Hey all! Sorry for not posting yesterday and possibly today(other than this brief post). I have had three job opportunities fall in my lap the last week and a half. Yay! So I have been on the phone a lot setting up interviews and working on resumes and pre-interview paperwork red tape. I am also a tad behind in my reading but will hopefully have the review of Chapter 3 of ‘A New Earth’ up tomorrow. I have two interviews set up for Friday so prayers are always welcome. The hours are not great and may cut time into my family time until I can get on a better shift, but the pay is much better and one of the jobs has benefits out the wazoo! Talk to ya soon!

My wife and I, movie buffs that we are, couldn’t help but to go see Prince Caspian this weekend. We knew it started every 30 to 45 minutes so we were in no rush to get there and had a nice lunch before heading to the movie. We go to the theater 10 minutes before the next movie started. Worrying about the crowds and great number of kids that I expected, I asked the ticket lady for the number of remaining seats in the theater to be sure we were not sitting on the front rows. There were over 350 seats available in the theater now 7 minutes before it started…this does not bode well I thought.

We got out tickets, popcorn and water and headed into the theater….it was near empty and for a 2:00 movie on a Sunday during opening weekend; that is not good. We watched the previews and I saw what may be the dumbest movie idea I have ever seen beyond giving Tom Green his own movie: Beverly Hills Chihuahua….be afraid. The movie may be great for kids, but I will be skipping this one for sure! The singing dog show of a trailer should be enough of this movie by itself for most adults.

Caspian started well enough and I enjoyed seeing a bit more of the ”normal world” going on with World War II soldiers in the streets and on the subway. I thought that was a nice touch to show the actual time frame that the kids are coming from. However, they very quickly find themselves in Narnia again. They discover that they are not in the same Narnia that they left and a great deal of time and war has passed. The find their hidden chests with all their armor and weapons that they left behind and head out to find out what has happened.

The main Christian theme throughout the movie was facing your belief vs. going with what you can see. When Aslan did not come bounding up the first second the kids were in Narnia they began to doubt. This should speak volumes in our day and time when we are faced with problems. Do we just go with what is before us and take the easy way out, or do we stand firm in our beliefs, ask for the help of our God, and follow in the path that He has laid before us.

The movie itself was not bad; it just wasn’t the summer blockbuster that we expected. The main problem I had with this movie was Peter and Caspian being side by side. Peter, who looked like and acted a child, is the High King, and Caspian, who looked like he actually had a clue how to survive in this world, had to listen to Peter and call him Sire. I do understand the time jump, and that Aslan named them kings and queens, and so forth, but it just did not pull off well between the two. All the rest of the cast did very well and I enjoyed them. My wife and I both left the theater saying “It was OK…I just liked the first one much better.”

I give it 3 out of 5 stars and will probably skip buying it on DVD.

In honor of Prince Caspian opening today, we have this very nice cross over video to remind us who the lion is in this realm!

from www.godtube.com

Here is a video of Pastor Bob explaining some of what we have covered this week about the Gnostic Gospels.

from www.godtube.com

Yesterday, we spoke about the Gospel of Mary, a Gnostic Gospel that was found in the town of Nag Hammadi with a large collection of early Gnostic writings. This place then became known as the Nag Hammadi Library. In both that post of the Gospel of Mary and the couple of sentences above, I have used the word ‘Gnostic’ repeatedly. I had a reader ask me what ‘Gnostic’ is and what makes it different than the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John?

Within the first two centuries A.D., two divisions of Christianity developed. They were called the orthodox and the Gnostics. The orthodox Christians held the books of the bible that we currently hold now and their traditions became Christianity that we know today.  The orthodox belief was backed by the four Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John and the words of Jesus Christ.

The Gnostics, on the other hand, had very different views on just about all major aspects of Christianity. The word Gnosticism means “to know” in Greek. The Gnostics believed that they claimed a higher knowledge, and so the name, that was granted to them, not from Jesus and the bible, but from a high plane of existence. They considered themselves the Christian elite and wanted an elevated status due to their better knowledge of God.

The second major difference is their belief that there is a definite divide between matter and spirit. With this divide, life only existed in the spirit realm. The spirit was considered good and the body was inherently pure evil. Since the two were divided, anything we did in our mortal or matter realm did not corrupt the spirit. So, according to the Gnostics, we could do any sin we wanted and that was just our bodies doing it, not the spirit so they were still pure and could go to Heaven. As you can see, this clearly flies in the face of what Jesus taught and His purpose for being on this earth.

The Gnostics began to lose the ‘belief war’ due to the fact that they really didn’t have anything to back to their beliefs like the orthodox had. So to remedy this, they began to create their own gospels to combat those of the Bible and swing believers their way. They used the names of prominent biblical figures to try to make their gospels carry more weight with the reader. The problem was that, due to their beliefs, they did not fully understand Jesus as a human; they spun his tale in outlandish style making him appear to be God on earth with all of His powers or spirit more than man.

