Sunday with Friends (Quakers)

This past Sunday, I visited the Salt Lake Society of Friends (Quakers), part of the Friends General Conference.

Quakers are a historical religion beginning in 17th century England. A man named George Fox became disillusioned with the Church of England and other religious movements in England at the time. He believed he received revelations and discovered that God and Christ could be directly experienced by mankind without any intervention from clergy or symbolic sacraments. He also believed in a priesthood of all believers.

Through the years, the Quakers were pushed from the British Isles to the New World where they were ran out of colony after colony until they settled a colony called Pennsylvania as a safe haven for them.

Today, there is a spectrum of Quaker beliefs ranging from old school Orthodox Quakers, Evangelical Quakers, and Liberal Quakers. However, there are some uniting characteristics among Quakers.

General beliefs and practices of Quakers:

• People can experience and commune directly with God without the intervention of priests or sacraments.
• Belief that Christ's inner light resides within all mankind and can be accessed and experienced by everyone.
• Rejection of creeds which are binding to members of the faith.
• Priesthood of all believers, as such there often will be no clergy in a Quaker meeting, but instead the church will be run in an egalitarian way.
• Pacifism and a commitment to nonviolence.

The Friends Meeting I went to falls on the liberal end of the spectrum. So how was it?

Atmosphere:

The church is located in Murray, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The church is a blink and you'll miss it building. I know that because I did miss it. But, once you see it, it's quite a pretty little brick building with a ramp for the main entrance and several signs out front, one of which says, "Torture is wrong."

Once inside, there is a table with pamphlets on how to help climate change, pacifism, caring for the earth, Quaker beliefs, etc. Underneath the table is this sign that looks like it has been out on the lawn before.

Leading into the chapel are two wooden doors with this sign telling you to be quiet as the meeting is in progress.

The chapel is lined with a few simple but well made stained glass windows.

The chapel itself is a simplistic room with a sanctuary that contains a piano. However, most of the space is taken up with chairs forming a circle. This is where the services take place. More on that below.

Overall, simplistic but very warm and traditional environment. I enjoyed it a lot.

The People:

The people were silent during the service, however, afterward there was a coffee hour. There I got to talk to people. It was interesting to speak with them. They were all quite friendly and asked a lot of questions. I learned many were involved in social work jobs and seemed to be very focused on the community.

They were diverse in age and background. Some were teens, some young adults in college, several older people, and a number of middle aged people. They were very welcoming, everyone asked my name and why I was there. They were very intrigued by the idea of the blog and had a number of questions.

Overall, very kind people.

The Service/Message:

Quaker services traditionally are quite different than most church services you'll encounter. Though many Quaker meetings have started to have more traditional services with hymns and a sermon, known as programmed services, the traditional Quaker services are unprogrammed. The unprogrammed service is simply a group of people sitting in silence in a room. While in this silence, they meditate and pray. There are no songs and no sermons. If a member feels inspired to, they will stand and deliver a short message on a topic they were meditating or praying about. These messages are not necessarily for everybody and not like sermons telling you how to live your life.

This meeting was a traditional, unprogrammed service. The members were already in progress at the time I got there. I walked in and they were sitting in the circle in complete silence. The service went on in silence for about 10 minutes before a woman stood up and told a story. She mentioned how she works with refugees and how a woman from Somalia had locked herself in the car and when the police officers came, they asked if she had pulled the lock button up. She hadn't and was able to get out once she was told about it. She said that she found it interesting because sometimes what seems so obvious to all of us isn't obvious to someone else who's not had the same experiences as you.

After that, there was more silence. I watched the people meditating and enjoyed the silence for a bit before getting a little bored. Finally, an elderly man stood up and gave a small speech about how discovering the light inside of us is like opening the curtains and realizing there were hidden bad things that you have to work on inside yourself that you didn't see in the dark. At that moment, the sun started shining brightly through the window. He looked at it and said, "Well, with that sun coming through the window, I guess it's time to be silent."

There was then more silence. After an hour of it, the silence was broken by everyone shaking hands, then members going around the circle sharing their names and any announcements they had.

Overall, the service was slightly boring  being completely in silence for an hour, but it was nice to experience silence for a bit and just unwind at the end of a stressful week.

Overall Experience:

I really enjoyed the Quakers. The service wasn't exactly my taste, but it was calming and peaceful. I really enjoyed the people and all the things they stood for, peace, nonviolence, environmentalism, and living in harmony with others.

I would definitely visit a Quaker service again.

Additional Notes:

Only 2 left. I'm planning on visiting the Mennonites and the Hindus. I have two additional announcements. Check out the upcoming blogs for that.

Until next time, peace be with you!

Sabbath greetings at the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Ogden

On Saturday, I visited the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Ogden. Let's right to it and see where the Seventh-day Adventists come from and what they believe.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is the largest branch descended from the Millerite movement founded in the 1830's. Founded by William Miller, Millerites believed that Christ would return in 1844. Miller gained a huge following of people who believed that Christ was about to come. The day of Christ's predicted return came and went like any other day, and the event is now known as The Great Disappointment. After this, the movement still continued, but eventually split into different groups, including: Christadelphians, Branch Davidians, Church of God General Conference, etc. The most well known (other than the infamous Branch Davidians) and by far the largest is the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Beliefs held in common with traditional Protestant Christianity:

• Belief in the Trinity
• Belief that Jesus is the second person in the Trinity, the Messiah, and Savior of mankind.
• Mankind deserves eternal punishment for their sinful nature. 
• Grace is a free gift of God made possible through the atonement of Christ and accepted through faith alone.
• Believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and completely free from error.
• Believe the Bible is the sole and final authority in matters of faith and practice.
• Belief in the Ten Commandments and that they are still binding on Christians today.
• Practice baptism by immersion.
• Practice communion. For them it is done quarterly using unleavened bread and grape juice. A foot washing ceremony is part of this service.
• Adherence to traditionally conservative stances: abortion not condoned except in cases of the health of the mother or severe congenital defects in the child, homosexuality condemned, modest dress encouraged, any sex outside marriage condemned, swearing discouraged, belief in a literal six day creation, etc.
• Christ's return is imminent.

Beliefs not shared with other Christian faiths:

• They don't worship on Sundays like most Christians. Instead, they hold to the traditional Jewish Sabbath believing that Christians are still obligated to observe it. This begins from sunset on Friday evening and goes to sunset on Saturday evening. Members are encouraged to limit activities and focus on God and Bible study on the Sabbath.
• Mankind is an indivisible unity of mind, body, and spirit. There is no immortal soul and mankind is unconscious after death. (This belief is shared with the Jehovah's Witnesses, who were influenced by the Millerites.)
• Immortality is conditional. The wicked will not go to Hell, but instead be annihilated on the last day. (Another belief held in common with the Jehovah's Witnesses.)
• Mankind is involved in a Great Controversy between God and the Devil. There has been an ongoing war between the two factions since Satan first rebelled against God and mankind is in the middle of this war.
• They believe the date of 1844 was correct, but that it wasn't referring to Christ's return to Earth, but instead him beginning the cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary, preparing it for the End of Days.
• They believe that since 1844, the judgment of professed Christians has been ongoing to determine the salvation of all mankind since the beginning of time.
• There is a remnant of people in the End Times who will remain faithful to the commandments of God.
• Prophecy continues into the modern day, though prophecies must be tested against the Bible for validity.
• It is recommended members adhere to a vegetarian diet often following kosher laws. Members are also recommended to not partake in drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, and many members abstain from coffee, tea, and soda.

