btw I removed his email address, don’t think it’s nice to have them exposed on the web where spam bots can harvest them (I don’t know if it is advertised on their website).

Would you care to share a bit of your background? Did you also spend some time with Shofar? (I actually had just around three months, but I was quite serious.) Why I’m wondering: what brings you the newsletter? (Else a friend forwarded it to you?) Could you pass it on to me? I’ll email you, then you have my address. Thanks!

On the motivation for attacking interest in the pre-Christian heritage of the Christian tradition, he mentions in the first paragraph some people started to reject the New Testament. That’s an odd reaction, I’d love to see some citations for that claim, would like to see more of how people ended up walking down that path. What I do know about, is Bible scholars that sketch sufficient context of Biblical traditions that it starts to cast conservative Christian teachings in a different light, leading to what would probably be a more progressive faith (as opposed to conservative). This kind of thing would make sense to me as an explanation for warning a congregation to be careful about learning more about the context. They might end up becoming “heretics” in that they no longer swallow everything in the way Shofar teaches it. In terms of memetic defences, as an inoculations against Bible scholars, this article/letter of Fred is genius?

Ek is vroeër hierdie jaar deur ’n vriend in ’n ander bediening genader om van die insigte en ervarings wat ons oor ’n sekere onderwerp opgedoen het, met sy leiers te deel. Hy het my vertel dat sommige van hulle lidmate wat in hulle Hebreeuse geestelike erfenis begin belangstel het, tot so ’n ekstreme mate navolgers daarvan geword het dat hulle die NuweTestament ontken en vervloek het, en dit selfs uit hulle huise verban het! Vrouens en kinders is in sommige gevalle belet om kerk toe te gaan omdat dit as ’n heidense plek van aanbidding uitgemaak is!
As ’n reël weerhou ek myself van betrokkenheid in sulke ‘huishoudelike twiste’, maar hierdie geval was baie anders. Dit was iets skandeliks wat ’n kollektiewe antwoord genoodsaak het –soortgelyk aan die keer toe kaal mans bewapen met traangas ons tyd van aanbidding geskend
het. ’n Onreg teenoor een is ’n onreg teenoor almal.

Ek voel sterk oor die belangrikheid daarvan om jou geestelike oorsprong te ken en te waardeer,omdat God se plan vir ons redding deur Christus en Sy Bruid reg van die begin af geopenbaar word. Daarom het ons op ’n tyd die Joodse feeste van die Pasga (“Passover”) en Loofhutte
(“Tabernacles”) gevier in die plek van die kultiese viering van Kersfees en Paasfees. Albei laasgenoemde is die viering van ou heidense vrugbaarheidsrites wat kosmeties verander is om
2:
Christelik voor te kom. (’n Mens kan maklik opmerk dat geen van die simbole wat daarin gebruik word, naastenby Christelik is nie.) Lucille en ek is al vir meer as twee dekades groot ondersteuners van bediening aan Israel en die Joodse volk. ’n Tydjie gelede moes ons egter ons verbintenis daartoe heroorweeg weens die voorkoms van sekere verontrustende neigings.

Maar ek het geen benul gehad dat dit reeds so ver gevorder het nie! Die Here Jesus Christus word belaster, die Evangelie word verwring, die Skrif word skaamteloos verdraai en sommige fanatici vertrap letterlik die Nuwe Testament! In die lig hiervan wil ek graag ons antwoord op hierdie dwalingskrisis op rekord plaas.

Eerstens glo ek dat daar ’n “gees van slawerny” soos waarna Romeine 8:15 verwys, in hierdie dwaling aan die werk is. Dit is ’n kragtige sataniese entiteit, baie sterker as ‘n demoon, wie se taak dit is om die werking van die Heilige Gees na te boots. Dit blyk veral diegene met ’n
Calvinistiese agtergrond te teister. Dit poog om geloofsekerheid teen te werk en lei tot ’n geestelike onvrugbaarheid omdat dit die bediening en leiding van die Heilige Gees striem. Dit laat hierdie Christene weerloos teen misleiding omdat hulle desperaat is om van die onophoudelike, aggressiewe bombardering met gedagtes van VEROORDELING
(“condemnation)”, BESKULDIGING (“accusation”) en VALSE SKULDGEVOELENS (“false guilt”) bevry te word. Later begin dit om die volkome toereikendheid van Christus se soendood in twyfel te trek. Dit MISLEI mense om te glo dat hulle redding voorwaardelik is, dit wil sê
afhang van hulle eie pogings en NIE ‘n geskenk is van God se genade wat geheel en al verniet is nie. Dit verskaf ’n vals gevoel van behorentheid, gebaseer op persoonlike pogings tot verlossing deur sekere godsdienstige verpligtinge na te kom. Sonder die strawwe nakoming van hierdie verpligtinge glo hulle dat intimiteit met God onmoontlik is. In hierdie geval word dit essensieel om Hebreeuse rituele te onderhou, soos die feeste van die Ou Testament, die Sabbat met die shabat-maal, besnyding, gewyde pelgrimstogte na Jerusalem, die gebruik van die gebedskleed, die eksklusiewe gebruik God se Hebreeuse name, die opsê van sekere gebede in Hebreeus, ens. Die Skrif is duidelik in hierdie verband. Elkeen wat daarna streef om ’n deel van die “wet” te onderhou, dit wil sê die Ou Testamentiese stelsel van rituele en seremoniële godsdienstige nakoming, is onder verpligting om die HELE wet na te kom!