Soon the Gnostics fell from the radar as the early church refused to believe their forgeries and tossed out all of their gospels as heresy. In today’s terms, it would be like David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas writing his own version of the gospels to make himself appear as the second coming of Jesus and trying to push it out on the world. Not going to work for him or the Gnostics.

In His knowledge,
Hunter

Well, I finished my reading and my review a day early even though I struggled all week to get through chapter 2 of A New Earth. It was not because Tolle had tried to render the Christian faith useless again, but his views on the inner and outer being and the ego just struck me as…well…junk. Tolle’s views on the world have foundation, but he pushes them too far in trying to maintain his inner light theories. But I am getting ahead of myself. Hit the jump and check it out for yourself.

CHAPTER 2: Ego: The Current State of Humanity

Open Review

This chapter focuses on the conflict between mind and spirit. Tolle suggests that our mind, or ego as he calls it, controls most of our lives. It is in so much control that it will not allow us to see the true world that we live in and the inner body that lies in each of us. Eckhart points out that from birth we are conditioned to identify with things, our bodies, and our world by putting labels on things. In doing this, we cover the true meaning and spirit of the object with a false label that cannot possibly explain all the complex layers within that object.

With this, we label ourselves: male, female, pretty, fat, skinny, ugly, and so forth. With objects we also label them to fit within our worlds. Things like a toy become “my toy” to help the ego build itself up. We keep adding label upon label to ourselves until we can no longer function without these labels because they define who we are.

There is truth in what he says, to some degree. People do tend to label things almost instantly and that label sticks. Remember first impressions are the lasting ones right? That is because you label them and they label you and it is hard to break those in our minds. “Wow that guy was a slob! I won’t be hanging out with him!” But in truth, he was just having a bad day and they two of you would have been best friends with a lot of the same interests and points of view.

Tolle also brings up the points of how the mind blocks our true view of self. He brings up the case of bulimia and/or anorexia. The body cries for food because it needs the nourishment but the mind only tells you how fat you are and that you need to starve yourself or throw up what you forced yourself to eat. This part is true.

Biblical Review

                A New Earth does not cover much in the religion area in this chapter; however there are a couple points of interest. At the top of page 26, you will read “Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself.” This is a good statement if we can just cut off the last part. Every stone or flower or bird should remind us of the wonderment God placed in our world; it should tell us of the beauty of God and all that He created. The issue is that Tolle links the return to God as a return “to yourself” placing you in the spot of deity.

                On page 43, he turns Jesus sermon to the disciples from Mathew 5. He twists Jesus’ message just a bit to fit his own purposes:

Blessed are the poor of spirit, for theirs will be the Kingdom of Heaven.

Mathew 5:3

                Tolle tells us that what Jesus meant by the “poor of spirit” is that they do not have all these labels and identification that others carry with them. This is not the case at all! Jesus was refering to those who admit that they are poor of spirit or sinners. It is those that know we do not deserve the gift of Heaven and ask God for forgiveness that reach Heaven. He then follows this twisting of the bible on page 56 where he uses only part of the verse

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:7

                He completely leaves off the most important part which is the ending “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” He just stops it where he wants to and makes it sound like it is referring to his view of inner being instead of the power of Jesus Christ.

                That is about it for the biblical errors in this chapter. My biggest issue with this chapter is not one of religion, but of Tolle reaching way too far to try to convince you of his Ego theories. He does have some good ideas about us placing too much stock in what we look like or the things we own. The bad part is he tries to use this to “enlighten us” on how to turn inward “and feel the life force in our fingers”. I find this to be complete hooey! While I admit that God has breathed life into us, and we all have a spirit or soul within, the glory is not to be placed on ourselves for containing such a wonderful thing. Our eys should be turned to God for giving us life, creating these beautiful souls, and allowing us to know Him, through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice.

               Don’t close your eyes as Tolle suggests, but open them!

God Bless,
Hunter

As anyone who pokes around the site knows, I do love the Da Vinci Code as a fictional piece; excellent thriller. I had a hard time putting it down even though I did not agree with it on a religious level. And as a side tangent, I am REALLY looking forward to the prequel of Angels & Demons that is coming out May 19, 2009! Angels & Demons was a better book than the Da Vinci in Becky and my opinions. But that is not what we are here to talk about is it!

Becky was reading another book that really sounded like Da Vinci Code and involved a hidden society, the bloodline of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, of course all based loosely on what we are told is the Gospels of Mary. So the question is: What exactly is the Gospel of Mary?

The Gospel of Mary was found in Akhmim Codex in Cairo, Egypt, in 1896. It was then descovered in 1945 in the Nag Hammadi Library. It is written in Coptic and Greek, the only known copy is missing the first 10 full pages; making it impossible to get a clear picture of the overall message.