And now, onto my time with the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Ogden.

Atmosphere:

The Seventh-day Adventist Church of Ogden is a rather unremarkable building from the outside. You can tell it's a church, but it's a very simple red brick building without much adornment or anything that would set it apart from other churches in the area.

I forgot to snap a picture of the interior while I was there. The interior is a basic chapel with pews, mint green walls, and a pretty standard sanctuary with a place for a band to perform, a screen down to play a video at the beginning of the service, and a pulpit. The most unique part of the chapel were the small sections on the sides of the chapel. These sections were separated by an arcade (row of arches) from the rest of the sanctuary. The Sabbath school lessons were given in this part of the section, and some of the elderly members remained there throughout the service. I didn't see any crosses in the chapel, but there were a couple of lovely metal cutouts of angels sounding trumpets on either side of the sanctuary.

Overall, very simple and traditional style atmosphere. Nothing of major note, but it was done well.

The People:

The people were friendly, though rather reserved. A few came up to us and introduced themselves. One very nice girl hunted us down after the service and said that she was so excited to see someone our age because most of the people there are children, teenagers, or older and that few are college age.

Everyone was very well dressed, men in suites and ties, women in skirts or dresses. The congregation was pretty diverse. There were a number of white people, but also Asians, Latinos, among others. The people all seemed to get along pretty well and seemed to be a very tight knit group,

Overall, the people were nice. Fairly typical of a lot of other churches I've visited around here.

The Service:

The service was sort of like an Evangelical service, but a little more traditional than modern Evangelical services. It began with announcements, then the Praise Team got up and sang a song together with the congregation. The music was traditional hymns accompanied on piano.

After that, there was a video that featured an attractive young man showing clips with ominous music of Halloween scenes. The young man said that Halloween has a dark history and basically called it Satanic. But then he said, it doesn't have to be and encouraged the congregation to purchase pamphlets and hand them out as they go door to door trick-or-treating this year. Or if you're not going door to door, hand them out to trick-or-treaters instead of candy. 

It's starting to really annoy me hearing these churches talk about turning every single thing into a way to proselytize and spread their message. Can't we have a fun holiday with candy and costumes that doesn't have to be about Jesus and spreading the Good News? It's like church and Jesus consume every part of some of these people's lives with no balance outside of it. There's a lot of complex layers to life. Letting one aspect of it dominate every other part just makes me sad. Not just with religion, but with everything. If alcohol, weed, sex, church, God, a hobby, your job, anything is taking up so much of your time and thoughts that it seems that it's what you're living for or it's taking away from other things you love, then you probably should consider cutting back, diversifying your life. and enjoying different things more. There is so much out there to waste everything on just one thing. And we're all guilty of this from time to time, but it's important to sometimes step back and reassess things in your life.

After this they sang another hymn and took up an offering. Like in most churches, the deacons came around with collection plates and took money, but children also went around collecting money in their hands and bringing it up to the front. This was interesting to me. I think it's cute to get the kids involved, but nobody seemed to really be watching them. I know if I were a kid, it would be very tempting and easy to pocket some of that money. I think there should be a little more monitoring of them, but that's just me.

Afterward, there was a children's sermon. A lady told the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and related that to what she called a miracle in her uncle's life. He was driving a big rig and a herd of animals came out in front of it, but they parted miraculously when he was driving and he didn't hit any. This is a pretty low scale miracle to me. Animals have a survival instinct and most will dart out of the way of a moving vehicle. It's nowhere near as impressive to me as say if somebody were actually able to make waters part.

After the children's sermon, there was a lovely song sung by two men playing acoustic guitars. It was very pretty and I enjoyed it

After that, there was a community prayer. The worship leader and several other people got up front and got on their knees and gave a long prayer about the needs of the community. While they did this, some members of the congregation knelt at their pews while others just bowed their heads.

This was followed by a brief scripture reading, then a sermon. I ducked out during the closing hymn, but the bulletin said there was just a closing hymn and a closing prayer. I had had my fill of the service by then, so left.

The service was a traditional style Protestant service, but pretty slow paced and went on much longer than I thought it would.

The Message:

The sermon was pretty hard for me to sit through. It started out with the man quoting the scripture that we were to test everything by whether it taught us that Jesus had come in the flesh. He then said that there were three big Satanic teachings that were the spirit of the Antichrist that were popular today: Darwinism, pantheism, and spiritualism.

He said that Darwinism is the belief that everything just happened and that the universe evolved out of a Big Bang and that life just happened on earth and that there's no reason for it. He said this kind of thinking devalues human life because we're just an accident and there's no reason to live. He said that this teaching is appealing because things seem really old and there's a mountain of evidence like giant ice sheets, radio carbon dating, etc. But then he said that it was mathematically impossible, and that it contradicted the Bible.

Christians, please, for the love of God, don't talk about things you don't understand! If you want to talk about evolution, the Big Bang Theory, natural selection, etc., you had better have read actual scientific textbooks and material on the subject, and not just stuff that the church handed out to you or you found on a creationist website. Because more often than not, when I hear Christians talking about evolution and how it's evil, they explain evolution to me in a way that is not scientific and that is not taught in science classrooms. First off, evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the Big Bang Theory. Those are two separate theories in two separate branches of science. Evolution is part of biology, and the Big Bang Theory is in the realm of physics.

There is no such thing as Darwinism, this is a term created by those who teach Intelligent Design to malign people who teach evolution and other scientific theories that are contrary to a very narrow interpretation of Christianity. Evolution isn't the enemy of Christianity. Many millions of Christians the world over accept the Theory of Evolution with no consequence to their faith at all. It is accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, many Anglicans, many in liberal Lutheran churches, many Eastern Orthodox Christians, most other Mainline or Progressive Christians, etc. In fact, outside the United States, in Christianity, the denial of evolution and the Big Bang Theory are only upheld by a minority of Christians. Intelligent Design is not supported by the scientific community as a whole, populated heavily by Christians, and is largely an American phenomenon.

He then said that Darwinism wasn't created by Christians nor is it really believed by Christians, so he focused on another Antichrist teaching that has permeated the Church. He said pantheism was an Antichrist teaching because he said that it equated God with everything in the universe, which would mean suffering, sickness and death were part of God too, and that's not right. He talked about pantheism, but what he actually was talking about was panenthism. Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe, that everything in it is God. Panentheism says God is the universe, but that God also exists separately from it, which is how he described pantheism.

He then said that a final Antichrist teaching that is popular is spiritualism, which is the belief that matter and spirit are separate and that spirit is all that matters. He said that this is contrary to the holistic teaching of the Church which is that mankind is mind, body, and spirit and that there is no separate immortal soul. He said that this was a popular belief in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Eastern Religions, but was gaining popularity in Christianity, too. Essentially, he called Hinduism and Buddhism Antichrist religions, which is a nice roundabout way of demonizing Eastern Religions.