Met ander woorde, tempel-aanbidding met egte priesters, rituele reiniging en die offer van diere ens. MOET tot op die letter onderhou word! (Galasiërs 5:2-3; Romeine 2:25.)

’n Ander werk van die gees van slawerny is VERLEIDING (“seduction”). Weens die gebrek aan intimiteit met die Vader en die sekuriteit wat uit ’n geestelike openbaring van ons seën in Christus voortvloei, kan iemand tot geestelike trots verlei word wat weer tot rasse-trots aanleiding kan gee. Baie onskuldige aanhangers van die Hebreeuse Oorsprong-beweging is onbewus van die demoniese leerstelling van rasse-meerderwaardigheid en vooroordeel wat die grondslag van die ideologie daarvan vorm: Om God waarlik lief te hê moet ons Israel liefhê en
die Arabiere haat! In sommige kringe bestaan die veronderstelling dat ons tans in die tyd van die ‘volheid van die heidene’ lewe (Romeine 11:25). Die misleiding lê egter in wat ons veronderstel is om uit hierdie Bybelse terme te verstaan. ’n Onderskeid word getref tussen ‘nie-Jode’ (“gentiles”) enersyds, en ‘heidene’ (“heathen / pagans”) andersyds. Israel, of die Jode soos ons hulle vandag ken, verwys slegs na die stam van Juda. Die ander ‘verlore stamme’ van Israel vorm die ‘nie-Jode’ (“gentiles”). Na bewering bestaan hierdie ‘verlore stamme’ uit alle wit / Kaukasiese volke van die wêreld. Die Afrikaners word as Manasse gereken, wit Amerika as Efraim en Denemarke as die stam van Dan, ens. Die ‘tyd van die heidene’ word egter beskou as reeds verby. Die fokus is daarom slegs op die redding van die wit ‘stamme’. Die sending-opdrag (Mattheus 28:19-20) en die eise wat die Kruis in dié
verband stel word geheel en al ontken!
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Daar is en was verskeie weergawes van die verhewe ras-agenda in die beweging, maar een basiese aanname is universeel. In God se oë is die Joodse ras, kultuur en taal nie net verhewe nie, maar eksklusief aanvaarbaar omdat dit inherent verlossend is. Met ander woorde, dit het
krag en vermoë om te red. Deel van die Bybelse probleem met hierdie argument of leerstelling, is egter die feit dat Abraham nie ’n Jood was nie, en dus nie Hebreeus gepraat het nie. Hy was ’n Chaldeër. Dieselfde is waar van almal wat voor hom vir God geken en gevrees het, soos Abel, Set, Melgisedek en Noag, byvoorbeeld. Die Hebreeuse volk met sy taal en kultuur het eers honderde jare ná die bekragtiging van die verbond met Abraham, waardeur God die hele mensdom toegang gegee het tot ’n verhouding met Hom as seuns (Galasiërs 3:26-29), tot stand gekom. As die leerstelling van Hebreeuse oorsprong egter korrek is, kon
Abraham, Isak, Jakob en ’n menigte van hulle voorsate nie ’n verhouding met God gehad hetnie!

’n Argument wat hieraan verwant is, is dat ons dankbaarheid teenoor die Joodse volk moet betoon omdat hulle histories die draers van ons redding was – wat sekerlik waar is. Maar wat ewe waar is, is die feit dat dankbaarheid nie lewenslange onderdanigheid, onderwerping en
verering beteken nie. So ’n reaksie is slegs geregverdig teenoor die bron van ons redding, naamlik God deur Christus. Anders sou die Bybel die verering van Maria, of vir ons nie-Jode Paulus, onderskryf het. Miljoene gelowiges sou dan vir Billy Graham moes vereer het. ’n Ander argument vir onderwerping aan Joodse gebruike is die een dat God ons wil gebruik om hulle ‘jaloers te maak’ (Romeine 11:11). As die verhaal van die verlore seun as ’n metafoor vir die wankelrige verhouding tussen Israel en die Kerk beskou word, is die teenoorgestelde sekerlik
waar. Die ouer broer se jaloesie word juis aangewakker omdat die jonger broer oor die vermoë beskik om genade te verstaan; met ander woorde, die vader se hart en sy bereidheid om die geboortereg en erflating ongeag enige verdienstelikheid aan die seun se kant, wel vir hom te gee! Kulturele gelykvormigheid en tegemoetkomendheid was nooit God se manier om oortuiging en oorreding te bring nie, inteendeel, radikale gehoorsaamheid aan Sy Woord en Gees is wel! Hierin word die heerlikheid van die Nuwe Verbond gevind! II Korinthiërs 3:7-11, 17 -18 stel dit soos volg: 7 En as die bediening van die dood … in heerlikheid was … 8 hoeveel te meer sal die bediening van die Gees dan nie in heerlikheid wees nie? 10 Want wat verheerlik was, is ook in hierdie geval nie verheerlik nie, vanweë die alles oortreffende heerlikheid. 11 Want as wat moes vergaan, met heerlikheid was, veel meer is wat moet bly, in heerlikheid. 17 Die Here is die Gees, en waar die Gees van die Here is, daar is vryheid. 18 En terwyl ons almal met onbedekte gesig soos in ‘n spieël die heerlikheid van die Here aanskou, word ons van gedaante verander na dieselfde beeld, van heerlikheid tot heerlikheid, as deurdie Here wat die Gees is.

(ESV: Now if the ministry of death … came with such glory … will not the ministry of the
Spirit have even more glory? Indeed in this case, what once had glory has come to have no
glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end
came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Now the Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face, beholding
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to
another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.)

