Keith Before

Keith After

I owe San Francisco a deep, heart-felt debt: that city was the cauldron (boiling pot) that drove me to smoking pot!

The characters, musicians and revolutionaries working out there fomented a social revolution that was in full swing as I entered High School at my most-vulnerable age. My “older brothers” in the revolution knew what they were doing when they burned American flags and torched the universities, but us High School kids were clueless, and we just did all the drugs! (Well, not me as much as others I know, like Jim Swearingen, below…)

Jim and Bill at our 30th HS reunion - still jamokes (both got saved & Jim is leading an inner city ministry in Buffalo, believe it or not).

Is it time to pay back a debt to Berkley? Sure, why not?

Christians carry a torch of Revolution far more terrible in its implications (in a sweet way) than any revolution arising from those universities! No, I’m not kidding–read about it at the NeoZine. One favor deserves another…

Oh, what a struggle of prayer, correspondences, discussions, and angst, and sometimes I feels like I’m staring down a lion’s open throat to contemplate such a direction for our ministry. (WTF are we going to do there, smoke weed?) Yet things are moving.

Grab a torch! This place needs some light!

As Elaine Stedman recently wrote to me, “Aslan is on the move!” She has a good point. If you remember the movie, things started heating-up when he was on the prowl (in a nice, spring-like fashion!).

I found an old Xenos friend is prominently placed in the administration at Stanford university–But wait! Are we even interested in a university ministry? I guess so! (He started that job about the same time I began corresponding with Lambert & Elaine.) And he writes, in part:

Of course I remember you Keith. I would be happy to get together when you are out this area. Alas, we are housing a new grad who is doing an internship at [Ray Stedman's old church], so I can’t offer you a place to sleep…

Ain’t that a hooter! We really aren’t looking for a place to sleep, dude! (Thanks for the consideration, though.) But we are looking for a good place to torch!

And then they put me in touch with this sharp-minded, heavy-hitting sorta dude named Doug Shearer. While reading his Web, I find this written by Sita, Doug’s wife, and suddenly it all makes sense…

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”  Doug and I and our three kids moved to Berkeley in 1971 to share the good news with the thousands of young people seeking love, peace and meaning for their lives.  They flooded the San Francisco Bay Area with “flowers in their hair”…

Christian leaders, California-style?

These people were at the center of the Jesus Freak movement, which also spawned our Columbus ministry. But there’s more:

We rented a large home where several young girls moved in to be discipled.  Brothers and Sisters houses were established to provide an escape from the drugs, sexual excesses and spiritual darkness that prevailed on the streets.  Families took in new believers who were transformed into “fishers of men” by returning to the streets the next week with us to share the good news with others…

Ministry houses in Berkley!? It sounds all-too familiar, doesn’t it?

Take It To the Streets, Baby!

Street musician & minister at SOS Ministries

Reading the front page of Doug’s Web site is like reading our own conversations lately, even to the extent of sharing an abhorrence of Calvin’s legacy! There’s also some pretty radical dudes associated with this effort, like the “Fireball Ministries” (!?) dude named Paul Coca who has “‘been doing street ministry for over twenty years” and “provides about 70% of our music out on the streets.”

I wondered why Lambert kept sending me to “street ministries” (I do look a little ragged and rumpled, but give me a break! I’ll get a hair cut!), until I realized that street people out there are quite different than street people out here! “All the nuts roll West,” as native Californians say, and they’re referring to all the young drifters and roamers looking for something after graduating from High School buy a van and go to California and fill the streets. Oh wait… that’s like…our favorite age group, isn’t it?

It reminds me of this song right here (the musicians came from San Francisco, too!):

Volunteers of America!

(Click the link to listen)

Go to the SOS Ministries page or read Doug’s “Appeal to My Generation” and you’ll see their call for “Volunteers of America” to join the fight!  Christians are abandoning the tough places. Why? It feels like you’re looking down a lions’ open throat! But it’s all good–step aside, Mr. Coca, and make room for the Scottish Keith…

An older, more-mature Keith hits the streets!