Overall, I found this message really ill informed and spread some very upsetting messages. I did not enjoy the sermon and couldn't wait to get out of the church throughout the whole thing.

Overall Experience:

The service was slow paced but pretty, the people were lovely, and the sermon was awful. I wouldn't return to the Seventh-day Adventist Church again as it made me very uncomfortable to hear a message like that being preached to people who don't understand that much of what is being said is misinformed and misguided. A person giving a sermon like that perpetuates misinformation and creates a vicious cycle in which people just accept what they hear as the Word of God and anything outside of it is seen as satanic so they don't investigate it and then they pass on this misinformation to everyone else creating a culture of fear around something so integral as education and research.

If you can't say something nice, blog about it anyway.

So, I apologize for the delay in getting this blog out. I have two blogs I am pumping out one right after another. The one after this will be about my visit to the Thai Buddhist Temple. This one, however, is about my time at The Salvation Army.

Spoiler, I didn't enjoy my time at The Salvation Army. The reason I've taken so long to write this is that I was having trouble not being completely negative about the whole experience. However, I've never sugar coated on this blog, and I've been completely honest and fair in my assessments so far. So, I'm just going to put it out there. But first, a little background on The Salvation Army.

Origins and Beliefs of The Salvation Army:

The Salvation Army was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by William Booth. The Salvation Army is a Christian denomination with origins in Methodism (though it's not classified as a Methodist church) and patterned to be quasi-military in style, though they are not an actual military nor do they carry weapons or engage in fighting. They call themselves a military because they are a volunteer army fighting for the salvation and aid of mankind. The clergy are called officers, complete with military ranks, and the members are called soldiers.

The group's primary focus is charity work. In fact, they are so involved in charity work, that people often don't know they're a church, but simply think they're a charity and/or thrift shop. This is the primary reason I haven't wanted to say anything negative about The Salvation Army, I don't like tearing down groups that do so much good for their communities. But, for as much good as they do, their beliefs were hard to swallow, the experience bad, and they also have been involved in a few controversies, including anti-gay scandals. Discussion of those is a bit out of the scope of this blog, so feel free to research those on your own.

Here are some basic beliefs of the church:

1. Belief in the Trinity and divinity of Christ.
2. Belief the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and the only guide for the salvation of mankind.
3. Belief that the fall of mankind left man spiritually wounded and totally depraved with no goodness within them.
4. That the atonement of Christ offers mankind salvation through regeneration by the Spirit.
5. Salvation is a free gift from God given by grace through faith alone.
6. Belief in the end of times, resurrection of the dead, return of Christ.
7. The Salvation Army doesn't practice any sacraments, such as baptism or communion, as they feel they distract from God's grace by focusing on the act rather than what the act symbolizes.

So, let's get the ball rolling.

Atmosphere:

The Salvation Army chapel is located in downtown Ogden. The exterior of the building is very simple and done in a contemporary style. My friend and I sat in the car in the parking lot listening to the song Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes because the name is derived from the name Salvation Army.

The interior of the chapel was fairly typical of a Protestant chapel: chairs lined up in pews, a sanctuary with a section for a band to play live music and a pulpit as the central piece, flower arrangements, etc.

Sadly, it was hard to focus on anything in this chapel as there was an overwhelming stench of cat urine that assaulted your nose when you walked in and was impossible to ignore throughout the whole service.

The atmosphere, overall, was simple, but the smell was overwhelming and really diminished the entire atmosphere giving it a very cheap and low rent feeling.

The People:

The people were eclectic as far as age and race, Some were elderly, some teenagers, some Latino, some white, some wearing hippie clothing, some wearing Hawaiian shirts and sandals. It felt like most of them were people who had once been down on their luck and had learned about The Salvation Army through their charity outreach. This assumption was confirmed when a man got up and bore his testimony saying that he was no longer homeless and was now clean and sober thanks to the Lord. 

A number of the members were dressed in uniforms. This was something I was told to expect. Many members purchase Salvation Army uniforms and wear them as a sign of being soldiers for God.

The woman who ran the worship service was an older woman who seemed kind of grouchy, especially when she yelled at the children for misbehaving, and kind of upset me with how she acted with people, yet covered it up with a smile and facade of caring.

Overall, it was an interesting group of people. I'm very glad that a number of them seem to have turned their lives around thanks to The Salvation Army.

The Service:

The service was fairly typical of a low church Protestant service. It began with a few announcements and welcome. Everybody went around shaking each other's hands, then the real service began. It started with a song. There was no accompanying music, only the acapella voices of the congregation. I've encountered congregations that don't sing well, but nobody here sang well at all. Because of that, the music wasn't enjoyable, just painful to listen to. I didn't want the singing to continue.

After there was a prayer and then they took up offerings. After that, they had the children's sermon before sending them off to Sunday school.

The kid's sermon was actually nice. It was on how words can hurt people and how we can't take back what we say. I am all for teaching kids this and encourage it.

After that was the main sermon. Then there was another song and a benediction.

Overall, the service was fairly simple, the music grating, and the overall tone extremely casual.

The Message:

The sermon was delivered by a guest speaker. The sermon was supposedly about God's contract with mankind, but really it bounced around a lot. He said that his wife just knows Jesus is the Messiah and that's all she needs. He said that he was a facts person and that he needed more than that. He said that the facts that convince him that Jesus was the Messiah are that nobody but God could do the things that Jesus does in the Gospels, therefore it's all true, Jesus is the Messiah. This is a very flawed argument that I will go into in a special blog on the Bible I've been planning.

He then talked about a conversation he had with his friends once in which he was talking to and how he and his friends tried listing off the Ten Commandments, but couldn't and ended up with a list of about fourteen and still didn't have all of them. I was absolutely amazed he admitted this. A lot of Christians cannot name the Ten Commandments, yet still tout them as the central piece of their faith and (mistakenly) say they're the basis for our laws here in the US. But I was very surprised to hear him admit that he didn't know what they were, and it only solidified what I knew.

After that, he talked about how we need to read the whole Bible cover to cover and read it as literature because all of the questions you'll ever have are answered in there and that there are no gaps in it. Essentially saying that the Bible is free from error. Clearly he hasn't taken up his own challenge as nobody who reads the Bible entirely can say that there are no gaps in it unless they aren't paying attention to anything they're reading. The Bible is filled with gaps and errors, often within the same chapter. More on that in my Bible blog I will do.

He also said that once a person repents, God doesn't remember their sins and that all sin is equal to God. A big sin is just as bad as a little sin, and a big good just as good as a little good. I hate this way of thinking. Murder isn't not on par with fibbing about your age. Rescuing a child from drowning isn't the same as telling your mom the truth about whether you stole the cookie. Things are complicated, not all actions are equal. Conversely, I know people who follow this mentality who think, well, I watched some porn, I already committed a sin, might as well go out and do all the things I want to since I'm damned.