Dit is God se uitdruklike plan om die hart van Israel te roer deur Sy glorieryke krag deur die werking van die Heilige Gees se bediening aan en deur die Kerk vir die volkome verlossing van elke taal en stam en nasie! [Toe sing hulle ‘n nuwe lied en sê: U is waardig om die boek te
neem en sy seëls oop te maak, want U is geslag en het ons vir God met u bloed gekoop uit
4:
elke stam en taal en volk en nasie – Openbaring 5:9.] Ons moet verstaan dat uit God se oogpunt, die Jode weer “in die olyfboom ingeënt” sal word, en totdat dit gebeur lewe hulle grotendeels as “vyande” van God en die Evangelie (Romeine 11:23, 28). Hulle moet, net soos die res van die mensdom, gered word.

Ek wil dit graag baie duidelik maak dat God nie die Joodse kultuur of ras as verhewe beskou nie. Geen Christen behoort daarom op grond van geloof, ras of kultuur as minderwaardig geag te word nie! Deur die Bloed van Jesus is die grond aan die voet van die Kruis op Golgota gelyk
gemaak, en toegang tot die Vader is beskikbaar vir almal wat sal kom en glo. Geloof in die versoenende werk van Christus is die ENIGSTE vereiste vir volkome redding. Die Skrif vervloek enigiemand wat ’n ander boodskap as die eenvoud en genoegsaamheid van Christus se
Versoeningsdood verkondig (Galasiërs 1: 6-10; II Korinthiërs 11:3). Die Skrif waarsku ook dat die vals leraars wat hierdie “verderflike dwaalleer” versprei, ’n “vinnige verderf” oor hulself bring (II Petrus 2:1-3).
Ek vra daarom dat ons vir die volgende tyd onsself sal weerhou van enige toegewing, onderwerping of deelname aan hierdie “betowering” soos die apostel Paulus dit noem (Galasiërs 3:1-3). Ons is terselfdertyd sensitief vir die gesonde en regmatige behoefte om God
se getrouheid aan Sy verbondsbeloftes aan die Joodse volk eerstehands te ervaar, en om getuies te wees van God se soewereine werk onder hulle in hierdie tyd. Dit moet egter nie as ’n onderskrywing van ’n ongesonde beheptheid en obsessie met Israel as ’n basiese Bybelse leerstelling vertolk word nie. Dit is beslis nie een van die twee nie. Wat kan begin as ’n verbygaande nuuskierigheid aangevuur deur die belofte van ’n dieper geestelike begrip kan soms lei tot die gebondenheid aan verpligting en die verlies van gemeenskap met die Heilige Gees en Sy krag, en uiteindelik die verlies van ewige verhouding met Christus!

Ons is nietemin besig om die moontlikheid van ’n reis na Israel in Oktober 2010 te ondersoek. Kyk gerus na die betrokke besonderhede elders in hierdie nuusbrief en oorweeg dit biddend om by my en Lucille en lidmate van ons wêreldwye Shofar-familie aan te sluit vir ’n wonderlike tyd van bemoediging en samesyn.
In Christus,
Fred May.
[Ed: I removed his email address]

Watse brief praat jy van? (‘n Brief soos in ‘n brief op papier?)

Verder is “othering” ‘n tendens in menslike sielkunde, … sodat ek nie tale meng nie, Engels:

Othering seems to be a very human psychological tendency. By demonising the “other”, we get to form a clear line between “them” and “us” and feel better about ourselves. Some groups, cultures or people are very big on othering (racism is an example, pharisees were another from long ago), while others focus on breaking down this distinction, this demonising of “the other”.

Ironically, the way I understand Jesus’ teachings, he was against groups that do ugly othering, when there’s a “us” and “them”, Jesus is found with “them”, on the outskirts, in the fringes. Of course groups that are very big on “othering” instead believe that he was only with the “others” because they’re the ones that needed help, to also become “one of us”.

Does that make sense?

Of dit was dalk ‘n retoriese vraag, maar ek spekuleer maar in elk geval. Some wikipedia links FWIW, Other, and it’s an ingroup/outgroup dynamic (sociology and psychology).

ek’s weer geestelik betas

That might make for a good “case study” for discussing how one should act, or how one might choose to act rather, in such situations wherein one feels violated?

Have a good year yourself!

Sometimes a journey is a quest. And as we know all good quests are fraught with obstacles that aid the person on said quest – unwittingly. Life itself, I reckon, is a spiritual quest and the rule holds very much true here too.
The trick is to see that…