How will they feel about a band of crazy Cleveland dudes coming out there with “torches”, tromping all over their playground? (We’ll try to be civil, of course.)  Doug responds to my inquiries:

What an exciting e-mail.  We share so much in common – including some long-time friends, Lambert, Elaine, and, of course, Ray.  It would not only be my pleasure to meet with you when you’re out this way, it would also be my honor.  Let’s stay in touch. In Christ, Doug.

Yes Doug, let’s stay in touch! Cleveland is coming your way!

(Just don’t tell him about the Cleveland bottle incident at Browns stadium…this and the Drew Carey Show pretty much explain Cleveland.)

Umpires (and players!) almost get 'stoned-to-death' with bottles...only in Cleveland!

Additional Information

Why do I feel this way when I hear B. McLaren talk about sissy revolution? It's not very nice.

Every so often I run across a cool brother or sister the Lord uses at the most-opportune time to give me a sense of direction. In this case, it was my new friend Lambert Dolphin, from the West Coast, near San Fran.  In a series of correspondances concerning our ambition to incite authentic Christian Revolution to the West Coast (as opposed to that creepy, sissy stuff McLaren & Co. yap about), I wrote to him summarizing my position. His answer was most warm and welcoming.

My Letter to Lambert

My dear brother-in-Christ:

As you probably know, I’m agitating Revolution, and there is much evidence of  our Savior’s kind favor towards this effort. He continues to bring young, gifted, zealous Christian converts to us from among the “Lost Millennial Generation”. I feel such a deep, heart-rending burden to get these rather uneducated (but terribly excited) brothers heading the right direction—heading into “The Fight” rather than away from it. The poison of “Personal Peace and Prosperity Christianity” is so lethal and pervasive among older Christians!

You mentioned earlier that you thought I was an evangelist, and while this is possibly true, the undeniable truth is that I’m an agitator. (Is there such a spiritual gift? I hope so, because I certainly have it, whether it’s a gift or a curse!) I’m afraid I’m the Abbie Hoffman-type (lots of hot & acerbic air), and I need to be surrounded by the Jerry Reubin-types as organizers.

So this is why we must come to Berkley and foment Revolution. And I think Our Savior is grieved about Berkley and the darkness surrounding it.

And so Lambert responds:

Howdy Keith,

Back in the late 1930s my mom got her first washing machine. It had a rotary, vertical agitator that worked fine on small loads but bogged way down on coveralls and heavy stuff.

Yes, churches DO need Agitators like you. But the situation is so bad I wonder if small foot-ball sized nuclear bombs might be more effective? That might reveal the black hole at the center of a good many congrtegations?

The polarization in the Church of Laodicea these days is amazing to me. Jesus is outside knocking. He would like to be invited in. Many of the Lord’s closest followers are also outside the assemblies just as Jesus is.

This seems to me to be paving the way for the final form of the church—the harlot church of Revelation 17. For the first time, Jesus tells his followers to just plain leave.

Not all churches are Laodicean of course. Churches like the other six depicted in Rev. 2-3 are to be found in the world around us as well.

The folks I know in Laodicean churches have a vague sense of stress and distress, but little awareness of the huge changes in the world scene which started happening about a year ago.

By all means Agitate! I think the reality is that only a remnant of professing Christians in this country is serving our Lord in such a way that the Spirit is breaking into the world through these people.

I listened to Dallas Willard’s Q&A sessions in Menlo Park at least three times with great interest, http://mppc.org/toughquestions. He is a prof of philosophy at USC and is used to faculty members students. He talks about the near-total ignorance of what the Bible says, or our need to read it all, and to begin to act on what we hear. “If you plan to go to heaven, go now,” he says.

It seems to me that God is still very much retraining evil in the world. What we see is more really ugly stuff breaking loose through around the edges, but I think most people live in denial of the “wrath that is to come.” Movie attendance is way up. The people I know who are surviving economically are usually keeping a low profile. Times like these make more and more of the Bible appropriate, timely, applicable but hearing truth and not acting on truth, leaves one worse off than before.

