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Open Letter to Carlos Whittaker
Mr. Whittaker,
First of all, please let me apologize. I’m sure you’ve been in this situation: you wake up, read your phone, fire off a smart-butt comment, and then later realize how it might not have sounded like you wanted. That is exactly the case of my twitter directed at you this morning. I never intended to be disrespectful, and my intonation comes off as such. I never meant for one second that you were a heretic, or to imply as such. You are a voice for the church, as well as father and leader. But not heretic. I guess because of not only the casual nature of Twitter as well as your general casual style led me to approach it as if it were a text message to a buddy. Not the best idea, apparently.
Secondly, why fruit punch? Because it’s red, like blood, but has none of the other properties of blood. Nothing else was meant by it.
Thirdly, if I wasn’t calling you a heretic, what was I saying? I was saying that to focus on the biological is to ignore what we are; spiritual beings, and what He can do in us. 2 Cor. 5:17 (ESV) says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” It is very true that outside of God having a physical miracle come to pass (which I believe happens), you cannot biologically become a virgin once more. Things change- in the vessel. That being said, I really like what Oswald Chambers has said on this topic in his amazing devotional, My Utmost for His Highest.
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is— has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above— you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I “walk in the light as He is in the light” ( 1 John 1:7 ), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
My Utmost for His Highest - 11/12 Entry
You can argue that memories will still persist, that desires for things that you had once before will rise. But our God, that we both believe in, argues that if we truly take hold of that which is before us, we are changed in OUR REAL LIVES.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments … and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 )— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
Excerpt from My Utmost for His Highest - 11/18 Entry
I love you, Mr. Whittaker. I pray that you did not take offense and I ask for your forgiveness if you have. I was simply offering a counterpoint and to note that we are not physical creatures.
Andrew Friedrichs
My Favorite Film of 2009
Hands down, without a doubt, District 9.
UP and Slumdog Millionaire were up there too, but District 9 was so groundbreaking and repeatedly enjoyable, it’d be hard to consider anything superior when I think about it.
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
