Morning

Okay, for all of you politically incorrect types, here is one for you!

I get so tired of American political correctness!  It makes me want to barf.  And honestly, were it not that my brother-in-law would be highly offended by this video, I would not even comment - except that I do care about him and his skewed opinions.

There was a time in American cinema when a black man would never have appeared on film, it just was not done.  Even in theater, black actors were actually whites in makeup.  Don't ask me - I'm Swiss and never grew up with prejudices except toward gypsies - and even then it was only to make my parents happy.  They were about a bigoted as one could get on several subjects.

So, with that said, here is the ORIGINAL version of Putting on the Ritz by Taco.  And John, it is okay to at least mentally accept that black-face was the way cinema was done in reality.....