Dear Beautiful Humans,
The other night my son Jacob who lives in San Diego was having dinner at my parents home in the Los Angeles area with their best friends in the world Pat and Ronnie, my cousin Richard, and my brother Jimmy, his wife Elaine, and their daughters Sammie, Casey, and Drew who were all on the West Coast visiting from Chicago. It was a mini Klein Family Reunion.
I spoke with them briefly
Researchers have discovered the number one cause of divorce: marriage. Yes, the legalistic nature of this religious institution is being torn apart by the freedom that is permeating western culture. Obviously, we are all free to do what we want to do, and believe what we want to believe. However, since marriage is now primarily a result of two people loving each other (as opposed to the formerly
From the Associated Press: “Lorenzago di Cadore, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released last Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.”
Say what? “The commentary repeated church teaching that the Catholic
Dear Lovers of the Unity of the Faith (of God),
On Saturday Illinois Senator and 2008 Democrat Presidential hopeful Barack Obama delivered a speech on faith and politics at the United Church of Christ General Synod in Hartford, Connecticut. “Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s
Dear Gospel Groupies,
One of the great things about being part of the Gospel Group is that it is the only totally inclusive identifiable sector of humanity. Everyone is included. Every race, creed, national origin, religious affiliation or no affiliation, every belief system or lack thereof is part. This comes without cost or pain to us, all because of the pain that cost Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Just
Dear Beautifully Redeemed Humans,
Many times on the Web Cast offering known as Glenn Klein Online, we have heard Michael utter something in a certain way that he had never quite thought of in those terms before or had never said in quite that way. Last week was another ones of those inspired, spontaneous moments.
The guys were talking about dealing with family members who are still stuck in a behavior-based
Dear Lovers of Humanity Through The Blood of the Messiah,
When Jerry Falwell passed away yesterday, wouldn’t you have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall when he realized that all his so-called “good works” here on Earth had been counted by the Lord “as filthy rags”? Or how about when he realized that joining him at peace with God was Adolph Hitler, Joseph
Dear Gospel Loving People Who Love People Because of the Gospel,
Last week the U.S. was embroiled in a conversation about bigotry because of the comments of radio and TV host Don Imus about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University. If you watched or read any news last week you couldn’t have missed it. The comments and the stored-up anamus against Imus cost him his job.
Don Imus,
Dear Believers of the Gospel,
Recently an old associate of mine who lives in the U.K. came across my web site and listened to some of our Archived Webcasts. I had known him “back in the day” of religion and legalism. I had done my best to try to “get him saved”.
Thank God he resisted my efforts and never got sucked into the morass of what so many of us have had to extricate
In the light of the freedom that this Gospel provides, we often get asked about prayer. Well, like every other human activity our advise is to follow your own heart. If it makes sense to you, and brings you a level of peace, pleasure, and/or enjoyment, pray away. There should be no judgment coming from anyone. Certainly God does not judge your prayer, because ALL His judgment was poured out “on
Haggard bares his soul in note to congregation
Thousands listen as the former evangelical leader shares his moral failings in a letter read from the pulpit.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 6, 2006
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. In the hush of a Sunday morning, believers grieved, struggled and forgave as their pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, confessed his sins.
“I am a deceiver and a liar,”
The other day I was speaking with my Dad. It would not be an overstatement, nor do I believe would he be offended, to say he is an “unbeliever”. He and my Mom raised me and my brothers in a loving reform Jewish home. And even though he sent us to religious school and had us participate in the traditional Jewish rite of passage, the Bar Mitzvah, he never made any claims of faith himself.
Recently
“…radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” Rosie O’Donnell on the View, September 12, 2006.
Well, there it is. Rosie O’Donnell, the new co-host on ABC’s “The View”, laid it out there during their televised discussion of 9/11. And the outrage has just begun. But is she right?
To paraphrase a former President,
Dear Lovers of the Loving God,
Would someone please explain the difference between al Qaeda’s philosophy of works towards redemption and Evangelical Christianity’s approach? Extreme Islam may allow for jihad, the killing of infidels in promoting their kingdom, but how many souls have been literally and figuratively killed in the history of Christianity? Definitely more than in
With all the insanity going on in the Middle East, people protesting at soldiers’ funerals with signs saying “God loves dead Soldiers”, and church leaders trying to profit from it all, we thought this was a good time to touch base with you and to bring some “good news” sanity your way.