It is nice to hear from you my brother. I think there are several subjects I wanted to bring up, but right at the moment I can’t think of them.

Shalom,

Lambert

Billy Graham, 1949
“When God gets ready to shake America, He may not take the Ph.D. and the D.D. God may choose a country boy …
God may choose the man that no one knows, a little nobody, to shake America for Jesus Christ in this day, and I pray that He would!”

And Then?

So Lambert then proceeds to give me some contacts and further instructions on how to establish a beachhead there at Berkley. I am most-earnest in my prayers that something very concrete and wonderful will come of all this!

Additional Information

It’s only been a few weeks, yet we’re close to breaking 40 students. Along with the influx comes a rash of complaints and arguments and grumblings about–guess what? — Kyle said “sh**” at his teaching. That’s a real big deal now.

See the remainder of the pictures at the Picassa gallery

Additional Information

It’s undeniable proof of the point I made in The Illusion of Freedom: all our perceived American freedoms come only because we’re rich and powerful, like Roman aristocracy. That’s all.

It doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican, what matters is power and wealth. Then you get the Ted-Kennedy-treatment.

Ted’s Fling With Murder

Dike Road where the crime occurred.

Few people remember that Ted killed a cute, young secretary in a dark, dirt road one night in 1969. He knew her well, and “Kennedy requested the keys to his car from his chauffeur” to drive her home alone from a big drinking party with six other girls (his wife wasn’t there).

He killed her on “Dike Road”, then hid for eight hours or more, and finally turned himself into the police, claiming he was “disoriented” from a driving accident. In his own words:

“I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police.” Kennedy Press Release

“Immediately” is untrue. He waited eight hours to call police, until his blood-alcohol level was normal. He certainly could have called the police immediately if he wanted:

“His route back to the cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help; however, he did not do so.” reporter Jack Anderson investigation.

Manslaughter is Murder

So at the very least he committed manslaughter, which is third-degree murder. The girl was alive and suffering  in Ted’s car while Ted walked the booze out of his system for eight hours:

“Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring…there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.” Police Diver Testimony

And what did Ted get, besides the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Since the crime occurred in Massachusetts where his family is well-connected with all the judges and prosecutors, they only charged him with “leaving the scene of an accident” and a verdict full of sympathy!

In announcing the [suspended] sentence, [Judge] Boyle referred to Kennedy’s “unblemished record” and said that he “has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose”. Court Records

Since Ted didn’t lose his seat in Congress and continued to chase women for the rest of his career, and now that he received the Presidential Medal, it’s rather difficult to understand how he “will continue to be punished,” as the friendly judge claimed.

But if you know how the World System works, it all makes sense.

National Lampoon was able to find something humorous about it.

Additional Information

Look at what I did last week at CT:

Current culture on the left (from the move "28 Days Later"); the Christian response on the right.

They say  a picture is worth 1,000 words, but just in case here’s the 1,000 words (10-minute version of the teaching)…
by all means, feel free to comment and let me know if I lost my mind or not…

Rage Virus

The teaching concerns the following passage:

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. 1 Thess. 5:11

And they had a contageous love:

Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers throughout Macedonia.  Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more.  1 Thessalonians 4:10

Additional Information

• » The Leaders of Revolution - the full Central Teaching Podcast.

The guys in my Cell Group are sniggering among themselves, glancing over at me. They found a picture of poor old me and they laughed; but it’s pathetic old Sot …

Ambushed by a photographer lurking in the shadows to get the perfect "OLD DAWG" shot

Just know this: that’s not my normal hunky pose. The photography surprised me, and I couldn’t suck my gut in on time.

