Monday, June 25, 2012

Alex Jones Bible Study Television Recording UPDATE


Pre-production planning for the network television recording of Deacon Alex Jones' Bible Study on the Epistle of James is going very well. Equipment, crew and location are all secured with a few loose ends to tie up next week. With God's blessings we'll be ready.
We will be creating a "set" in (the rear-left of of the image below) of Detroit's St. Suzanne's Catholic Church in Detroit. Setup is on Monday, July 9, and recording the entire 13-part series on the following three evenings (Tues. through Thurs) July 10-12, 2012. We have a lot to accomplish in those four days. (See number 2 below for audience need.) So...    
St. Suzanne's located corner of Westwood and Chicago Streets, Detroit, Michigan
IMPORTANT REQUESTS

 1. PLEASE PRAY for the production's success. I've been reading "The Soul of the Apostolate" and am thoroughly reminded of the importance of prayer and the right ordering of our internal being in the undertaking of any work on behalf of Christ and His Church. In your daily prayers and in your adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, PLEASE ask for God's blessings on these aspects of this work. We are at a total loss without our YOUR prayers and GOD'S blessing for:

    •    Deacon Alex's health of body, mind, and spirit. May he be at his best.
    •    Our crew's preparation, that we forget nothing and do all well.
    •    The equipment's proper working to record the best sound and image.
    •    The audience's full engagement, and that we have a full audience.
    •    Funding to complete post-production, mastering and distribution.
    •    An affective and effective completed work for Christ and the Church.

2. WE'D LOVE TO HAVE YOU IN THE AUDIENCE  

But, if you all come at once, we'll run out of chairs... and probably walls. So, RSVP (below.) But, seriously, we do need 40-50 people in Alex's small group study each night of our production. You do not have to commit for every night, although you may find it inspiring and of benefit to do so, like a mini-retreat.
Here is what we ask:
  • RSVP your attendance for which evenings. Write sales@ninevehscrossing.com with your plans. We will confirm.
  • Dates: July 10, 11, and 12, 2012 (Tues, Wed, and Thurs)
  • Time: 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM. (We'll end a little later on Thursday.) 
Please be on time.  Eat before you come.
  •  Location: St. Suzanne's Catholic Church, Westwood and Chicago. GPS address is: 9357 Westood St., Detroit, MI.  Park in the lot South (behind) the church and enter the doors that face Westwood (East side of church).
  • Dress: Casual with SOLID color shirts or blouses. Either pastels or deep colors are fine. Avoid blacks and whites. No vertical stripes. Slacks or dresses are fine. No shorts or hats, please. We may touch up your hair. If you have a facial powder you like, bring the compact. We'll touch you up if needed as the evening proceeds.
  • Bring: A BIBLE! Bring a study Bible and a note pad. Take notes. No recording devices, please.
  • No Children. Teens are okay if they can sit still for 2 hours with a break.  
  • What to Expect: Fabulous lessons on the book of St. James from the internationally acclaimed Bible teacher, Deacon Alex Jones.
  • What You'll Get: Knowledge, inspiration, and every participant will get a free copy of the DVD series when it is done in the fall.
  • Release: You'll be asked to sign a release so we can use your image on TV.
  • Security will be present in the parking lot.
  • Refreshments provided. Eat something before you come.
There is much to accomplish, and production like this is never easy. But, it's interesting, and you will enjoy your time.


3. WE MAY DISCONTINUE OUR EMAIL SERVICE.  
In our effort to control our costs and maximize our communication effectiveness, we may discontinue our email service that we subscribe to through Constant Contact. Our tracking of the emails we send reveals a very low number of opens and click-throughs, indicating that we can do better with the little money we have. So, for you to follow this project and others, please subscribe to our production Blog at SWC Films and our comment Blog at Crossing Nineveh. These blogs are free for us to use, and subscribing to them through your email  will get you all the news we have fit to print. You'll find the "FOLLOW BY EMAIL" block (pictured) at the top-right of both blog pages. When we post news or information about our work, it will come to your email inbox.


4. CONSIDER A CONTRIBUTION or PURCHASE for POST-PRODUCTION.
Forty individuals and companies generously made production possible through their financial gifts, and another group are volunteering their time and donating services and materials. But we had counted on Nineveh's Crossing sales to be fairly robust through this time, out of which we were planning on paying 60% of the overall cost, especially post-production, mastering and duplication. Sales, however, have been slow. And we need to continue our fund raising. If you have not already  contributed, would you consider purchasing some Nineveh's Crossing products (perhaps for future gifts), or read about the perks and ways you can be an Associate Producer or Executive Producer at our Crowd Funding Page. You'll find a short video there that explains more about the origins and plans for the project.

