Month: November 2009

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Plan “B”?

RJ Walters

This is going to be one of those difficult and probably controversial posts. Is Jesus Plan “B” whereas Adam was Plan “A” that failed? In other words did God really plan on Adam being the benevolent seed of mankind and when that didn’t happen he changed gears and  came Himself (via Jesus) to do the job of fixing things? This concept has some pretty serious contentions among some Christians today. Some believe that nothing can happen that God did not previously ordain in that he had absolutely everything decided from creation to the end times  even before he started his … Continue reading Plan “B”?

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Happy Thanksgiving

RJ Walters

Today is Thanksgiving so I thought I would again share with you a prayer that I have been using the last few years. It is definitely for today but can really be used almost any day of the year. The author of the prayer is Samuel F. Pugh. He died just before Christmas 2007 at the age of 103. He spent more that 70 years of his life in Christian ministry. He was also a renowned poet and author. Let us all be truly thankful for everything we have and also aware that there are those among us who need … Continue reading Happy Thanksgiving

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Some interesting discussions…

RJ Walters

This is a quick post to tell you about a very interesting discussion happening on one of the blogs I frequent  ( Kingdom People by Trevin Wax).   The URL below is a very good post and comments about the basic differences between Evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church. I take heart that two people with opposing views can discuss these types of issues without name calling. This seems rare now days. Thanks Trevin for starting this conversation. http://trevinwax.com/2009/11/24/evangelicals-catholics-on-holy-ground-4-questions-for-chris-castaldo/#comments Continue reading Some interesting discussions…

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The One Year Anniversary of RLL

RJ Walters

One year ago I brought up the Red Letter Living blog. To be honest I did it primarily to put down my thoughts on the many books and topics I have been studying the last few years. I just needed a place to think things through and put them to print. To that end this blog has been very beneficial to me on a personal level and has strengthened by faith in the words of Christ. Amazingly as the posts accumulated so did the readership. I am humbled that there are Christians out there that think I have anything worth … Continue reading The One Year Anniversary of RLL

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Why are there so few female theologians??

RJ Walters

I have been reading several new theologians lately and it suddenly struck me that none of them are female! Or for that matter I don’t think I have ever read anything by a female theologian?  So as usual I did some digging and discovered that among the theologians who are espoused to have made significant contributions to the field no females made the list until the mid 20th century. That is to say that the first nineteen centuries were without much female influence. Anyone interested in the source of this info visit <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_theologians#20th_century&gt; .  Given the fact that women were not even allow to … Continue reading Why are there so few female theologians??

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Finding our niche…..

RJ Walters

We seem to constantly fragment ourselves in order to make us unique. We are not satisfied with just being one of many in a common boiling pot. We have to think of ourselves as someone like no one else.  My father’s generation was not like we are. Many, if not most of them, took pride in the fact that America was a fabulous “melting pot” where Italians, Irish, Spanish, etc people came to the United States and became “American” (no dashes were included for them). Now we have to add several dashes due to our ancestry. We can’t just be … Continue reading Finding our niche…..

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The Words of Jesus

RJ Walters

I found an interesting book a while back by Phyllis Tickle entitled “The Words of Jesus”. Phyllis Tickle is the founding editor at Publishers Weekly and is author of more than two dozen book about Christianity. In this book she attempts to take the red letters found in the Gospel accounts and separate them from the surrounding text. She does this, among other things, in order to find “parallels in the accounts.  The book does a pretty good job of separating Jesus’ words into five categories: Public Teachings, Private Instructions, Healing Dialog, Intimate Conversations, and Post Resurrection Encounters. Looking at … Continue reading The Words of Jesus

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The Radical 60’s

RJ Walters

When people think of the 1960’s the first thing that comes to mind are all the protest marches and hippies on the college campuses. I was in college during these years and did see some of that but that was definitely what I was about. As mentioned in the previous post I spent most of my time working, going to classes, studying, working, and working. My dad was a milkman and didn’t have the money to help me through college so I ended up paying my way through by working almost full time and carrying an 80% course load. Most … Continue reading The Radical 60’s

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Christ and whose Culture?

RJ Walters

I recently read an article in the June issue of Sojourners magazine ( http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0906&article=christ-and-i-whose-i-culture ) about Christ and Culture. It was related to past evangelism focused on stripping native culture in order to bring Christ to an aboriginal people. In my mind this has always seemed wrong and I can’t understand how it could not have seemed so to those doing it then. I just don’t understand why there was no voiced dissent about it. But maybe there was and it is just not well known. But then again in those days Christians bought into the worldview that Indians and … Continue reading Christ and whose Culture?

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My College Years…

RJ Walters

Ok, I have my new scanner and have dusted off all the albums of pictures in the utility closet so I am just about ready to start the project of digitizing all our old pictures. I decided on using Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 as the digitizing software. It is a little harder to use than my old software but the results are markedly better.  As I mentioned before this is going to be a five month project as there are thousands of pictures involved. (Postscript July 2010 — As it turns out this project ended about eight months after it was started. … Continue reading My College Years…

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Seven Social Sins (The Catholic version)

RJ Walters

Recently the Catholic church, and in particular Pope Benedict, came out with their own list of what they consider the seven social sins of the current times. It is interesting to see how this list is different from Gandhi’s of my last post. The seven social sins are: 1. “Bioethical’ violations such as birth control 2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research 3. Drug abuse 4. Polluting the environment 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor 6. Excessive wealth 7. Creating poverty Pope Benedict has spoken out on several social issues throughout his three-year papacy. He encouraged Catholics to … Continue reading Seven Social Sins (The Catholic version)

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Seven Deadly Social Sins (The Gandhi version)….

RJ Walters

I know the above is not from a Christian person but it is certainly Christian in nature and principle. I found it under a pile on my desk. I wish it had remained on top but that was not the case. Anyway, it will now reside in a reserved section of my bulletin board above my desk. Of course this is a play off of “The Seven Deadly Sins” that played out in the Christian church in the middle ages.  Here is what Wikipedia says about that: The Seven Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, … Continue reading Seven Deadly Social Sins (The Gandhi version)….