My Life

Let me show you why I’m such a saggy, baggy old man. It’s really quite simple: compare these two different blogs  describing  the same event, and you’ll understand (it’s Mike’s story of his “visitation” to another church, while he’s talking to Pastor Joe):

I brought up that we didn’t sing at Xenos. And he was baffled, you don’t sing? No I said, but we worship God in other ways…“What do you mean you told him we don’t worship????!!!” – quoted by Keith McCallum.
(From Mikey’s Blog)

Really, why does the Monster-Keith yell at poor Mikey for telling Pastor Joe we didn’t sing? More astounding, I accused poor Mikey of saying we “don’t worship at Xenos”, which was sooo unfair because Mikey clearly said, “We worship God in other ways.” So  typical of the grumpy-frumpy-old-man!

But wait!

Look, there’s another “Official Mikey Version” of the story published at the NeoZine, which Mikey endorsed after a brief-but-very-poignant discussion with me:

I brought up that we didn’t have a Worship Service at Xenos. And he was baffled, “You don’t worship?” “No,” I said. I did get burned on that one the next day by Keith. “What do you mean you told him we don’t worship????!!!” – quoted by Keith McCallum

That’s why I look so worn-down in that picture above: it’s just…so very wearisome, at times.

But I will say I do love those guys, which even includes that dude with different versions of the same event — they crack me up, even if it is at my own expense.

Additional Information

And it isn’t all that complicated.

In a sentence, it’s this: all our perceived American freedoms come only because we’re rich and powerful, like Roman aristocracy. That’s all.

It’s not terribly profound I’m sure, but it’s quite disorienting for me because I always believed our freedoms came from the Bill of Rights and because America was the world’s first modern democracy. This was the standard doctrine taught by the WWII generation to their kids, and my parents were fiercely patriotic like the rest of their generation. Their views were shaped by the terrible wars they fought against dictators in Germany and Japan, and all the Public Service Announcements, the education system, the churches, and even Saturday morning cartoons taught this doctrine: “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” was the slogan for Superman, as I recall. And Superman was — well, Superman.

My hero! He taught us the American Way and then committed suicide -- what trauma my young mind suffered!

But I’ve always been uncomfortable with this American legend because its power rested with “the god of this world,” I could see that much: guns, tanks, stockpiles of nerve gas, and the H-Bomb all made it possible. America really wasn’t a Christian nation, nor was it based on anything Christian that I could see, despite the hype that America’s “founding fathers” were Christians (there were a few, but not many), and the mistaken notion that all our freedoms were based in the Bible.

This popular view ignored the historical facts: democracy was a Greek invention, not Judeao-Christian, so where’s the Bible in that story? The Constitution and Bill of Rights were the direct descendants of the Magna Charta and British politics, not the Bible. Robin Hood played a bigger role than Jesus Christ in that story. The New Testament church actually reads more like Communism in its ideal form, not democracy (see Acts 2:4sff; Eph. 4:1; Phil. 2:1-10); and the Old Testament reads more like a Theocracy–a monarchy–not a democracy.

Learning from liberal democrats like C.J. Craig?

Incredibly, it was The West Wing that helped clarify the issue for me. The Chinese ambassador tells the White House Chief-of-Staff:

You have always taught us that ‘liberty’ is the same thing as capitolism: that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be crush by greed. Your American Dream is financial, not ethical.

Bippo, bango, there it is: any freedoms we enjoy are certainly the product of wealth and power, not anything moral or spiritual. That’s why a rich guy can murder a poor guy and draw only a month’s jailtime (like the Cleveland Browns player who committed manslaughter while drunk). If you have money, you have “freedom”, if you want to call it that.

I think the better term is power, not freedom.

Additional Information

[svgallery name="B-Graduation"]

Additional Information

I first encountered this when I started a Bible study with Kyle, my 7th-grade son, and Sean, my handicapped, 8th-grade son. It was a circus, or what some would call a “Cult”.

The “Wonder Years”

“Wonder” was my co-leader (Neil Wonderchuck), with a bare-breasted woman tattooed on his arm (crude, but nice boobs!), and he always wore wife-beaters to show it off. Not quite two years old in Christ, “Wonder” soon took a Sabbatical to study “The Attraction of Canine Regurgitation Habits in North America”, or some nonsense.¹  But we did start a Bible study with a motley crew of Jeff, Steve, Tom and BK. The kids were mostly interested in hanging out at the Black Wolfe pool hall after a brief Bible study.