Thank you for your consideration. You will participate directly in an important worldwide ministry. There are rewards both in this life and the next. 

Stan & Pam Williams
SWC Films and Nineveh's Crossing, LLC
PO Box 29
Novi, MI  48376
877-606-1370

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Church: Teaching Rules vs. Teaching Love

A friend wrote me:
I've been talking to someone who is interested in what the Church teaches but has a BIG problem with the Church hierarchy.

Basic argument:  If we love God we keep His commandments. Keeping His commandments out of love is BETTER than keeping them out of fear. And following God's rules are better than following rules made up by men.

Why doesn't the Church simply teach people to LOVE God - rather than focusing on the rules?"

Stan, do you have any knowledge of books or tapes?   Or, if you have thoughts on the subject they would be warmly welcomed!

My response:

I don't, off hand, have any books I'm aware of on that particular position.

But, I am very familiar with the argument and have a response that fits with my understanding of church history and teaching.

The difference between the motivations of love and fear is insignificant compared to the difference between obeying or not. It's like the decision to run a red light or not. We can NOT run the red light out of love for the government (a stupid concept) or we can NOT run the red light out of fear of being killed if we do. The goal of the red light is to protect us. (It's kind of a glass half-empty vs. half-full argument. In the end it doesn't matter. Are you an optimist or a pessimist by nature? Do you have a choleric or a sanguine personality?)

God's love is unconditional whether you obey him or not. But his reward of blessing and eternal life is very conditional on our obedience. It doesn't matter if we obey out of love of him or fear of him. The fear comes from the dastardly physical consequences. And so we come to love the law, because they keep us (if we obey them) from the consequences.  Thus, it might be a maturity thing. When we're a child we fear touching the stove, but as we grow older we love the fact that we were warned against touching it.

Love and Reward are not the same thing. People confuse the two concepts and wishfully but fatefully believe wrongly that if God loves me he will give me blessing. But that's failed logic. A loving father disciplines his children. Why? Because he knows that love must be consistent with right judgement and coincide with what is good, true and beautiful, -- that is natural law. True love is always cooperative with how nature works. Love is the same thing as truth. You can't separate them. Do I wear sunscreen because I fear getting a sunburn, or do I love sunscreen because it prevents the pain of a sunburn. I don't really see any difference. Use the sunscreen, enjoy being outside.

So, consequently LOVE and FEAR are the SAME THING, or they are on the SAME scale of values and motivation. They are the same coin, but different sides. (Any number of metaphors can come close to describing the relationship between LOVE and FEAR. It is a mistake (in theology) to believe they are different.

Society also has a problem with feelings of "guilt." But guilt is good when it keeps you from doing stupid things in the future. 

So, in the end it really does not matter if you obey out of Love, or obey out of Fear. The fact is that you are obeying. Just like you want to obey the laws of the land (or most of them). Do you love the laws of your state because they bring order, or do you obey the laws because you fear jail? Is there a difference?

One explanation is that different personalities are motivated by different stimuli or emphasis. Each of the four basic types of personalities (c.f. Brain Mapping) has it's own motivations.

Another explanation is that based on what kind of life we live, or what kind of day we're having we're going to be motivated some days by love and others by fear.

Human Beings tend to want to simplify everything and blame all effects on one casue. But nature tells us that physical effects have multiple causes. (c.f. The Butterfly Effect.) And so in this argument of Love vs. Hate, many people will want to say it's one or the other. This is known as the EITHER-OR fallacy. The answer—as is in most things—is not EITHER love OR hate, but AND-BOTH. It's a combination that saves us, and gives us life.

King David said he "loved" God's law. I love that. David is saying, "I love the fact that disobeying the law scares the hell out of me. I love what is right. I hate what is wrong. I love life, so I obey the rules. I hate death so I obey the rules." The rules don't change, but my motivations might. They are built into nature. Gravity cannot be loved or hated. It is a fact. Do you want to love the fact that you can stand up and not fall down (due to gravity and your body's ability to discern it and control your muscles), or do you fear gravity and are therefore careful about where you walk—not too close to the cliff of a canyon? In your day-to-day life, you'll use both of those motivations to stay alive and be happy. Thus, Love and Fear are on the same continuum.

My take on Church praxis (what it does in practice) is that the Church focuses too much on God's love with very little emphasis on the rules. I criticize bishops and priests for not teaching more on the fear of hell and condemnation for sin. (I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd benefit from a little fear preached into me about the consequences of sin.) Thus, we have cafeteria Catholics who ignore the Church's rules, and they will consequently pay God's penalty. Note, it is not the Church's self-imposed penalty. The church is simply telling you about God's penalty. I'd listen.