After this he encouraged people that it might be fun to have the kids and adults dress up as Bible characters for Halloween, then when people asked who they were, they could share the Gospel with them. He then ended by saying that only God saves, we're just the ones delivering the message, but we never save anyone.

I found the message to be extremely juvenile in its understanding of Christianity and filled with a lot of problems and flawed logic. It was hard to sit through this sermon with a straight face knowing what I do about religion.

Overall Experience:

I hated my time at The Salvation Army. The whole time I was there, I just felt dirty and like I needed to leave. It's hard to explain why I felt that way, and no words could really capture the feeling. But really I didn't like my time there and have never felt more uncomfortable in a church. I couldn't wait to leave the service, and I will never go back to it.

Additional Notes:

I'll be posting my review on the Thai Buddhist Temple tomorrow. I also am working on a piece about the Bible, and I am visiting the United Methodist Church this Sunday.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Crossroads Christian Fellowship: The church on the hill with the great coffee

I went to Crossroads Christian Fellowship, part of the International Foursquare Church, an Evangelical Christian denomination with Charismatic undertones. How was it?

Atmosphere:

This church was kind of a cool building. It's up on top of a hill just off the side of the mountain. We drove up to it and were greeted by a wood building and a beautiful view.

The interior was pretty cool, it felt a lot like a ski lodge with the downstairs portion seeming to be dedicated to church offices, classrooms, and a larger space for miscellaneous things. The sanctuary was upstairs. Upstairs was another open space with a coffee bar that had a barista behind it.

He asked if we would like some iced coffee. I said, "Yes, please," and was handed a frappuccino in a ceramic cup. I kid you not, this was one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had in my life. I have not had coffee this good since I was living in France.

The sanctuary was very cool and kept with the ski lodge sort of theme. They had a stage up front where the live band was setting up to play, chairs lined up in rows, but also tables over to the side. We snagged one of the tables and sat down for the service.

The atmosphere alone sold me on this church. I jokingly said at the beginning, "With coffee and atmosphere like this, they're already getting a good review. I don't even care what they say." Obviously, I do and won't give them a good review simply based on atmosphere. But it was an awesome setting for a Sunday.

The People:

The people of the church were extremely friendly. We were greeted at the door by a nice man in an NRA hat. A woman also greeted us and pointed out where the programs were as well as some name tags we could fill out. We to the stairs and were greeted by the pastor, a kind, middle-aged Irish man. He welcomed us to the church. He later came and talked to us while they were singing hymns and made sure we'd found the coffee bar and joked with us for a minute. A few other people introduced themselves and in general they were all very polite and kind to us.

The Service:

The service started out fairly typically of Evangelical services with about a half hour of worship songs. The songs were contemporary Christian songs. The people really got into them, including clapping, raising their hands, a few rocking back and forth. I saw a grandpa who sat at the table with us during the music portion take his toddler grandson's hands and move them like they were banging drums. That was a very cute thing to see.

One song's lyrics were really interesting. It was a song called, "How He Loves Us." This song's opening verses talk about how God is jealous for me and how his love's like a hurricane and we're trees. This is not the model of a good relationship. That's sort of abusive imagery. But the tune was really pretty.

After the musical worship, there was a baby dedication. This is actually similar to something from my Mormon heritage, a baby blessing is what they call it. Basically, it was just a blessing on the baby for a long and happy life. The baby's father gave the blessing and they asked the congregation to raise their hands and join in the prayer.

I thought this was a sweet little ceremony. It amazes me that virtually all cultures have ceremonies centered around a new child coming into their life. I think that's one of the things we crave as humans, to mark significant events in our life ceremonially with the community.

After that, there was a brief intermission before the sermon. Before the sermon, a young woman came up and explained that her mother had died suddenly recently. Her mother died without life insurance, and they didn't have enough money for the funeral. The church had helped raise funds to pay for the final expenses. I thought that was a wonderful gesture.

After the sermon, there was an altar call which was fairly simplistic, and just involved him asking anyone who wanted to talk or accept Jesus to come up to the front after the service and speak with the people up there.

Overall, the service was fairly typical of an Evangelical service: contemporary, Christian music, sermon, altar call, casual atmosphere.

The Message:

The sermon today was on prayer. The sermon was an interesting one and started out with a video featuring two men in a comedy act about different ways people often pray. They poked fun at people who make lists of demands for God, portraying the demands as petty and ridiculous. Then they poked fun at people who babble on praises to God by showing them babbling on praying as they fell asleep, then God trying to wake them up, but unable to tell them what they needed to hear because of their babbling.

The pastor then got back up and stated that we don't need to babble on to try to get God's attention, as he's always there waiting for us. He also said that God isn't a sugar daddy there for us to hit up for things we need. Instead he said that God is like a kind father waiting there to try to help his child be the most they can be in life.

Then, using The Lord's Prayer as a model, gave a list of things that will guarantee that prayers will be answered. He called it an ingredients list. But before listing them, he stated that we should approach God like a Father, because he is that to us.

• Ingredient 1: Declare God's greatness. He said not to babble on incessantly about God's greatness, but acknowledge how big God is compared to you. He said God doesn't want all the ceremony and pomp, but the honest praise of man.
• Ingredient 2: Surrender your will to God. Realize that you don't pray to get what you want, but what he wants.
• Ingredient 3: Acknowledge your dependence on him. He stated that everything that we have comes from God. He said God gave you your job, your home, your livelihood, everything. Then he turned around and said that not all promotions come from God. That sometimes, man forces the hand of God to do something even though God has other plans. I find it an interesting idea that a mere human could force the hand of an omnipotent being.

Additionally, he gave 3 pieces of advice:

1. Talk to God as though you have a deep personal relationship with him, like a friend or parent.
2. Learn about God.
3. Give back to God. Just a little bit of your time and money per week.

Personally, prayer is something I have issues with. As a method of focus, a method of feeling connected to something bigger than yourself, or a way to sort out your thoughts and get in contact with parts of yourself you wouldn't normally access, I take no issue. It's no different than meditation in these aspects and has a number of benefits. But I have problems with prayer as it's generally practiced, and this sermon hit on all of them.

Declaring God's greatness for example. If there is an omnipotent being responsible for the creation of our entire universe, then our hymns and praises to this God would be meaningless to him. Why would a God who creates nebulae, stars thousands of times larger than our sun, can orchestrate billions of galaxies with billions of stars across an immense stretch of space so big our brains can't even conceptualize it care that we take time each day, and take particular care on Sunday, to praise him? It would be like us being concerned that a colony of ants in Zimbabwe took time out of their day to make sure they praised you. If you believe in God, and praise him simply for your own awe at them, that's one thing, but the idea that God demands it and needs it is absurd to me.

But that aside, that's not my big issue with prayer. If anything, that's a very minor issue and one that's neither here nor there. My big problem with it is that people pray to God to find direction in their life from an external source, and that it's supposedly praying to God you must pray in accordance with God's will. If you are praying in accordance with what God has already planned for you anyway, then what is the point of sending up petitions to God for what you want?