Some new kid came one night, and we were entering the pool hall when his mom came peeling into the parking lot and shouted through her car window: “Get in!”

I motioned to Wonder to cover that tattoo, then went to introduce myself, but she was too angry. Her son told her he was going the pool hall, not a Bible study! When she found out about the Bible study somehow, she went ballistic.

I explained that we always told the kids to make it clear it was a Bible study, not a pool hall event. But we only studied the Bible about 30 minutes (they couldn’t handle more), and it was a good thing to that gave kids a chance to hear about the Bible. It was an informal thing, just a few friends getting together, I told her.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, putting the car in reverse. “We’ve already had one cult in this area, and we’re not going through that again!” She drove away with her son sulking in the back seat.

I was stunned: pool halls are OK, but not a Bible study?

Did she know what teenage boys usually do at pool halls? Yes she did, because the community was up-in-arms over the Black Wolfe—it was a great place for sex, drugs and fights. The Stow police raided the place occasionally, and the owners complained of being harassed. But this mom was OK with it, not only because she told me, but her boy often loitered around the place.

Cult-Terror

If you start a new Bible study, people think it’s a cult. I realize that, and I know it’s scary especially for parents.

For decades we’ve been exposed to all sorts of Cult-legends like Jim Jones, the Moonies, Children of God, David Koresh, the Japanese Serin-Gas Cult, and that crazy Star Trek cult of suicides.

But I wonder, does anyone know how widespread this Cult-thing is? That mother claimed Stow already suffered from one Cult and didn’t need two. I can’t find anyone who remembers our predecessor.

When a couple kids started spreading macabre stories about our Cult-like-ways, the whole city was in an uproar. The Mayor, police, high school, high school security officers, a local church, parents, and even the Akron Beacon-Journal joined in to give us front page coverage. The stories includedD

1. Sexual molestation on camping weekends,
2. Midnight rituals at local graveyards,
3. Sneaking kids out of homes at night,
4. Teaching kids to shoplift,
5. Harassment if anyone left the cult… (Oddly, the stories about Xenos harassment contradict the stories about Xenos “snubbers” and “shunners” but nobody notices it—all the stories are true!)

It’s a Cult-Terrified cult-ure today. More precisely, it’s a Christian-alienated culture.

So why start a new Bible study if it causes all this grief? Why not just work with a more-established Christian group and quit playing the “outsider” role?

Over The Edge

The real problem is the isolation of Christian groups today. Stow high school has about 2,500 students, and no Christian Bible study. The Mayor claimed Atheletes-in-Action were working there and said they were doing a fine job, so why does Xenos need to start something? Nobody heard of this group. It must have been a decade ago, or longer.

But there was a Christian Group called “On the Edge” or something like that working at the high school when we first moved there. They didn’t have a junior high group, so we started one. But I took Kyle and a few kids to their meeting once, and it was an eye-opener for my innocent and naive boys who weren’t raised with the Institutional Church model.

There were about 10 high school kids there, and they began with 45 minutes of singing Christian songs! Both Kyle and Sean hate singing (unless it’s Nirvana), so I was curious how they’d handle it. Sean just sat back and did nothing. Kyle was creative: he leaned forward, focused on the Powerpoint projection, and pretended he was trying hard to “get it” and understand the words. But he never sang one note.

Then the leader chewed-out the kids for another half-hour for being half-assed, uncommitted Christians, and he cited the case of a Stow kid who recently committed suicide. If these Christian kids hadn’t been so selfish, maybe that kid would still be alive! But they never tried reaching out to him, so he’s dead now. That’s just great.

I was raised in the Institutional Church, so I’m not weirded-out by it like Kyle is. But I couldn’t wait to get out of there, and Kyle was leading the way, as soon as possible.

So “On the Edge” went “Over the Edge” and dissolved soon thereafter, of course. Apparently they never figured out the kids weren’t reaching non-Christians simply because they didn’t want to bring their friends to such a goof-ball thing.