I’m sitting on a peak just over the border of Lesotho in the Drakensburg Mountains. Been here since yesterday. Climbed up to come and think about the deep stuff in life. Especially God. Believe I have managed to let God down so badly that He doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. He actually hates me. I am a rebel and He hates rebellion. (Giggle later, okay – I was only a screwed up laaitie. I still thought I could fuck up God’s world and make him pissed off with me)
That’s what they told me.
It’s icy up here and the air is thin.
Eat a little bit of snow.
So clean and so cold.
I always do this when I reach a very difficult crisis in my life – I travel somewhere far and alone.
To think. And get away from the pain.
I am an ex-youth missionary.
I got kicked out of Youth With A Mission about a week ago. The official verdict was that I had succumbed to the demon of drugs again. In my opinion I just lost my temper once too often at the nonsense and hypocrisy going on around me and got fucked up on buttons.
Stupid way to lose my temper.
Very stupid.
It was just that my mental and emotional breakdown had been coming for a long time. It was actually after the business with Celeste that I began to actively challenge and oppose The Leadership. And the pricks didn’t like it. And she nearly fucking died because of their stupid super-spiritual crap. If I hadn’t grabbed Celeste, borrowed Mindy’s car and driven her all the way to her best friend Rachel’s parents in Maritzburg – without the Elder’s covering, blessing or Permission – that poor girl would be dead.
What kind of warped view of Christianity drives young people to the brink of suicide because they masturbate? What kind of warped religion of any kind would castigate me for counselling her about her sexuality – in spite of the fact that it helped to save her life?
There was nobody else who would or could.
Out of a base of a hundred and fifty utterly stupid super-spiritual Christians the only person who could get to the root of her fears and help her was the one person The Leadership despised most. And I gave her the wrong advice. I told her, her body was her own private property and God had given it to her. If she touched herself privately in an exciting way – that was her business. God would never be so cruel as to give her the means of pleasure and forbid her to explore it. And he would never invade her privacy. I’ve never seen anybody cry with so much relief.
My poor friend.
Well if I am in trouble with God because of that – then so be it. I cannot try to love those fools anymore – to me they are spiritual bullies. And I hate bullies.
Ag, light a spliff. That’s another thing – my spliff is nearly finished.
And of course smoking zol is a terrible sin. Worse than getting leglessly drunk on religion and self-importance and beating your wife and kids with The Bible I suppose. I don’t want to go to hell for smoking zol and I’m not too sure God gets all funny about zol anyway.
It’s a pity I can’t talk to Him anymore.
I can see so far from up here.
So far…
It is a very humbling experience. Here I am thinking… somehow, I am important in some scheme of things – but actually I’m just a tiny little entity in a very, very big, absolutely enormous universe.
See, so stop taking yourself so very, very absolutely seriously china.
So what if they make a mockery out of Christ’s sacrifice? So what if they make people despise the God they portray? So what if they steal food from children and give millions to parasite “pastors”? So what if they are racist pigs without an ounce of compassion? They have never known real suffering – so how could any of them understand that it means to suffer with?
Leave it.
I think you’ve more immediate and pressing problems my son – The freeze ceiling is dropping.
I can see the thin cold strands of ice slowly dropping down in the stratosphere towards me. That means it is probably going to snow up here tonight and I don’t relish the idea of sleeping alone on a mountain peak in what could possibly be a blizzard.
I start packing my kit, break my tent. Strap on all my climbing equipment. I borrowed it all from Rachel’s dad – they do a lot of serious rock climbing.
I start the long journey down. Climbing cautiously. The mountaineering club actually don’t want me on their mountain. They reckon nobody is allowed to climb this route alone. Even though I have everything I need. Including snow gear, detailed route maps and a compass. But ja, they still gave me grief.
Of course, I just told them I’d walk a kay down the road, jump over the fence and then they wouldn’t even know I was on their mountain. This way they actually know exactly where I am. That caused a lekker reaction.
Poor Celeste.
I hate what these supposed Christians do to their kids. She nearly dies and she can’t even go home because her parents are freaked out that she got kicked out of YWAM. For a nervous breakdown and a para-suicide attempt. Like she’s something bad because she was so frightened of God’s rejection. Fuck, I despise what they did to her. And then there are Rachel’s parents. They don’t even go to church and shit. And they took her in.
Like a daughter.
How does that work?
I’m not supposed to get angry about this because The Leadership are apparently God’s anointed. And if I say anything about what hurt they cause – I’m in the wrong with God. Yet, I caught Nic Wit lying outright to me about her.
How can The Eldership lie to the ones they are supposed to lead? And how can they lie about hearing it directly from the Holy Spirit???
I reckon the worst kind of evil is the one that manipulates people’s beliefs to their detriment and to the detriment of others using psychological hijacking via the Bible or their own supposed, exclusive relationship with God. That what I think.
Watch it! You are already in trouble.
Damn, it’s steep. Looks like getting up was easier than it is going to be getting down.
Help guide my feet Lord. Don’t let me slip and fall.

I reach the foot of the mountain the next day by the time the small storm has passed and report to the mountaineering club in bright sunshine. They are still unhappy about my climb. I survived it – so what’s the problem? Outside, I reach the dirt road I hiked in on – to get here. It’s a thin rural road that winds up into the rich verdant hills of rural Zululand.
Very beautiful.
I decide to organise some zol and start hiking down the road towards what appears in the distance – to be a spaza. As I get nearer I see a group of men playing dice and drinking beer outside what I see is now definitely a spaza. Resplendent with an omnipresent and generally battered Coke-Cola sign. I drop my rucksack outside the informal shop and greet the group in Zulu. Lots of teeth and a chorus tells me that they see me too. We are all well.
One man is not part of the dice game so I approach him and ask him if knows where I can score nchangu. He points to a man sitting quite far down the road and tell me to speak to him. I thank him, greet the men, grab my kit and start towards him.
His name is Simon and I offer to trade him some tinned food for zol. He tells me to wait there and disappears into the bundu nearby. I have to trade with food because I have also almost run out of the monthly allowance I am given by the church to be a missionary. And I don’t think that will continue now that I have been kicked out. This means that I have to work on an itinerary.
The next step sort of jol.
While he is gone I try think about it.
There is nothing for me in Stellenbosch now. How am I going to explain back home how angry I feel towards the people that sanctioned me being there in the first place? I get sent out as a missionary to kids only to find the real problem is my bosses and most of the ones who sent me.
I only know how to be three things. A skollie, a soldier and a children’s missionary. I don’t relish the idea of jail again, Angola is still at war and I’ll never be able to fight them for the kids alone. So, I reckon it must be back to Angola. Scum like me are born to be in wars. But how the hell can I do that after being a failed missionary to children? Ja, but what the fuck else am I going to do? What else am I good for?
According to them, not even God wants me.
Simon arrives back with a shopping bag stuffed with Durban Poison. I cannot believe my eyes. I warn him that I only have a tin of bully beef and two cans of peas to trade with. He just grins and tells me it’s cool. He gives me the zol and I give him the chow.
I’m not in a hurry so I ask him if he wants to smoke a spliff with me. Ja, definitely.
Cool, so I roll a number.
Luckily I have papers to roll with. Zol was finished – but Rizlas I got.
Now, Simon only speaks Zulu and a tiny bit of English and I only speak a smattering of prison Zulu. But we manage to talk. He tells me he is a farmer and asks where I am travelling to. I tell him my heart was sore so I went up the mountain to try and pray. He nods in understanding.
We smoke.
It’s good herb.
Eventually I tell him I have to start hiking to get to the tar road and we greet each other. I stuff the zol into my loaded rucksack with some difficulty.
It’s a lot.