But bigger than that, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what prayers get answered in this world. It certainly doesn't appear to be a plan that's just in any way. This was actually the matter that led me to stop believing in God entirely. Every day, in many parts of the world, there are people who suffer from famine, disease, poverty, and unspeakable horror. These people all seemingly innocent in the conflict. There are God fearing Christians in African countries that live in villages where rebels come into a town and find people they feel were sympathizers with the government and as punishment will rape the wives and daughters of those they feel are guilty, wound, disfigure, etc. They will then burn the village to the ground. A few months later, the government forces will come through and do the same thing to those they feel were loyal to the rebel forces. In other places, mothers will scream and cry as they watch their 4 year-old child die in the night from starvation because a drought and barren soil have left them with no food. Every single day, most of these people send up heart rending prayers for deliverance to God. They want nothing more than the basic necessities and security in this world. Yet, most of them will die without any hope, any comfort, and nobody will ever come and save them.

Meanwhile, in the United States, people think God helps them find their car keys, or that God was responsible for getting them their promotion, or making sure they got home from work safely. Why would a God dote on the rich, industrialized world so much and shower them with blessings, meanwhile the lowliest of all suffer and die needlessly without comfort?

This is why I don't believe prayer works in a cosmic sense? It all seems very random as to who gets their prayers answered, and who does not. When it comes down to it, for me at least, it seems that the events in our life come down to a lot of hard work and even more dumb luck.

I don't discourage people from praying, I'm not the kind of person who says we should eliminate religion or belief, nor do I want to take that from people. But this is a huge conflict I see in the world that I have heard no great and satisfactory answer for.

The message was a positive message, the pastor presented it in a way that was very uplifting, and the people seemed to be filled with nothing but the best of intentions. I enjoyed the emotion the pastor expressed and you could tell that he had genuine faith in everything he was saying.

Overall Experience:

This was actually the best Evangelical service I've ever been to. I enjoyed my time there a lot. I don't agree with what was taught, but I never really will in a Christian setting. I still thought it was a positive message, the people were so kind, and the atmosphere was so wonderful that it's hard not to feel inspired and enjoy your time at Crossroads. I would definitely go back for another service and love to get to know some of the people at this community even more.

Additional Notes:

This week I will be attending two services. One will be a Gnostic Mass held by the Ordo Templi Orientis, a ceremonial magic fraternal order founded by Aleister Crowley. That should be rather interesting to see. I will also be attending services at Embry Chapel, part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historically black church.

Stay tuned for more on those. Until next time, peace be with you.

Heading to the Foursquare Church at Cross Roads Christian Fellowship

This week, I will be visiting yet another Evangelical church. I am heading to Cross Roads Christian Fellowship here in South Ogden. Cross Roads Christian Fellowship is part of the International Foursquare Church, an Evangelical Christian church started in the 1920's by Aimee McPherson. I find it really remarkable that there exists an Evangelical church founded by a woman that early on. Evangelical churches often have a history of promoting gender roles even today, let alone back then.

The Church teaches what are fairly general Protestant Christian principles:

• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and the sole authority on matters of faith and doctrine.
• Belief Jesus is fully God and man.
• Belief that humanity by is completely sinful.
• Belief Jesus's sacrifice on the cross delivered mankind from sin and death.
• Belief in salvation by grace through faith alone.
• Practice of baptism. (For them, this is done by full immersion as an outward sign of them being reborn in Jesus.)
• Practice of communion in memory of the sacrifice of Jesus.
• Belief in the Last Judgment where all mankind will go to Heaven or Hell for all eternity.

Additionally, the Church has the following Evangelical and Charismatic elements to them:

• One must be born again by accepting Jesus as your savior.
• One develops a personal relationship with Jesus.
• One is also baptized in the Holy Spirit separate from their conversion.
• This baptism in the Spirit leads to gifts of the Spirit like speaking in tongues or faith healing
• Belief in the Rapture and the Millennial reign of Jesus.

Finally, there are aspects of the Church which, while not necessarily unique, are defining of them:

• Belief in the 4 aspects of Jesus from which the Church gets its name:
• Jesus as Savior of the World.
• Jesus as spiritual healer of mankind.
• Jesus as the baptizer along with the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus as the King of the World who's reign is sure to come.
• Belief that a person can lose their salvation, that once a person is saved, that doesn't mean they're saved forever. They must endure to the end.
• Faith healing as part of the divine power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

We'll see what this one is like. It seems very similar to a number of other churches I have visited, so, we shall see if there's much difference in tone or service.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Meet me at Calvary Baptist Church, part of the Southern Baptist Convention

Today I went to Calvary Baptist Church, a church here in Ogden which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention has nearly 16 million members nationwide making it the second largest church in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the largest Protestant church in the country, and the largest Baptist church in the world. Chances are, when Baptists come to your mind, you're thinking of the Southern Baptists. There are many other Baptist groups and independent Baptist organizations, but none with the numbers, outreach, or political clout of the Southern Baptist Convention. So who are the Southern Baptists? Where do they come from? What do they believe?

The origins of the Southern Baptist Convention actually stem from our country's more controversial past. It began when the Baptist churches from the Southern United States decided to split with those from the Northern United States as the North refused to ordain missionaries who were slave owners. The Southern Baptist Convention maintained a theology that promoted slavery and later racial segregation. This caused many black Baptists to split off and form their own groups, the largest of which today is the National Baptist Convention, USA.

Starting in the second half of the 20th century, the Southern Baptist Convention began moving away from its roots in race and segregation and began actively engaging minorities to bring them into the group. Today, the church has no official racial element to it, and the current president of the organization is a black man.

Beliefs of the Southern Baptist Convention:

• The Southern Baptist Convention is a Protestant church that is Evangelical. This means that they believe that the Bible is the Word of God, the sole guide on matters of faith and doctrine, that members are to be born again in the Spirit by accepting Jesus as their Savior, and that they have a personal relationship with Jesus.
• The Bible is the source of their creeds and their creeds can be altered based on what the Bible teaches.
• Each person is accountable to God alone and nobody else is accountable for another person's salvation.
• Priesthood of all believers. In other words, there is no middle man between God and humanity, each person can access God fully on their own.
• Mankind is a fallen creature devoid of good. All people are guilty under God's Law and deserve God's wrath and punishment in eternal Hell.
• Salvation from the wrath of God is by the grace of God through faith alone. Works cannot save.
• Salvation is through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus's atonement paid for the sins of mankind.
• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that baptism is required as an act of obedience to God's Word, and a symbol of dying to your own life and rising new in Christ. Baptism must be done by full immersion only by those old enough to accept Jesus as their Savior.
• Practice the Lord's Supper to remember the sacrifice of Jesus and draw closer to him. This act is simply a memorial and the bread and wine (grape juice) have no actual presence of Jesus within them but are symbolic of the grace he provides.
• Autonomy of the local church. This means that each church in the Southern Baptist Convention is self governing and does not have to answer to a hierarchy. The convention exists to unify congregations with other similar congregations.
• The Southern Baptist Convention leans towards conservative politics and traditional gender roles. Homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage, polyamory, pornography, and extra-marital affairs are condemned. Women are not ordained, though it is said they belong to the priesthood of all believers.

So, what was Calvary Baptist Church like?