Let’s Start a Cult

We always get dinged as a “cult” because we’re reaching non-Christians. It’s that simple. We’re exposed to the secular world, which isn’t familiar with Christian groups working among non-Christians. Churches just don’t do that anymore, so that means we must be a cult; we don’t act “normal” (in many ways, including booby-tattoos).

More significant, we can’t find any churches across the nation with such a high percentage of un-churched attending. It’s around 80% here.

It means growing a church from scratch. (Is it really so bad to have a new church start in the area?) But non-Christians and people alienated from their Christian backgrounds (a growing population) simply won’t tolerate the crazy, silly singing thing called a Worship Service. A group largely composed of church-hoppers will embrace the traditional Worship Service. Christians demand the Worship Service even if it means alienating non-Christians.

But the Worship Service isn’t even biblical! Read what Joel Hughes wrote about it (see “Why don’t we sing?”).

Since “the new group” is always a Cult—as everyone knows—and since we’re reaching non-Christians, we will be a “Cult”. The non-Christian crowd is like the beer-hall or pool-hall crowd (figuratively-speaking). They’re crude, rude, and socially-unacceptable in Christian circles. They also take Sabbaticals to study “Canine Regurgitation”, and that causes more problems.

So let’s start a “Cult”, I say. It ain’t so bad, even with all the headaches. It’s at least better than going “Over the Edge”.

Additional Information

1. A reference to 2 Peter 2:22

It’s really not-so-hidden, and it’s really quite simple: read about it at RevolutionaryJoy.org.

We foment Revolution!

Xenos Fomenters

It’s a big no-no when Christians show some energy and have a good time.

Christianity is supposed to be the “Opiate of the Masses,” according to Karl Marx. People like Marx want Christians to be docile. They want us to be wimpy and weak so they can whip it and whip it good (as Devo said).

The new Savior of humanity?

People like Marx lie about Christians because they fear the freedom that real Christianity brings to people, and I can prove it: Marx and his followers actually wanted to seize power and setup a “dictatorship of the Proletariat,” as they called it. Marx advocated dictatorship. If the Communists really believed Christianity was an opiate, why were they so afraid of it? Why kill millions of Christians? Christianity would help opiate the population and help setup a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Marx lied about Christians, and he knew it. The Communists knew Christians were free-thinking, freedom-loving, noble and very formidable obstacles to their ambitions. The Communists wanted to control people’s minds. They censor free speech wherever they setup shop, don’t they?

That’s why I say: don’t drink the Kool-Aid.¹

It’s a great badge of honor for Christians when mind-controllers like Communists hate them—what an insult if Marx loved Christians! It’s fair to say that people who hate Christians, like Marx and his fellow-atheist Dawkins, historically wrestle with serious hate issues (Dawkins was emotionally-battered in his youth, he says).

This is precisely the point Jesus made to his followers:

The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. John 15:19 (NLT)

Jesus was right: without exception anti-Chrisian atheists must resort to lies and alarmist slander in order to attack Christians. Since they can’t find a real issue, they create issues.

Such a sly devil!

Richard Dawkins is another one who loves to hate Christians. He claims to be an equal-opportunity hater of all religions, but gives only token attention to other religions. He had a bad experience with a Christian church when he was young, and it made him bitter for a lifetime.

He learned how to convert his bitterness into a lucrative anti-Christian industry by defining Christian beliefs in the most ignorant and superstitious way possible, then attacking it. As he defines it, the job is easy.

But Dawkins knows he’s only attacking Dawkins-Christianity, not the real thing. Lennox pounded him on this point, leaving Dawkins toothless and stammering. But Dawkins persists in attacking “Blind Faith” Christianity, even though he knows the Bible deplores and rejects “Blind Faith”.

The Cult Myth

Christians are supposed to be lame and tame, according to the modern myth. American culture created a stereotype for us, and when Christians break the mold, the culture simply can’t process us: “It must be a cult!”

Does anyone know what “cult” means?

