The Culture of Death
Sorry for the rapid-fire posting--No, no I'm not.
Last night I was at the Charismatic prayer meeting here at St. Andrew's. Coming from Pentecostal roots, every now and again I need a quick fix ;)
Last night at the meeting we meditated on Joshua 1:3-9, where God commands Joshua to take the Promised Land, and assures him that He will be with him and to not be afraid. Three times God tells Joshua to be strong and of good courage! God also tells Joshua not to stray at all from the Law He gave to Moses.
After a small discussion time, people were invited to go up and say what this passage said to them. This is what I said:
The Christian Life is a battle. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and violent men take it by force! We need to be those violent men and women, who stand up, are counted, and fight for the Kingdom! The Holy Father has referred to our world as the Culture of Death, and we see it every day in the abortions, the stem cell research, the wars, school massacres, and the situation with Terri Schiavo! But God has promised to be with us as He was with Joshua! He has commanded us to be strong and of good courage! He has also equipped us with His Word, which He ordered Joshua to not only follow, but to make a part of himself. In the New Testament, St. Paul writes about the same thing, calling it armour. We need to take up the armour of God, and lastly, the Sword of the Spirit, which, he says, is the Word of God! It is our primary weapon, and we need to make it a part of us! We are soldiers in God's kingdom, and we need to wage war against the Culture of Death!
Earlier today I was looking at some blogs that I read every now and again, and I noticed that this topic had come up at my friends' blog, www.dailydisciple.blogspot.com. Later I was looking at www.socrates58.blogspot.com, which is the blog of Uber-Catholic convert apologist, Dave Armstrong, whose blog and website, www.biblicalcatholic.com, were instrumental in my own conversion. So anyway, on his blog he went long and hard after the Culture of Death, especially as it relates to Terri Schiavo. I'm noticing a theme in my life, and one I want to take to the youth group!
In that vein, I want to link to Mr. Armstrong's appeal on his blog. Read it, it's inspiring, and it's gonna come up again and again at youth group meetings!
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_socrates58_archive.html
I'll leave you with the words to the song Rev. Larebil, by one of my favourite bands (who I happen to be listening to as I type this) Critical Mass. I think they manage to say almost exactly what Dave Armstrong does at the link above, but with more rhyme and alliteration!
Reverend Larebil
-David Wang, Matthew Devine, Andrew Horrocks
Hey Reverend Larebil
I think you've got it backwards
You philosophise, theologise, think you're wise
You claim Jesus Christ didn't rise
You have your Jesusless Seminar
How did you drift so far?
Intellectualise, hypothesise, lobotomise
Your rhetoric makes me sick!
Chorus
You may not like the message we teach or the words we speak,
The way we live our lives and the way we preach
But after decades of your watered down voice,
It's time the listeners had another choice, Rev. Larebil!
Rap Chorus
It's time to take a stand, to take a total stand now
To critically catechise in the Catholic know-how
Dwell deeply on the divine, drive out the demons inside
It's such a slippery slope, Satan's suicide slide
Break Beelzebub's bonds, believe and be reborn
Grasp God's Grace gratefully, the great gratuitous gift
We're the Lord's loyal laity, layin' the law down
Let's radically rock the roots, replace the rot with solid ground
Dr. Hypocritic Oath
You swore you'd do no harm
You sterilise, euthanise, infanticide
Your medicine tastes like poison
You keep promoting your safe sex
You just fuel the epidemics
There's our STD's like HPV and HIV
The only cure is to be pure!
Chorus
Rap Bridge
The media grab a hold of your insanity
Headlines rage, "Misguided Piety"
Even Thomas believed when he saw the hands
Jesus doesn't measure up to your demands
You use the abusive pseudo-clergy
To bash the entire male hierarchy
You say our sexual standards are out of fashion
So you can give in to your depraved passion
I'm so flippin' angry at it all,
When was it that you lost your call?
If you deny Tradition and the Church
Where is the foundation for your search?
You dis' Confession and the Eucharist
But it's the altar of yourself you've kissed
It's time for us to make our final stand
And crush all your false idols back to sand!
Hey Mr. Chamelion
You want to lead our land
Your empty lies, compromise, virtue dies
You roll to the nearest poll
It's nothin' but a game
You're really all the same
We sit there dumb, feel so numb, vote for scum
We feed the greed that you need
Chorus
You may not like the message we teach or the words we speak,
The way we live our lives and the way we preach
But after decades of your watered down voice,
It's time the listeners had another choice, Rev. Larebil!