Atmosphere:

Calvary Baptist Church is tucked away in an unassuming part of downtown Ogden. It's a red brick building that's fairly traditional with some modern aspects, particularly the steeple and the relief sculpture over the entrance of the church.

The interior of the church was interesting to me because it was almost exactly how I envisioned it to be. I've never gone into a new church and had it match my preconceived image of what it would look like until today. That's always been part of the fun of this journey is seeing how reality compares with what's in my head.

The interior was a white bricked room with wooden pews and a slight partition that separated the main part of the chapel from the entry way. The walls had no windows except for a couple of smaller windows way up at the top of the building behind the sanctuary, which were covered by closed, vertical blinds.

The central focus of the room was the pulpit which ha a small table in front of it that had a simple wooden cross, a Bible opened in front of it, and two collection plates. Along the front of the table was a table runner that said, "Jesus lives forever."

Overall, the atmosphere was, as I stated, exactly what I expected: simple, centered on a pulpit with the Bible out on display, and unassuming.

The People:

The people were very nice. They all went out of their way to greet us and ask us questions. Most of them were elderly and white (a typical trend of most of the churches around here) though there were a couple younger families of different ethnicities. The congregation wasn't very large, only a couple dozen people at the very most including us. It's Summer, so the size of the congregation is bound to be smaller, but I don't get the impression this congregation is very big at all.

Overall, they seemed like nice people who had conviction in what they believed.

The Service:

The service was typical of churches with an Evangelical bend. It opened with a prelude of music played on a piano, followed by a prayer offered by a member of the congregation, then they welcomed everybody, including us as visitors. After that, a woman was asked to extend a greeting to everybody, she talked for a minute about how it's been 100 years since World War I began, which was very random and was not related to anything religious or spiritual any way. Just sort of some random trivia about World War I given just for fun.

Afterward, another hymn was sung accompanied by piano music. I have to say, the music was really simplistic and traditional and I wasn't familiar with any of them sung.

After the hymn, they said another prayer and took up a collection. Everybody then stood up and recited a scripture together from the Gospel of Luke. The pastor then went to the pulpit and began his sermon.

After the sermon, another hymn was sung, then a prayer offered, and the congregation recited Proverbs 3:5 in unison, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

The service was very dry and focused on the sermon, as I've come to expect with most Evangelical churches. I do have to say that I liked that this church didn't rely on any kind of gimmick to attract members, but instead seemed more focused on its roots and what it taught. Compared to some other denominations of the same type, it is nice to see.

The Message:

The Gospel reading was from Like where Jesus asks Peter to tell him who people say he is. Peter replies that some say he is John the Baptist, Elijah, or another prophet. He then asks Peter who he thinks he is. Peter replies that he thinks Jesus is the Christ.

The sermon was really repetitive, with the pastor covering several points over and over again. I'm going to try to condense his message into a more reader friendly message than is in my notes.

Essentially, he said that people have different opinions about Jesus and these opinions can't all be right, we must only believe what God says about Jesus. The most important thing in life is to know the truth about Jesus. This is our assignment on this Earth. What God says about Jesus is all that matters, God gave us his Word (the scriptures), and his Word says that the scriptures are reliable. Therefore, we must believe what the Bible says about Jesus, and not other people's opinions about Jesus. We need to come to him and get saved.

There wasn't much more to the sermon than that, just the same points made again and again, sometimes with a little more detail added to them.

Overall, the sermon wasn't anything I wasn't expecting. I've heard all of this before many times in different churches and other moments in my life.

Overall Experience:

This is the only church I've been to so far that was exactly how I envisioned it to be, as though they pulled it straight from my imagination. That was surreal. Honestly, I don't have much to say about this group that I haven't said about similar groups in my previous blogs.

Additional Notes:

I'm really enjoying this experience, and I've decided I want to take it to the next level. Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to look into next year's project, which will be on similar lines. My goal for next year is to travel to every state and record (in film or written form I haven't decided) various religious experiences in other states. I will probably be turning to crowdfunding for this project.

Let me know your opinions and suggestions on this idea.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Types of Christianity

It occurs to me that I've mentioned several types of Christianity and some general terms that many may or may not be familiar with. So, I've decided to clear some of them up to help people reading my blog better understand.

There are three main branches of Christianity. In no particular order, they are:

1. Orthodox Christianity
2. Catholic Christianity
3. Protestant Christianity

Orthodox Christianity: This includes two main branches, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy. Oriental Orthodoxy split from the rest of Christianity in the 5th century because they believed Christ had one complex nature instead of two natures (fully God and fully man) in one person.

Some churches that belong to Oriental Orthodoxy:

• The Armenian Apostolic Church
• The Coptic Orthodox Church
• The Ethiopian Orthodox Church
• The Syriac Orthodox Church

Eastern Orthodoxy split from Catholicism in the 11th century over political matters and doctrine matters such as the role of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity and church practices.

Some churches that belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church:

• The Greek Orthodox Church
• The Russian Orthodox Church
• The Romanian Orthodox Church
• The Orthodox Church in America
• The Ukrainian Orthodox Church
• The Latvian Orthodox Church

Catholic Christianity: Catholic Christianity split with the Eastern Orthodox in the 11th century and became the powerhouse of Europe for centuries. Today the Catholic Church is the largest religious sect in the world and in human history. This church includes members of the Roman Catholic Church as well as churches in full communion with Rome that are considered to be fully Catholic churches with no difference in doctrine but differences in tradition.

Some churches within the Catholic Church include:

• The Roman Catholic Church (by far the largest church and mother church of the Catholic Church)
• The Maronite Catholic Church
• The Russian Greek Catholic Church
• The Greek Byzantine Catholic Church

Other churches have split from the Catholic Church while maintaining Catholic ceremony, priesthood, and dogma. These are still considered Catholic churches, though they are not in communion with Rome.

Some churches that are not part of the Catholic Church, but still considered to be Catholic churches:

• The Polish Catholic Church
• The American Catholic Church
• The various Old Catholic churches
• The Liberal Catholic Church

Protestant Christianity: Protestants are members of churches that sought to reform the Catholic Church in the 16th century and onward. Most Christian denominations in the US are Protestant and it is a wide umbrella of churches. Basically, to be Protestant you must be a Christian church that split from the Catholic Church or a church that split off from the Catholic Church, believe in the Trinity, and accept the Bible as the Word of God and sole authority on matters of faith. The name itself reflects their origins, Protestant = one who protests the Catholic faith.

Some churches considered to be Protestant:

• Lutheran churches
• Anglican churches (Church of England, Episcopal Church USA, etc.)
• Presbyterian churches
• Methodist churches
• Congregationalist churches
• Most non-denominational churches
• Baptist churches
• The Moravian Church
• The Amish
• Mennonite churches
• Most Pentecostal churches

***

In addition to all of this, in the Protestant churches, there are a few other terms that are thrown around that need to be explained, as it can be very confusing. A lot of churches may fall into two or more of the following definitions, so it's possible for a church or a person to be one or many of these things.

Mainline Christianity: The historical churches of the Protestant Reformation and their immediate child churches. These include: Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, which were the majority churches in the United States up until the later portion of the 20th century.