About five kays later it starts becoming late afternoon and looks set for a spectacular sunset. I pick a likely deserted place and begin pitching my tent. That done – I set up my temporary camp and stock up on firewood for the night. Then I start rolling spiffs so I don’t have to sukkel trying to roll them in the dark. I make a small fire and that is me – ready for the night.
The sun starts setting gloriously when Simon suddenly pops out the bundu nearby. I am amazed. I greet him again and he comes nearer. Asks me if I am camping there for the night. Yes. He explains that he has come to tell me I can’t sleep here – it is too dangerous. I show him my weapons, a panga and a very good bush-knife. He struggles to explain it in a way that I can understand but eventually I gather that he is telling me I cannot sleep here in the bundu because of evil spirits that roam the dark at night. Now, part of me thinks this is ridiculous. But, I cannot treat as ridiculous – a man who has walked as far as I have to come and warn me of what he perceives as danger to my person. And I remember the Black Thing in Angola only too well.
So I ask Simon what I must do. He invites me to come with him. I break my little camp and he puts out the fire for me. I strap back in and follow him into the darkening bundu. We go down a little trail for all of about fifty metres when all of a sudden we pop out the bundu ourselves and I find myself in a small kraal of five huts. The bundu is so dense I didn’t even hear human voices from my camp!
Simon helps me get out of my kit and with a couple of sharp orders, some kids come and grab it all and carry it off to one of the huts. He assures me stridently that everything of mine will be safe. Nobody will touch a thing.
With that, he takes me to a hut with a closed door.
Inside, I find it crammed with people. Like sardines. A sort of way is made for me and I find myself seated next to an ancient looking old fellow who my friend tells me is the induna of that kraal.
The crowd in the room are all drinking quart beers. I am given one and invited to drink it. No encouragement needed.
It’s been a long, hot day on the road.
About two beers later and the lizard needs to be bled. My friend helps me get back out of the hut. I disappear into the bushes nearby, water the flora copiously and while busy – see a bunch of women and children dragging stuff out of one of the huts. I pay it no heed and get back to drinking with the induna and nodding idiotically at his loud incoherent one-way conversation with me. It seems like I am nodding in all the right places because now he’s got his arm around my shoulder and seems to be telling the others something about me that they are slapping knees and approving of noisily.
I ask Simon if it would be okay to light a spliff.
Of course.
So I get out one of the ones I swaaied and toke it. Me, Simon and the old bugger get stoned.
A short while and a beer later and I am definitely off the road.
Then my friend tells me to come with him. He leads me from the noisy hut to the other one I saw the women busy with. Inside, I find that the entire shelter has been cleared out. There is a bed, which has been made up with clean sheets, blankets and a pillow. A small table is set with knife, fork and a big plate of steaming food. A quart of sweating beer and a glass stand to attention above it.
Simon tells me to enjoy my meal and come back to the party hut if I want to when I’m finished.
I eat like I haven’t in days. And it’s really good food.
Thank you Jesus.
I finish the whole lot and weave my way back to the party hut belching like thunder. Good chow!
Back inside things slowly get fuzzier until Simon helps me outside for another marathon pee. Then I go to my hut, climb into my bed and sleep.

Morning is still pink and mostly purple when Simon comes and wakes me up. My friend tells me it’s safe to go now.
He leads me back up to the road, we greet each other warmly and I continue on my way.
Somehow, the terrible ache in my spirit, which I went up the mountain to inspect – is no longer as terrible as it was…