But many folks, like your friend, don't see that. Why?

People that dislike the Church's rules and claim the church focuses on the rules too much are doing one, if not all, of these things:

 A. They want to do what they want to do and not have anyone tell them what to do. (You probably know someone like that. Perhaps  you see them every morning when you brush your hair. I know I do.) It's easier to attack the Church and claim the rules are the rules of men when in fact this is God's Boat we're in, not the church's. People can't argue with God, so they pick something fallible and pretend the Boat belongs to man. Sorry folks. Man did not invent, create, nor does he control nature.

 B. They are listening more to social commentary that biasly reports what the Church teaches, rather than directly studying what the Church teaches. So much of what is in the news is interrupted by news writers based on their negative bias against the Church rather than on an accurate understanding of the Church. The recent flap about the Vatican correcting the women religious in the U.S. is a perfect example. Or the news media's interpretation of the bishops' condemnation of Obama's health care rules is another. In general, the news is wrong about what the Church believes and does.

C. Their pride does not allow them to accept that God has rules of natural law that require things of them. God loves us so much that he gave us gravity, and a whole bunch of other mechanisms that give us life. But if you whine about it and ignore it, you'll kill yourself.  You are free to make any choice you want, but you can't choose the consequence, God does that. Pride goes before a fall. Shakespeare intoned, "He who runs stumbles." The edge of the cliff is always there waiting, just waiting for the fool who says either (a) there is no God, or (b) there is a God and he's just like me.  Right. Hey, Jacko, can you fly?

D. They are not listening to the church's message of God's love that came through Jesus Christ, but only remember the rules (that God establishes, not man) and  they mistakenly claim the rules are made by man. Not so. (more on this below)

E. They generally do not believe that rules of any kind, really matter. Of course, they may be the first to point out that your grammar in a sentence is wrong, because the rules are not followed. Do you follow the rules of grammar because you love being understood, or do you follow the rules of grammar because you fear being misunderstood? I say, there's no difference. But having the rules are absolutely necessary to communicate and live in an ordered community.

The Church's job is to discern the immutable laws of the universe and compile a guide for living that can lead to happiness. That is where the Catechism and the rules it contains come from. They are anything but arbitrary, but they are arrived at BY USING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, which by the way the Church originally came up with. For over 6,000 years of human history Church leaders (if you go back to the Jewish fathers) observed nature, tried to figure it out and write down rules for behavior that would lead to happiness. (Have you read Proverbs or Sirach lately?)

Centuries ago the study of philosophy and physics WERE THE SAME thing. Then as we gained more understanding we saw the differences between metaphysics and physics. Then, mankind tried to answer the question WHY... which introduced the realm of religion. They all overlap—religion, philosophy and physics. Physics describes how something works mechanically (the body), philosophy tries to explain how the intellect intersects with all disciplines (the mind), and religion tries to explain WHY in terms of morality (the spirit).   All of these disciplines try to describe how to LOVE life and HATE death. Physics deals with atoms, Philosophy deals with thoughts, and Religion deals with origins, purposes and final disposition. ALL THREE, interestingly enough, deal with the dimensions of space and time we cannot perceive (there are more than ten all total). 

So, today, the Church (being historically involved heavily in all three disciplines) tries to focus on the religious and moral side by asking: What kind of rules do we need to follow IN ORDER TO LOVE GOD?   And in this case LOVING God, FEARING God, and LIVING HAPPILY are all the SAME THING.

BTW: Proverbs 9;10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Again, ALL THE RULES existed before the Church came around just like gravity existed before Newton came on the scene.  The Church just wrote them down like Isaac Newton wrote down the laws of Gravity. And by the way, when Isaac did that, he did it as part of the Church's system.  None of the rules are arbitrary by any measure. Only people that like to spit into the wind will think so.

So, in the end...if you want to find your way to the end of the maze successfully follow the rules. And rememer...

-- A person with no faith in God but who obeys God's rules of order will be blessed here on Earth and may or may not be blessed eternally based on God's omniscient judgment of how well that person followed their conscience (an individual's understanding of the rules).

-- A person with faith in God who does not obey God's rules of order will NOT find blessing on earth and may spend a lot of time in purgatory before getting to heaven. (Again the Church's job is to help maximize temporal blessing and speed our entry to heaven.)

The church's job, therefore, is to discover what is true and promote it for mankind's temporal and eternal benefit.  End of story.  Nothing is arbitrary. All is natural.