Evangelical Christianity: Christians who accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, believe exclusively in the Bible as the only authority in matters of faith, believe they have a personal relationship with Jesus, and believe they have been born again in the Spirit after praying to God to save them.

Fundamentalist Christianity: Christians who believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God without error in its original forms and the only guide in life. They believe in taking a literal approach to reading scripture, meaning they believe that anything that does not clearly say it's a metaphor is literally true word for word.

Progressive Christianity: Christians who believe that the Bible is an inspired text and the Word of God, but must be interpreted critically and with modern historical eyes. Often take much of the Bible metaphorically and with belief that these were ancient people living in a different time who wrote the book and we must look at how they saw the world to understand what the texts mean. Often very inclusive and involved with outreach to other churches and other religions.

Charismatic Christianity: Christians who believe they are washed in the Holy Spirit and given spiritual gifts from it. The most familiar gift is speaking in tongues (essentially incoherent babbling done in a trance), but other gifts include prophecy, faith healing, etc.

***

Additionally, there are 2 major worship styles in Christianity. These terms originate with Anglican churches as there is a wide spectrum of ceremonial practice in those churches, but I feel the terms are relevant to Christian worship in general. The styles are:

1. Liturgical, or High Church worship. 
2. Low Church worship.

Liturgical or High Church worship: Characterized by highly structured ritual complete with special vestments that are to be worn by clergy, worship centered around an altar, chanting or traditional music, and possibly incense or bells.

Some churches with High Church worship are:

• All Eastern Orthodox churches
• All Oriental Orthodox churches
• All Catholic churches
• Many Anglican churches
• Many Lutheran churches

Low Church worship: Characterized by an informal church service. It can take on many forms including traditional or contemporary hymns, extremely simple vestments or street clothes worn by clergy, worship is centered around reading from the Bible and a sermon. Things like incense, bells, candles, etc are generally frowned upon.

Examples of churches with Low Church worship:

• All Baptist churches
• All Pentecostal churches
• Most Evangelical churches
• Most Presbyterian churches
• Some Lutheran churches
• Some Anglican churches
• Some Methodist churches

Some churches fall somewhere between these two styles, and that worship is called Broad Church worship.

***

While there are other Christian groups outside of these, these are what are historically considered to be Christianity. Other groups do believe that Jesus was the messiah, but are considered outside the historical creeds of Christianity for several reasons. These groups usually object to not being considered Christian and do consider themselves to be Christians, sometimes consider themselves to be the only true Christians.

Some groups generally considered to be outside of Christianity but consider themselves to be Christians:

• Oneness Pentecostals, as they deny the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Jehovah's Witnesses, as they deny the Trinity and divinity of Jesus.
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), as they deny the Trinity, believe in multiple gods, and have additional scriptures to the Bible.

Elim Lutheran Church, or Christianity: The Rock Opera

Today, I attended Elim Lutheran Church in Ogden, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA is the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States with over 3 million members nationwide, and is in full communion with the Lutheran World Federation, an international union of Lutheran churches containing more than 70 million members worldwide.

The ELCA is a mainline Protestant church (meaning it is a church that comes directly from the Protestant Reformation and not from the Evangelical or Charismatic movements). The Church, obviously, comes from the Lutheran tradition, dating back to Martin Luther's challenging of the Catholic Church in the 16th century.

The ELCA allows a broad spectrum of belief and practices within their church. As a whole, the church tends to be more liberal than other branches of Lutheranism in America; however, there are conservative factions within the Church.

Generally agreed upon beliefs and practices are:

• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that Jesus is the incarnation of the second member of the Trinity, and the Son of God.
• Belief that mankind is justified (saved) by God's grace alone through faith in him.
• Belief that the Bible alone contains all that is necessary for the salvation of mankind, and are the sole authority on matters of faith and doctrine.
• They do not tend to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but instead approach it through scholarly research.
• Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. (That the body and blood of Jesus is present in the bread and wine at communion, though the mechanism for this isn't explained. Transubstantiation is rejected.)
• Generally, they do not deny evolution, though a minority do.
• Baptism is an outward sign of an inward grace practiced on both adults and infants.
• Ordination of women. (Some object to this matter; however, the Church has no restriction on the ordination of women and the current presiding bishop of the Church is a woman.)
• On social issues, the Church tends to lean more towards the moderate to liberal side. Most believe:
• Abortion should be legal in most circumstances.
• Homosexuality should not be condemned. (Officially LGBT members may become clergy and most support same-sex marriage.)
• Support of women's rights, including reproductive rights.
• Helping the less fortunate out financially.

So how was my visit to Elim Lutheran Church?

Atmosphere:

I was very happy to find out that during the summer months, they worship outdoors. So, before I get to the worship environment I did encounter, let me show you what their chapel looks like, and where worship is held most of the year:

The chapel, very traditional in style and quite beautiful in my opinion with it's lovely stained glass, especially this window over the back of the sanctuary.

This is a stained glass widow of Christ the King which is the focal point of this chapel.

The pulpit and baptistery. Which includes the pulpit from which the scriptures are read, the baptismal font, and the processional cross.

And finally, below is the high altar, which is a very simple and yet traditional altar.

That being said, the service we had was outside with some lawn chairs set up in a semicircle around a temporary altar, which was a simple wooden structure with no special adornments other than a cross and a couple vases of flowers.

It was a great day for it to be outside, it was pleasantly warm, but not unbearably hot, lovely bit of cloud cover, and a slight breeze. I love church services held outside. There's just something relaxing about it.

Overall, the atmosphere for the service and the atmosphere of the church building itself were both wonderful.

The People:

This was a very friendly bunch of people. We got out of the car and immediately people swarmed to greet us. They told us to grab coffee and join them, and said if we just wanted to grab coffee, we could do that too.

The pastor was a sweet lady who reminded me rather of an elementary school teacher I had.

I have nothing but positive things to say about the people at this congregation, they were very nice and welcoming.

The Service:

The service was an interesting blend of old and new. The music was sort of contemporary, some of it reminded me of old school Motown music. Other songs sounded more like contemporary Christian music. The service started with a contemporary Christian hymn followed by a few announcements and a confession of sin. All similar to the beginning of a Catholic Mass, but no procession and a more modern feel.

Afterward was another hymn and then the three scripture readings. Two of the three readings are some of the most fascinating scriptures in all of the Christian canon to me. Jeremiah 20: 7-13, commonly called Jeremiah's lamentation or Jeremiah's complaint. The first part of the reading in most English translation reads:

"You have deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived. You overpowered me and prevailed." (New International Version)

This is interesting and I have yet to read a mainstream translation of this text that doesn't read this way. Today's reading was no exception. However, this is watered down version of the text and doesn't imply the full gravity of the passage. The text in English would better read this way, according to most biblical scholars:

"You have seduced me, Yahweh, and I was raped. You overpowered me and you have prevailed."

In this text, Jeremiah laments his condition and what God has done to him. It is easy to see in any translation, yet what the text actually says in its original language truly drives home how desperate Jeremiah's encounter with God feels.