Some days later and my plans for hitchhiking to Angola go out the window.
I am at a truck stop on the outskirts of Kimberly. I’ve been back to Maritzburg, dropped off all Rachel’s dad’s mountaineering gear, kissed them goodbye and then on to Joburg to pick up a rudimentary bush kit. Now I am going to branch off and head towards South West Africa. Always being super vigilant to the point of downright paranoia – I am listening to the truckers in the bathrooms and hear three coloured ouens discussing two white teenage chicks I have just seen walking towards the road with bags on my way in. Now these okes don’t realise it but I speak fluent skollietaal and I understand every word they are saying. They reckon they look like runaways and gintus. The plan is to pick them up, keep them in the truck and after gang raping them that night, dump them next to the road.
I think what the fuck?
But I say nothing, show nothing and leave quickly. I manage to reach the girls as they are settling down to hike and say hi. They eye me suspiciously but warm a little when I share my coke and the half loaf of bread and chips I bought for breakfast. We obviously discuss where we are coming from and where we are going to, threading mutual truth and lies together. I find out that they are runaways from a girl’s reformatory and on the way to Cape Town to join an escort agency.
Those truckers seem to be almost fucking clairvoyant!!
I think about it and then tell them what I just heard. I also tell them that I’ll join them on the road and shepherd them to Cape Town if they want. I can see they don’t have money. The one is carrying a bottle of water they obviously filled in the bathrooms at the truck station. And they wolfed my bread and chips down.
To me it’s a decision that I think is rational and fair. What other choices could I make on their behalf? Phone the cops and send them back to institutionalization I knew was a horrorshow that I was pretty fucking sure hadn’t changed much since I left six years ago. They were probably local Tempe Tigers and their school was a fucking nightmare that should have revealed the blot of how kids get treated in those institutions – but nothing ever happened.

Three kinders walloped from Tempe back when I was in Die Bult. My friend Robert’s sister was there. The boere caught them and in the juvenile trial that was supposed to send them back for running away the boere made an astonishing statement. The girls had laid charges against the principal. Apparently The Administration had mostly two types of severe punishment. The aapkas – or monkey box and corporal punishment. The aapkas was a small metal box that the girls couldn’t sit or stand in properly and they were imprisoned in it for hours.
I did my National Service training in Kimberly and the weather there is never temperate. It is either bitterly cold to the point of ice freezing in buckets or so swelteringly hot that as soldiers we had to go on compulsory heat strikes.
With corporal punishment the principal took them into his closed, locked study, made them strip off their panties and put on a special unwashed bloomer that he had. Then they had the choice of being beaten with a cane or molested. Those who had their period he just beat. He was taken to court but in the trial the girls contradicted each other and lied – defence mechanisms designed to protect themselves from each other and the adults who had abused them all their lives no doubt. The magistrate tossed the case out. The piece of filth was immediately reinstated as headmaster and it just went on.

So, a choice to send these wanabe gintus back to a hell like that is not one I am about to make lightly.
Those idiots in YWAM would have loved this one as a case study when I crossed them over counselling teenagers. Nearly all had a heart attack when I told them that the first question I would ask two kids in a youth group, who had come to me because they were sleeping together would be to ask them: What contraceptive are you using? Later after a good lecture on that subject we could get round to the more delicate subject of how much they were pissing off the Apostle Paul by fucking like rabbits before marriage. The last thing I would want as a youth pastor is an unwanted pregnancy or STD in my circle of kids. I also knew for two kids to even admit such a thing to a counsellor would take incredible courage and that of all things must not be crushed or trampled upon.
I’ve seen the filthy hypocrisy of how teenage pregnancies both real and imagined were treated in a church – all very close and at first hand. A Dutchman, and one of my bosses. And he split up the church I came from because of the real baby and took all the other Dutchmen back into racism and materialism and like typical planks, they now have the audacity to call themselves the church of Brotherly Love. Ja, Dutchmen are all brothers in Christ until you are an Afrikaans speaking hotnot or kaffir. What would those self loving hypocrites have to offer these two fools when they can’t even love their own children properly, much less the dirt poor kaffir and hotnot children in their own town?
And why should I be careful of thinking this??? It is the truth – look at this shit!
I also reckon that if these wallopers want to have consenting sex in a safe environment with strangers for money – then that is their very bad choice. But what the hell else can they do to survive? What safer chances do these girls have? I can’t take them anywhere. I’m a clandestine soldier on my way to fight in a stranger’s war. What can I give them?
Uncaring, absent or indifferent parents … hypocrisy, arrogance, materialism and the disgusting self-obsession of the so-called charismatic church …. brutal and degrading institutions … Or to be used as human toilets by filthy predatory men?
Okay, all bad. But one thing they sure as fuck don’t need, on top of all that, is … a gang rape.

To test their trust of me I ask them if they want to smoke a spliff. They reckon that would be awesome. Almost at the same time, the men I heard talking in the toilets – stop their truck alongside us. Obviously finished chowing and servicing it or whatever. The girls run up and the truck crew tell them excitedly that they can jump in. The kinders tune the gang of would-be rapists that they are travelling with me, but naturally the crew refuses to give us all a lift.
Only them.
I probably look like too much of a problem.
I am.
And I’m armed with a razor sharp commando knife nobody knows about. The idiots make a barely intelligent choice on behalf of their safety, the truck pulls away sulkily and we go smoke a spliff in the bush.
The kinders are very wary of me, something so utterly dof in light of their narrow escape, that I deliberately warn them of why they should be frightened of strangers by showing them my other knives. Their eyes widen, but it somehow helps them realise I’m kosher and they thank me all the same. We finish the spliff and I go buy them some more breakfast because they are ravenous.
We hike on.
Poor little fucking idiots.
Ironcially, this is exactly what I was sent out by the church to save and I have nowhere to take them.
I have nowhere to go myself … except run from my own Rejection into battle … and hide in a pointless war and stay sharp or die.