Just to set the record straight, in reading the Gospel of Mary, it no where names Mary as the head of the church as appointed by Jesus, nor does it mention at all that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a romantic relationship. The books and movies and using this little read Gospel to spin a great tale of mystery and intrigue; and it works really well for the stories. It simply does not hold water in real life.

Now, many people feel that, due to the Da Vinci Code and other novels like it, it is a gospel that Mary Magdalene wrote after her time with Jesus. This is nowhere near true for two reasons. First the Gospel of Mary never states which Mary wrote it. There were six women named Mary listed in the New Testament; of these six, only three had relevance to the actual life of Jesus: Mary, His mother, Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene. So in theory it ‘could’ have been written by any of them…except for point number 2!

The clincher that this is a fake is that the Gnostic teachings have dated the Gospel to be written in the late 2nd century A.D. at the earliest. This puts it at least 100 to 150 years after the death of Jesus Christ. And due to the language used, it appears that it was written in between the 3rd century A.D. from the Greek to the 5th century A.D. from the Coptic text. The Gospel of Mary was mentioned by some of the early church leaders as early as 3rd century A.D. and appears to be added to over the years that followed.

With the missing pages, the questionable source, and the dating of both the language, papers themselves, and content, it nullifies the Gospels of Mary as a valid source of information about Jesus Christ and the early church.

          While I was driving to work today, I pondered the subject of the day; what would I write about? Then all of the sudden on the radio I hear the voice of none other than Oprah Winfrey inviting me to watch her show today. The subject of the day is going to be one of her new age friends, Dr. Oz(Don’t even get me started on that name Mr. Wizard!!!), mass hypnotizing the audience and getting them to “transcend” into their past lives.

          On her site, it tells a story of Dr. Brian Weiss that had a patient that he hypnotized and found out that she had 86 past lives. He then became an expert in the subject and would like to explain how past lives work.

          The problem here is that Oprah has lead people to believe that she is a Christian woman and bringing people back to God. She puts on these web schools to teach a book that is not Christian at all. Then when she has the masses convinced, she begins to start to put in shows about past life regressions, which is clearly not a Christian subject. The Christians who had been sucked into her world watch it, and they begin to believe. So now she has altered your beliefs again, opening up the door just a little each time, until you are no longer on the path that God laid before us at all; and you still consider yourself a Christian all the while!

          I can hear people now saying that it is just hypnosis it is not bad. But let me phrase it this way “putting yourself or someone else in a meditative trance to have visions of other worlds, places, people, and times.” It is what Wiccans call ‘Astral Projection’ and it is very much a part of the witchcraft religion. But we are Christians…..and walking a very thin line.

          What new age subject will you follow Oprah into next? And how far will you go before you look back and realize that you left God long ago?

Be careful out there!
Hunter

          One thing that I enjoy doing in the back end of my blog is reviewing the stats page. It shows you all sorts of interesting information about your blog. Not only does it give you the number of visitors, but it also shows how people got to the site, any links to the site that others have put on their sites(Thank you very much by the way), what stories people are reading, and so forth. The one that interests me the most, however, is the category called “Search Engine Terms” this shows me a list of what people were searching for on Google, Yahoo, etc. to get to my site. I can then use this info to try to give those searching more information about the subjects they are searching for.

          Two days ago, three people did a search that I just loved; they asked “What would Jesus say to Oprah?” I found that very interesting. What would Jesus say? I thought about this all weekend. I know several things I would like Him to say, but would He? I have come to the conclusion that it is not my place to speak for Him. But if their question was “What would you say to Oprah?” then I would have a few things to say.

Dear Oprah Winfrey,

          First off let me thank you for wanting to bring people back to God. This world is spinning out of control with people more interested in the ‘please me now’ mindset that has taken over the planet. People do not often think of God’s plan and reconnecting to God anymore. This is something we really need to change if we want to have a safe place for our children and children’s children. You are working towards this and it is a noble goal! With someone of your influence, and media power, it is great to have you in this battle as a much needed ally.

          However, I am concerned with the subjects that you are teaching as Christianity. Some of the topics that concern me the most are from some of the more ‘new age’ views that you have taken about Jesus Christ, sin, and the very basic foundation stones of Christianity. These do include Jesus’ claim to be the son of God, the trivializing of His role in our salvation, and the misleading of His teachings. With Eckhart Tolle at your side preaching his book ‘A new Earth’, you two reduce sin to meaning missing the mark of human existence, and that there really is no sin. This is not the case at all; sin exists more now than ever, and it will take most of us to stand up to it to stop the flood.

          I hope that you will research more into what the Bible says is true, and go to a biblical based church and speak to the clergy. I think then you will have a good basis of true Christian beliefs and can join us in righting this ship we call planet earth and taking back the safety of our families.

God Bless,
Hunter

Now that we can post videos on WordPress, I thought I would share one of my all time favorite videos from GodTube. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!