The second reading was Matthew 10: 24-39, which has one of the most infamous sayings of Jesus:

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and daughter-in-law against mother in law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (English Standard Version)

There was a sermon afterward that I was hoping would talk about these passages in depth. We'll come back to that in "The Message" section.

After the sermon, there was a collection taken up and a few more hymns were sung. They then did the prayers of the people, which followed a similar formula to the Catholic model, saying prayer for the community, then the people responding, "Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer." Then a microphone was passed around to anyone who had a special prayer intention. After each intention, they repeated the same response.

They then moved to the communion portion of the celebration. Compared to a Catholic Mass or even an Episcopalian Eucharist service, it was very short and to the point. The pastor just got up to the table, said the Words of Institution (a short recitation of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper) and then the congregation said the Lord's Prayer together. After that people lined up and took a small piece of bread from the pastor and a thimble sized cup of either grape juice or wine from the altar server.

Afterward, there was a post-communion prayer, a hymn, and then a blessing by the pastor.

Overall, the service was very modern, but still followed a traditional structure and felt connected with the past, though it was reimagined for our time.

The Message:

As I stated above, I was really hoping the sermon would go in depth on these two scripture passages which present real challenges to the average church goer. On one hand, you have one of the most celebrate prophets of the Old Testament lamenting about how unfair God and his calling are, even going so far in the text as to say he rapes him, or if you're going to go with the watered down reading of it, that he deceives him. Jeremiah here is in a moment of pure desperation and feels completely alone unable to trust anyone, even his God.

On the other hand, you have Jesus saying he's not a peacemaker, but has come to create war, even within our own families. Jesus says we're to love him even more than our own families.

On a side note, how do modern Christians get the family values movement out of the Bible? There aren't very many examples of good families in the Old Testament; Jesus tells his disciples that he's going to create war within their families; encourages them to leave their obligations, family included, and follow him; and Paul recommends that Christians be celibate if possible, unless they're so overcome with the weakness of lust that they can't take it and have to get married to soothe that temptation.

I was really hoping she'd touch on this, but most of the sermon was instead on Vacation Bible School which ended for the children last week. She also said that the message of the scriptures was that sometimes we'll be rejected by people for loving Jesus and sometimes things will get rough, but that's okay, God is always there for us, so don't drown in despair.

I liked the message of not drowning in despair, and I loved how she said, "Oh, I truly hope nobody here is drowning in despair. Fear can lead us to many bad things. We can fall into the wrong crowd hoping for protection or acceptance. But do not be afraid, for God counts the hairs on your head and not a sparrow falls without his notice." I liked the message because positive messages like this in a dark world are comforting.

On the other hand, there are some major problems in this world that putting a bandaid of happiness and comfort over is insufficient. There are countless people who needlessly suffer, it's not right, it's not enough to say that it's part of God's plan and that God loves them. We need to actively get off our asses and say it's not okay, it's not a divine mandate that these people suffer for no reason at all, and help them.

She then had us all write down a fear or burden of ours. She then had the kids come up and sing a song they sang from Vacation Bible School. The song sounded like it came straight out of a rock opera, hence my title for this blog. In fact, most of the contemporary music they played sounded like it would be perfectly in place in a rock opera. Not that I'm complaining. It was lively and fun. But it was delightfully awkward to watch these kids up there making fools out of themselves with this song. I enjoyed it very much and felt it was the best part of the service.

At the end of the song, the kids crumpled up their burdens and cast them away. Everyone in the congregation did as well. It was a symbol of casting your burdens on Jesus. While I don't believe in Jesus, I think this is a positive exercise. We do occasionally need to unburden ourselves and it's easier to deal with your problems if you share them with others. There is healing in just saying your burdens out loud and symbolically casting them away. I liked this part. Will it resolve your actual issue? No, but it gets your mind in the right mindset to start letting it bother you less.

Overall, the message was a watered down version of what I wanted, didn't really address the disturbing nature of the readings, but was still a good sermon with a practical message about daily life.

Overall Experience:

This was a very happy go lucky bunch with a message of love and charity in their hearts. In fact, they were talking about how they had recently raised enough money for a fish farm for an impoverished community somewhere in the world to help feed them and were on their way to helping getting enough water purification tablets for them as well. I thought that was a good gesture, and I want to hear about more projects like that at more churches.

Between the friendliness, worship service, and general attitude of the people there, I can definitely see what inspires Garrison Keillor. I enjoyed my time with the Lutherans of Elim Lutheran Church and would go back just to say, "Hello," sometime.

Going to see the Orthodox Presbyterians

This will be the third Presbyterian church I've been to during this blog expedition. All branches of Christianity (and religion in general) have a spectrum of belief from conservative to liberal, orthodox to modern. Presbyterianism is no exception. The Presbyterian churches I previously attended were the Presbyterian Church USA and the Japanese Christian Church. Both of them are more theologically modern and, especially on the part of the Presbyterian Church USA I visited, more theologically liberal.

This week; however, I will be attending the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church split from the Presbyterian Church USA in the 1930's over what it saw as an alarming trend towards modernism. As the name implies, they seek to adhere to the traditional, conservative doctrines of Presbyterianism. These include:

• The Bible is the Word of God, completely free from error and trustworthy in all matters of doctrine and practice.
• The Bible is the only source of revelation of God.
• Belief in the Trinity.
• Total sovereignty of God, nothing is beyond his control or will.
• Mankind is totally depraved by nature, dead in sin due to Adam's transgression.
• Christ is fully God and fully man, incarnated through the Virgin Mary.
• Christ's atonement frees man from the burden of sin and fills mankind with God's redeeming grace.
• Christ's atonement is limited, only for those God has predestined to save.
• God predestined the fate of each person. Those whom God has chosen to save will end up in Heaven all others will end up in Hell.
• Those whom God has predestined to save, the elect, will find his grace irresistible and seek to please him in their lives.
• Those who believe seek to keep the Commandments because they love God, not in an attempt to earn salvation.
• Ministry of the Church, particularly of preaching and the sacraments of baptism (both adult and infant) and the Lord's Supper (in which Christ's body and blood is spiritually present among believers).

Additionally, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church generally espouses conservative social values and practices:

• Prescribed gender roles for men and women.
• Condemnation of homosexuality.
• Condemnation of abortion except in the case of the mother's life being in jeopardy.
• Belief the Roman Catholic Church is in extreme error in doctrine and practice.
• Barrier method and rhythm method birth control are allowed, while other methods such as morning after pills or IUD's are considered sinful as fertilization may have happened at that time.
• No sex outside of marriage.
• Communion for only those who are Christians in good standing with their church and of a similar understanding of God's word.
• Belief in creationism and denial of evolution.

The church that I'm attending is Berean Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The interesting thing about them is that they do not have a permanent building. Instead, they meet in the chapel of the United Church of Christ here in Ogden. I find this an interesting pairing as the Orthodox Presbyterians are extremely traditional and are theologically conservative, whereas the United Church of Christ is what is referred to as Progressive Christianity which seeks a modern interpretation of scripture, theology, and tradition. I have already covered the United Church of Christ, in fact, it was my very first blog. I may stay for both services just to enjoy the diversity of the Christian spectrum a bit.

Until next time, peace be with you.