We have reached a small deserted Karoo dorpie on the N1 to Cape Town and run out of water. The three of us are struggling to get lifts and feeding us all has been very heavy on my very meagre pocket. It’s decided that the girls will hike while I fetch some drinking water in an empty two litre cooldrink bottle. These little towns all have a north and a south entrance and we have walked from being dropped at the north to the southern one to continue hitchhiking. It’s about five hundred metres to the first house.
I reach it, and after looking over the fence – see that there is a tap in the garden. The thought crosses my mind that I should just slip in and fill up my bottle. I mean no malice – just a bottle of water. However, I decide to ask – and go knock at the front door.
Eventually it opens and I see an elderly white woman with a drawn pinched face, burned by the sun and … lined with years of bitterness.
She has a shotgun pointed at me.
I apologise in shock and ask her if she minds me filling my water bottle.
She growls at me in cold Afrikaans: Verlaat onmidellik my perseel, ek het reeds die polisie gebel…

Copyright (C) Al Lovejoy, 2005

Just popped in quickly to clarify your question and settle all doubts. We gave you the email password to verify it expired and I can pinpoint the exact date that Tash posted this other letter, the one I call the Timothy document because “non-s word people” can only lie about . Actually the Timothy men document. This person above here with his satanic rubbish says he knew the weekend before the attack. Okay, that puts his “off timing” at earliest:

Friday 10 October 2008

This “Timothy Men” letter was posted Friday 21 August 2008 – exactly SEVEN WEEKS before this occult obsessed person with his “Friend” letter above here.

I knew it was coming just after Robbie was born and in all honestly I should have been more dilligent in cleaning up quicker and without copping out to disobedience, he just seemed and was in fact more important at the time. That’s why it took so long. I also has a disturbing dream where I was pulling out Google cache pages from my monitor, tearing them up and found myself looking at a page dated May 2008 and I knew in the dream I had to find them all and finish the job because I didn’t know when the webpider was coming…and I had to finish on time — weird I know, but sometimes my dreams seem significant to me.

Our grandfather had two dreams about me just after I started publically fighting about money and children in the church and he knew absolutely nothing about it – at the age of ninety, the internet has no meaning to him. It came at a time when self-doubt and the legal and other threats and attempted spiritual abuse were wearing me down. They attacked my girlfriend (wife) and harrassed her in public for goodness sakes! Our grandfather knows nothing about these things, so to me it was a message to keep going.

In the first dream, he saw me helping him dip all his cattle to get the ticks and parasites off them.

In the second dream his sheep were sick and I was helping him to give them medicine and they were getting better…

These things would only be meaningless if they were placebos for my own need of psychological validation somehow. I don’t need it, he is sleeping off his bottle and what happens behind my lens is a feeling I cannot describe. It put me off writing prose as an outlet for my creativity!! No, I don’t need kudos, recognition or disciples – I have said so … but this is serious stuff, very serious stuff.

Besides, I cannot be bribed or threatened to shut up and we now have what I was fighting for: a permanent children’s home for orphans in Stellenbosch and run and funded by the church of Stellenbosch.

Thank you Father. Amen.

So here is the Timothy letter again, and I’m going to post one of my more pertinent short stories after it too … so I’m offline until much further notice and until we do meet again Hugo, and I truly hope we do – all the very, very best in the New Year in all your globetrotting, business ventures and of course all the wild and sometimes intelligent debating right here…

THE TIMOTHY MEN DOCUMENT

Some one named Corne you told me: “Mr Lovejoy – You have become slanderous to an extent of discrediting yourself and all that follow the heresy that you believe in and teach.

Luk 17:1 And he said to his disciples, It is necessary for causes of trouble to come about, but unhappy is he by whom they come.
Luk 17:2 It would be well for him if a great stone was put round his neck and he was dropped into the sea, before he made trouble for any of these little ones.”

Yet, you could not Corne…

However, someone powerful, who deals directly with the money, the programs … the Multimedia Christ Product – contacted me and eventually asked me a simple question. One that no Christian leader has yet thought to ask me in response. The stock reaction is either meaningless Third Party threats like Corne’s or silent denial.

Q: What is my solution?

The problem … is when truth is brokered for a price … Someone innocent dies between two thieves for blasphemy… and more than a problem – it is the entrenched and celebrated Institution.

It is not Him.

If Truth be told, will it eventually be a story of a rich white church who stops being self-obsessed with money and the self gratifying trappings of Christianity and starts actually and personally rescuing millions of black children and bringing them in, many who are sick and all who have nothing – so that ten years from now … the concept of white’s-only Christian family is relegated to a part of SA church history we remind our children of like the Boogeyman – lest they never forget … that we once in our blindness tore our Lord’s skin off with senseless racism and in our greed we tried to sell Him into crucifixion for the media dollar – until we realised, that instead of truth and reconciliation, our Father is only interested in repentance and restitution to the fatherless victims … ???

Or … ignore what I’m pointing out so bluntly because it is to big, horrifying and uncomfortable to the pocket and move on to a bigger, feel-good back-slapping superhug in a greater oligarchic sports monument, with even denser upbeat media coverage of the lovely mostly white and black empowernment crowd and newer, ubercooler, ticket selling gospel idols?

I liken the current Charismatic “leadership” of this country with the same distaste and blunt nausea as the SABC of the eighties. I remember once we won some test, against some rebel team who played in spite of the political sanctions against us – and on the news that night nineteen minutes of primetime was dedicated to the match, two and half covered troops shooting just under twenty kids in the townships.

Why didn’t Buchan hold it in the middle of Alex or Kayelitsha to be different to them?