Last night I was at the Charismatic prayer meeting here at St. Andrew's. Coming from Pentecostal roots, every now and again I need a quick fix ;)
Last night at the meeting we meditated on Joshua 1:3-9, where God commands Joshua to take the Promised Land, and assures him that He will be with him and to not be afraid. Three times God tells Joshua to be strong and of good courage! God also tells Joshua not to stray at all from the Law He gave to Moses.
After a small discussion time, people were invited to go up and say what this passage said to them. This is what I said:
The Christian Life is a battle. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and violent men take it by force! We need to be those violent men and women, who stand up, are counted, and fight for the Kingdom! The Holy Father has referred to our world as the Culture of Death, and we see it every day in the abortions, the stem cell research, the wars, school massacres, and the situation with Terri Schiavo! But God has promised to be with us as He was with Joshua! He has commanded us to be strong and of good courage! He has also equipped us with His Word, which He ordered Joshua to not only follow, but to make a part of himself. In the New Testament, St. Paul writes about the same thing, calling it armour. We need to take up the armour of God, and lastly, the Sword of the Spirit, which, he says, is the Word of God! It is our primary weapon, and we need to make it a part of us! We are soldiers in God's kingdom, and we need to wage war against the Culture of Death!
Earlier today I was looking at some blogs that I read every now and again, and I noticed that this topic had come up at my friends' blog, www.dailydisciple.blogspot.com. Later I was looking at www.socrates58.blogspot.com, which is the blog of Uber-Catholic convert apologist, Dave Armstrong, whose blog and website, www.biblicalcatholic.com, were instrumental in my own conversion. So anyway, on his blog he went long and hard after the Culture of Death, especially as it relates to Terri Schiavo. I'm noticing a theme in my life, and one I want to take to the youth group!
In that vein, I want to link to Mr. Armstrong's appeal on his blog. Read it, it's inspiring, and it's gonna come up again and again at youth group meetings!
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_socrates58_archive.html
I'll leave you with the words to the song Rev. Larebil, by one of my favourite bands (who I happen to be listening to as I type this) Critical Mass. I think they manage to say almost exactly what Dave Armstrong does at the link above, but with more rhyme and alliteration!
Reverend Larebil
-David Wang, Matthew Devine, Andrew Horrocks
Hey Reverend Larebil
I think you've got it backwards
You philosophise, theologise, think you're wise
You claim Jesus Christ didn't rise
You have your Jesusless Seminar
How did you drift so far?
Intellectualise, hypothesise, lobotomise
Your rhetoric makes me sick!
Chorus
You may not like the message we teach or the words we speak,
The way we live our lives and the way we preach
But after decades of your watered down voice,
It's time the listeners had another choice, Rev. Larebil!
Rap Chorus
It's time to take a stand, to take a total stand now
To critically catechise in the Catholic know-how
Dwell deeply on the divine, drive out the demons inside
It's such a slippery slope, Satan's suicide slide
Break Beelzebub's bonds, believe and be reborn
Grasp God's Grace gratefully, the great gratuitous gift
We're the Lord's loyal laity, layin' the law down
Let's radically rock the roots, replace the rot with solid ground
Dr. Hypocritic Oath
You swore you'd do no harm
You sterilise, euthanise, infanticide
Your medicine tastes like poison
You keep promoting your safe sex
You just fuel the epidemics
There's our STD's like HPV and HIV
The only cure is to be pure!
Chorus
Rap Bridge
The media grab a hold of your insanity
Headlines rage, "Misguided Piety"
Even Thomas believed when he saw the hands
Jesus doesn't measure up to your demands
You use the abusive pseudo-clergy
To bash the entire male hierarchy
You say our sexual standards are out of fashion
So you can give in to your depraved passion
I'm so flippin' angry at it all,
When was it that you lost your call?
If you deny Tradition and the Church
Where is the foundation for your search?
You dis' Confession and the Eucharist
But it's the altar of yourself you've kissed
It's time for us to make our final stand
And crush all your false idols back to sand!
Hey Mr. Chamelion
You want to lead our land
Your empty lies, compromise, virtue dies
You roll to the nearest poll
It's nothin' but a game
You're really all the same
We sit there dumb, feel so numb, vote for scum
We feed the greed that you need
Chorus
You may not like the message we teach or the words we speak,
The way we live our lives and the way we preach
But after decades of your watered down voice,
It's time the listeners had another choice, Rev. Larebil!
Labels: Personal Reflections, Salt and Light, The Culture of Death
posted by Gregory at 12:50 p.m.
1 Comments:
Wow. Search for 'reverend larebil' and this archive-month is the third highest ranked item on Google.
Cool.
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