The term was hijacked by pop-culture. Christians were using “cult” to designate groups that don’t actually teach Christianity, yet still call themselves Christian. Any group which lies is obviously not very nice. “Cult” designated Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Scientologists, Universalists and others who claimed to be Christian when their teachings were antithetical to Christianity.

I'm another Jim Jones? One Xenos-Cult advocate said so. Jones got sex from his followers. Nobody thinks that about me, for some reason.

Since Jonestown—which truly was a “cult” as Christians defined it—they’ve been using “cult” against Christians who are actually Christian. Even the most-vile attacks levied against Xenos never once claimed we taught anything but sound, biblical Christianity, so we would never qualify as a “cult” by the Christian use of the term.

The ones leading the charge against Xenos do it for personal gain, like Karl Marx. This has been proven time and again, and it’s the #1 reason why Web posts are done anonymously, citing vague, emotionally-charged rhetoric. Communists did that all the time against Christians, as we all know.

Christian leaders across the nation consider Xenos a model Christian group, but we still get attacked. We’ve been investigated and cleared dozens of times, but the Cult Myth is so emotionally-charged, it’s an easy and uneducated way to slam someone these days. So it will continue as long as it is such an effective slur-word.

By the way, has anyone figured out how Xenos could be such a great source of Bible teachings, yet still be all screwed-up? Even our detractors say Xenos has great teachings. Does it mean we’re hypocrites even as we teach the Bible, and we know it, and the audience knows it? Do we all wink at each other knowingly? How do we get away with teaching sound doctrine while practicing such an unsound faith?

“Cult” is like a racial slur: it’s a scare-word, that’s all. And Christians shouldn’t be scared of it.

Puppetry

Christians allow the culture to control them, you know.

Christian history is a long, tragic story of Christians kissing butt on their culture, beginning with the Roman Empire. (How could they allow a pagan like Emperor Constantine to take leadership of Christianity? What were they thinking?) Then came Greek Christianity, Russian Christianity, German, French and Spanish Christianity…the Spanish tacked the “Spanish Inquisition” on our name, thank you very much! (The Spanish monarchy wanted to get rid of foreigners.) We can’t ignore my all-time favorite: English Christianity, enforced by the armies of King Henry VIII so he could murder his many wives! (Is Henry really part of our heritage? Not mine! I’m Scottish.)

Dawkins & Co. want Christians to defend “Christian history” when it’s really “European monarch history”, and he’s educated enough to know the difference is real. He’s lying.

Do we really have to defend every power-monger who puts on a Christian name-tag? We let people like Dawkins push us into a defensive posture, while Dawkins gets rich from it.

Especially when loyalties get confused, we allow the culture to hijack our faith far too easily. Christians in America who are attracted by its wealth and prosperity are far too willing to fit inside the little box we’re supposed to fit in.

Little Christian Boxes

Here’s the rules of the Little Christian Box in America:

Stay in there and don't come out!

1. Spend all your money building impressive buildings to meet in, just like the ones IBM or Microsoft build. (Christians should imitate Microsoft?)
2. Mark the Little Christian Box with an expensive steeple and other weird symbols (the Nazis made Jews wear tags, and America expects Christians to tag themselves too).
3. Go in your box away from everyone during a time-slot that nobody else wants. (Who gets up early on Sunday morning except Christians?)
4. Don’t meet more than once a week, and not for more than an hour.
5. Stand forever singing songs, chanting, kneeling, and other Medieval exercises which guarantee only Christians will attend the Little Box-Meeting.
6. Belong to an official Christian institution called a denomination. (Christians are questioning this rule more today–finally!)

Following the rules above, Christians receive the “Good Christian Seal” of approval in America. But Christian rule-breakers are trouble-makers, and probably a Cult.

Like I say: Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!

Xenos breaks the mold of what Christianity should be, as defined in modern myth. I’ll explain why we’re different, and why we must break the mold next time.

Additional Information

• Part 1 "Look Ma! I’m Famous!", and Part 2 "The Cult Thing".)

1. With apologies to the Meeting House, who first coined the term “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” in this fashion.