Contradiction between our life and Christ’s instruction

Tolstoy on the contradiction between our life and our Christian conscience by classes:

“The man of the so-called educated classes lives in still more glaring inconsistency and suffering. Every educated man, if he believes in anything, believes in the brotherhood of all men, or at least he has a sentiment of humanity, or else of justice, or else he believes in science. And all the while he knows that his whole life is framed on principles in direct opposition to it all, to all the principles of Christianity, humanity, justice, and science.He knows that all the habits in which he has been brought up, and which he could not give up without suffering, can only be satisfied through the exhausting, often fatal, toil of oppressed laborers, that is, through the most obvious and brutal violation of the principles of Christianity, humanity, and justice, and even of science (that is, economic science). He advocates the principles of fraternity, humanity, justice, and science, and yet he lives so that he is dependent on the oppression of the working classes, which he denounces, and his whole life is based on the advantages gained by their oppression. Moreover he is directing every effort to maintaining this state of things so flatly opposed to all his beliefs.

We are all brothers—and yet every morning a brother or a sister must empty the bedroom slops for me. We are all brothers, but every morning I must have a cigar, a sweetmeat, an ice, and such things, which my brothers and sisters have been wasting their health in manufacturing, and I enjoy these things and demand them. We are all brothers, yet I live by working in a bank, or mercantile house, or shop at making all goods dearer for my brothers. We are all brothers, but I live on a salary paid me for prosecuting, judging, and condemning the thief or the prostitute whose existence the whole tenor of my life tends to bring about, and who I know ought not to be punished but reformed. We are all brothers, but I live on the salary I gain by collecting taxes from needy laborers to be spent on the luxuries of the rich and idle. We are all brothers, but I take a stipend for preaching a false Christian religion, which I do not myself believe in, and which only serves to hinder men from understanding true Christianity. I take a stipend as priest or bishop for deceiving men in the matter of the greatest importance to them. We are all brothers, but I will not give the poor the benefit of my educational, medical, or literary labors except for money. We are all brothers, yet I take a salary for being ready to commit murder, for teaching men to murder, or making firearms, gunpowder, or fortifications.”

[Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life]

Deep stuff.

Thoughts?

Wish I had known this guy

Leo Tolstoy 1893

“In these letters, expressing their [Quakers] sympathy with my views on the unlawfulness for a Christian of war and the use of force of any kind, the Quakers gave me details of their own so-called sect, which for more than two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of Christ on nonresistance to evil by force, and does not make use of weapons in self-defense. The Quakers sent me also their pamphlets, journals, and books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of nonresistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church’s teaching in allowing war and capital punishment.”

“In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that war—that is, the wounding and killing of men—is inconsistent with a religion founded on peace and goodwill toward men, the Quakers maintain and prove that nothing has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the disregard of this command by men calling themselves Christians, and the permission of war and violence to Christians.

““Christ’s teaching, which came to be known to men, not by means of violence and the sword,” they say, “but by means of nonresistance to evil, gentleness, meekness, and peaceableness, can only be diffused through the world by the example of peace, harmony, and love among its followers.””

““A Christian, according to the teaching of God himself, can act only peaceably toward all men, and therefore there can be no authority able to force the Christian to act in opposition to the teaching of God and to the principal virtue of the Christian in his relation with his neighbors.””

““The law of state necessity,” they say, “can force only those to change the law of God who, for the sake of earthly gains, try to reconcile the irreconcilable; but for a Christian who sincerely believes that following Christ’s teaching will give him salvation, such considerations of state can have no force.””,

“Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their works—with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond (published in 1827)—showed me not only that the impossibility of reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the churches, could have been maintained in spite of it.”, [Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life 1893]

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! BROTHER TOLSTOY!!!

What IS the “Good News” of Jesus Christ?

I’m just curious what your view of the “GOOD NEWS” of Jesus Christ is??

Looking forward to hearing any comments, good..bad…ugly … etc.

Have a blessed day!!

Chris

Dad, you can’t teach me about God when you’re playing Madden.

Last night I came home geared up to watch my favorite Redskins play the New York Giants.  As they both play in the NFC East, I have no fondness for the Giants,Eagles, and especially the Cowboys.

The kids were doing homework and drawing etc, and I sat down in front of my laptop to play some Madden 2005 (Yes, 2005.  I don’t have a newer version but it serves).

Anyway, my wife was at work and I sat and played Madden for about an hour, or an hour and a half.  Then the game came on.

So I put Madden away and God chose that time to hit me with a two by four.   Right between the eyes.

!G = E [Not God equals Emptiness]

Not God?  What do I mean by “not God”?

Anything that is not God Himself, not of God, or not Godly.  Anything that is contrasted to life and value.  Worthless as opposed to priceless.

Thus says the LORD, “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after EMPTINESS AND BECAME EMPTY ?(Jer 2:5 NASB)

Another way to word this:

“Thus says the LORD: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from Me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?” (Jer 2:5 NRSV)

When we seek “not God” we become empty – we are full of emptiness.  Full of emptiness?  Odd but true.

You can be full of LIFE or full of EMPTINESS.