Recently while channel surfing I came across Creflo Dollar, the prosperity preacher,
What, among other things, does the Gospel Revolution (faith in Jesus’ successful feat of making every human being righteous before God) do to one’s soul?
It (He) makes you see everyone as equal in the eyes of God.
This is very healthy emotionally and psychologically. After all, the Bible says that salvation (as opposed to redemption) is the cleansing or renewing of the mind.
When a human
Last Friday evening I was at a restaurant with some friends and met one of their friends from Chicago (my hometown).
We had quite a pleasant time, good conversation, telling jokes, etc. Then this fellow I had just met a couple of hours before breaks out with an out and out Black/Mexican racist joke, and some of the people I was with laughed out loud.
With that, I said “I’m out” and
It’s a revolution. As far as we know, for the first time in history there is an ongoing effort to articulate the oneness of the human species with a logical, historically-based case for why we all are one.
Can an argument be made that Jesus is the most important figure to ever walk the face of the earth? We think so. His presence and the resulting effect of His earthly appearance has been the
From the Tampa Tribune: “The bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Florida on Sunday condemned the Episcopal Church’s confirmation of its first openly gay bishop, saying it saddened him like the crucifixion of Jesus.”
Saddened? This is just another example in a long line of religious leaders misreading the story of the Bible. The crucifixion was the pinnacle moment of human history,
Recently, one of our military interrogators was asked about the techniques of torture they’re using to get information from the terrorist prisoners. We use torture or scare tactics, or the threat of them, to get people to say what we want them to say. Sound like any religious practices you may be familiar with?
You see, when one thinks about it, that’s what the evangelical world is doing,
Greetings from the communicators of love, the unconditional love of God for all humanity through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.
Last night I was watching “The Church Channel” and a particular “spirit-filled” preacher I used to enjoy was speaking from his North Carolina ministry. It shocked me how contrived his message was and that I could have ever adhered to his teachings.
Dear Lovers of Freedom and the Gospel,
Have you ever noticed that the more the reality of the Gospel settles in your heart, the more freedom ascends in your thinking and practice?
For it was freedom that Christ set you free!
How wonderful it is to experience the Light of acceptance for all human beings from God. There are many parallels between all religious perspectives. But almost by definition,
Imagine trying to overflow the Pacific Ocean with an eyedropper. It is much more likely to cause a massive worldwide flood the likes that have not been seen since Noah than to please Almighty God with our actions, attitudes, or thoughts.
Why? Because likes His oceans, His pleasure has already been totally filled up by Jesus. Jesus already paid ALL YOUR DEBT to Dad.
Trying to continually pay a bill
After Mike’s recent admonition to “stretch it”, I began to contemplate what makes people finally make the decision to stretch, whether it be physically, intellectually, socially, or spiritually.
Remember Mike’s story? It was his tremendous back pain that practically forced him into contemplating another approach. He began to learn the benefits of stretching and to receive
From the NY Times: “The Vatican announced Thursday that it is cracking down on priests who have become too free in granting group absolution to sinners, or have otherwise become lax confessors”.
Isn’t it amazing they used the term “too free”? Is anybody too free? Wasn’t it for freedom that Christ set us free, especially the freedom to not have to work for absolution
President Bush has popularized the phrase “axis of evil” in referring to the link of terror between Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
Christopher Hitchens, the British columnist well known for his biting criticism of the powerful, recently redefined the “axis of evil”. Hitchens named his evil triumvirate as “Christianity, Judaism,
And Islam”.
Allow me to be the next
Recently I read an essay about fanaticism by Elie Wiesel, the well-known author of more than 40 books and a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel wrote eloquently as he examined the mindset that overtook the Nazis and that still dominates in parts of the world that breeds suicide bombers and hijackers.
While he was writing about terrorists, Wiesel was also,
Paul the apostle of the gospel of grace and peace wrote that anybody that didn’t agree with his particular take on his gospel should be accursed.
Well, while I don’t feel quite as brash toward today’s legalists as Paul did to the ones of his day, I did want to point out that apparently there was more than one “gospel” that was being preached. We at Mike Williams Media
Dear Beautiful Humans,
Do you believe in a Creator?
Do you believe He created the Universe?
Me, too.
Do you believe that He formed Adam from dirt and molded Eve from a rib of her man, that Satan through a snake literally spoke to her, that Noah made an ark and animals came aboard, that Moses parted the Red Sea, that Daniel stared-down the lions, that Mary conceived as a virgin, and that Yeshua was raised