ベサニー・キリスト教会

I am now reading Os Guinness' latest book, "The Case For Civility". As I am not done with it yet I cannot give a full report on it but I would like to share one quote of his and comment on that. When I have finished the book I promise to give a full report.

The quote is, "Religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is a precious, fundamental, and inalienable human right-the right to reach, hold, freely exercise, or change one's beliefs, subject soley to the dictates of conscience and independent of all outside, especially goevernmental, control."

Now, that is a sentence! I am glad that he also added the phrase, "freedom of conscience" because sometimes the phrase, "religious liberty" can be misunderstood. But what religious liberty is all about is freedom to follow your own conscience. I have thought about the importance of our conscience a lot lately. Following God or the leading of the Holy Spirit often comes down to simply following our conscience. Our consceince is the voice of God in our heart that leads us and tells us what is wrong or right.

There are so many other voices out there trying to get our attention-the voice of human approval, the voices of our friends and family, all the things we see and hear on TV and on the Internet, etc. However, when all is said and done, the only voice we are to folllow is the voice of our conscience.

As I often share in church, I am so thankful that at this point in time, there does seem to be true religious liberty in Japan. We are free to meet together on Sunday and to share our faith together. I believe we need to daily thank God for that freedom that we have and to not forget the prime importance of following the voice of our conscience.

When I finishthe book I will write another report.

Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with lying. Between them there is the closest, the most profound and natural bond: nothing screens violence except lies, and the only way lies can can hold out is by violence. Whoever has once announced violence as his method must inevitably choose lies as his principle....The simple act of an ordinary courageous man is not to take part, not to support lies! Let the lie come into the world, even dominate the world, but not through me.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel address, 1970

Last month I visited Tower Records in Namba with no plans to buy anything-just to take a look around. However, I ended up finding a really great CD of American Primitive Guitar players. The CD is put out by the Numero Group and the full name is "N 018 Wayfaring Strangers Guitar Soli". It seems that the guy in charge of the 6th floor of Tower Records is an American Primitive Guitar fan and so there was a large pile of these CDs plus you could listen to them on their stereo there. At any rate, this is a great CD-that is all I can say.

It features 14 artists with one guitar tune each and most of the music is from the 70s. Out of the 14 artists there were two that I was very interested in. One was Daniel Hecht. I have been trying for years to get a copy of his CD "Willow" but have never been successful. I knew that he had quit playing the guitar and was now a successful author but I had no idea why he quit. In the booklet that comes with this CD I read that he came down with psoraisis. I have never heard of this sicknes before but when he played the guitar it took all the skin off of his hands and left them a bloody mess. Needless to say, he gave up the guitar.

The other artist I was interested in was Mark Lang. I have been a long time fan of the Minneapolis based guitarist, Peter Lang. However I did not know that his younger brother, Mark, was also a guitarist.Peter is still playing today but it seems that Mark decided to move out of the music business.

At any rate, if you are a long time fan of American Primitive Guitar, I highly recommend this CD. On the other hand, if you have never heard of American Primitive Guitar, this CD would be a great introduction. It comes with a 40 page booklet that not only tells about each one of the artists but also has articles about American Primitive Guitar and Fingerstyle Guitar plus a list of CDs called "Suggested Listening" which features a good cross section of American Primitive Guitar players. Also the articles mention just about anyone and everyone who is important in the American Primitive Guitar and Fingersyle Guitar world. If you can find this CD, give it a listen.

This is Os Guinness' latest book and he basically is developing a theme that he has already mentioned in a previous book. In his 2005 book on evil, "Unspeakable", he makes the following statement. "I have long been a proponent of the "civil public square", set off clearly from the extremes of the "sacred public square" on one side and the "naked public square" on the other."

This is basically the theme of the whole book-the need for America to have "civil public square". In America now, there are those who call for a "sacred public square". These are people who believe that Protestant Christianity should have "special" treatment" and should have government protection or help. All other groups would be excluded.

There are also those in America today who call for a "naked public square". These are people who believe that ALL religions are bad-probably even "evil" and that all public religious discussion should be banned. These people believe that religion is "private" and must never be allowed to have any impact on public issues.

In "The Case For Civility" Os is calling rather for a "civil public square". That is, he believes that Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Muslims and Mormons and Athiests and Agnostics should ALL be allowed to discuss and share their views publicly in a "civil" manor. The problem now is that rather than freely engaging in discussion, people simply call people in other groups nasty names or simply denounce them as wrong period. Often, there is a great amount of anger and even of hatret involved. When issues of religious freedom come up, rather than engaging in discussion in a civil manner a lawsuit is prepared and the issue is handed to a secular judge to take care of.

In this election year in America this is a timely book and I would recommend reading it and taking to heart the things that Os shares in it.

今週、2月21日の木曜日、午前10時30分から、泉北ニュータウン・深阪にある、泉北福音教会に於いて、婦人集会があります。べサニーキリスト教会からも、ゲストスピーカーのお証しを伺い、学び分かち合おうと期待して、伺います。当日は朝10時にべサニー教会からワゴン車を出しますので、ぜひ参加をご検討ください。送迎の人数などの事由から、あらかじめお電話いただけましたら、幸いです。

Let me quote the last sentences from Francis A. Schaeffer's book, "Art and the Bible".

"No work of art is more important the the Christian's own life, and every Christian is called upon to be an artist in this sense. He may have no gift of writing, no gift of composing or singing, but each man has the gift of creativity in terms of the way he lives his life. In this sense, the Christian's life is to be an art work. The Christian's life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world."

AMEN!

I have never met anyone anywhere like Francis Schaeffer, who took God so passionately seriously, people so passionately seriously, and truth so passionately seriously. The combination was dynamite, and it is that vision and style of faith, rather than the content of his thinking, which is the debt I owe to him. Os Guinness in a recent book review

On February 24th, 2008, Larry Norman went to be with His Lord. After a long fight with heart trouble the cause of his death was heart failure.

Larry Norman was a great challenge to me in the early 70s when I was still a student. His music and his articles in the Hollywood Free Paper (put out by Duane Pederson in L.A.) always encouraged my faith and challenged me to be a better Christian and to reach my generation for Christ.

Larry Norman is known as the Father of Christian Rock and also the Father of Christian Contemporary Music. In 2001 he was inducted into the Gospel Music Association's Hall of Fame and in 2007 was inducted into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame. One of his first records was produced by the same person who produced the Beatles' albums.

In the early 70s I attended the Campus Church which met at the West Bank of the U of M. Larry Norman's wife was a member of the church so often it was Larry who would be the special music during the time that the offering plate was passed. Pastor O'Neill would never introduce Larry and so it was always a pleasant surprise to hear such songs as "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" being sung while the offfering was being taken.

However, many Christians did not like Larry or his music and I am glad that I was able to catch him at least once at a concert in St. Paul. I believe it may have been the best Christian concert I have ever attended. His music was just great-both beating on his old classical guitar and also his piano playing. The mix between his sharing and his singing and his playing was just perfect. Also, he was not someone to disappear after the concert-he simply came down from the stage and had coffee and cookies like everyone else and talked with anyone and everyone. As a result I also was able to at least spend some time talking with him and this made me an even stronger believer in what he was doing.

After those years, Larry tended to be out of the Christian spotlight in a major way but he never lost his initial vision for reaching out to people. Some years ago I know he was in Tokyo singing Christian rock and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I would like to add my voice at this time to the many who are writing tributes to him. I want to say, "Thank you, Larry, for being such a help and challenge to my Christian faith." I trust that even though he is gone, his message will continue to get out to the world through his CDs.