Everyone can understand the first part. Angus came to the Bos. Hooked up with Shofar Publishing, also a media publishing company with a non-profit church front, our own little assimilation cult – Shofar Christian Church. Free talent in the front, profit out the back …. Angus and God se Rykste Seun, Fred May bought sacks and sacks of potatoes, stamped them with venue details and sent the starstruck Shofarians out to go dish those tatoes out as marketing gimmicks to people in shops and on the street who looked like they could afford tickets to come to the show. They eventually came into our shop and when my wife told them to leave the clients and take the potatoes down to the squatters under the railway bridge to eat, there are at least thirty hungry children down there – the Shofarians got furious and left. Same response as when they came begging for money so that they could go on “missions” to Mozambuiqe.

Ja, there are always consequences in the application of several glaring truths. Here is the biggest truth of all – I am led to believe … Angus Buchan … in a poor developing nation, where the distance between the minority who have everything and still want more “Christians” and the have-nothing and no-belief-in-anything fatherless children is almost the widest chasm in the world – and Angus pays other farmers not to plant crops so he can have a mega tent meeting for rich mostly white Christians.

He paid other farmers not to plant crops so he could sell cut down trees and plastic not one child in South Africa can eat. That is the simple truth in application.

Solution:

1. Bring back the Lord’s Supper immediately.

2. Open a free crèche in every church.

3. Place the babies abandoned in the crèches with those couples who have clean financial houses and are ready for them in the church. Their house church is their support system.

Keep on doing it until no more babies are left in the crèches and the churches are full. Just pray and make a decision.

The Lord’s Supper is our basic currency in a world that has forgotten what is priceless and Who loves us equally. it is the one thing that a stinking rich man can bring to worship and remember Christ and share with the poorest of the poor on the same terms. It is Jesus in John’s Revelation saying I stand at the door and knock – and when He says come in and sup, he is talking about making breakfast for Peter, feeding him AND giving him a catch of fish that Peter has the choice over. Turn into cash or the Lord’s Supper and feed his lambs.

It was such an integral part of the early church public worship that Paul seems to speak from the assumption that the Corinthians had no clue really why they were doing it – thereby turning something Holy into a drunken cliquey party.

A key is a key, it opens a door. In this instance to the Kingdom of God in all its Glory – it is not simply just a cool idea from Al Lovejoy, what people think of my ideas is utterly immaterial to me – it is Jesus SYSTEMIC system, that deobjectifies people, generates syncretism and people are measured by His merit as opposed to the appearance of material capital. He commanded us to do it often. When believers who have money are afforded the opportunity to provide a simple plate of food and eat it before the Father with those who barely have none and no one to believe in, for no other reason than to celebrate His love, grace and forgiveness to all men – things start happening like three thousand people are found by Christ in a day through the gospel and the ACTS of Pentecost return with the gifts. Real life long faith emerges and those who are too good or too hypocritical will be revealed and slink away. Something special will happen, really special.

Test Him.

It was what the prophet Malachi was talking about when he issued that warning, the warning which went unheeded and resulted in necklacings and murder in our streets again and which is so misused for MONEY in the “faith” movement – it is the real tithe of Israel, the one that is eaten in the Temple annually at Passover, the Lord’s supper that has somehow been sold for 10% cash to support these strings of parasite’s and their multimedia cash business of the gospel instead of a storehouse to feed His lambs.

The church has way too many Senior Parasites and almost no financially stable Timothy men capable of using ALL their resources for the Kingdom and standing in as “father’s” in the church.

I’ve known wealth and power … was a millionaire drug lord at 36 and connected worldwide from politicians to terrorists but when I came to my senses, I walked away and divested myself of everything. Everything, right down to the very clothes I bought with drug money and stark naked started the long business of rebuilding my business affairs from scratch – the way my Father would expect of a trusted son and a son who trusts my Father so much – I never need to chase money again.

The biggest lie of the “cash tithe”, other than starving the church spiritually to almost the point of death – is that it suggests that Jesus, who gave us His life to us only expects a 10% cash stipend from our disposable income. The great Commission was issued to Peter on the beach … feed, feed, feed. Morne Bosch laughed in my face when I told him this, but he is a man for whom the gospel is really first and foremost a source of income all the way from non profit tithes …. to the more under cover commercial Shofar Publishing … real South Africans coming to meetings with food instead of star stuck Maties with study money to support his and all the rest of the Shofar leader’s lavish lifestyles, would mean he would have to become master of his own house by his own means first, like a true Timothy man – so he has something after he has worked to share with the Body like a repentant thief.

To start off with, let’s begin with the greatest in the Kingdom and the most vulnerable member of our society – the chid. To me, Madiba was right – there are three stations, which all men may try to choose reaching in life – that of a son, a husband and a father.

The reason why we as men are told to love our wives and not vex our children is because together, with them, we make Three and complete the Mystery … and the two became one flesh. We are created in His likeness and are destined to be husbands and shepherds of all the mothers and lambs in the Father’s Kingdom; it is the anointing of which Jesus testified in the synagogue and has become our given responsibility. There is no other anointing.

This simple “unit” of human relationship is like fire, holy fire. This is the fire of revival. A fire needs fuel, oxygen and heat to exist – a church needs mothers, fathers and the most important and vulnerable among us – children to love and care for. This is life begetting life. When this is in a state of balance, the Spirit is able to move more freely among us and lead us into deeper truth – because the Father’s heart is always towards His children and it is not his will that any of these little one’s should perish.

This basic of basic “units” of human relationship, and one we all share, no matter how orphaned from that our own personal experience may have been – is what we as leaders of the church must nurture and where necessary, bring back to a state of balance. Watch over the flocks and feed the sheep. Recreate, repair and nurture families by all means, including and most importantly – because of the orphans of our recent politico-religious civil war and the advent of AIDS survivors in dead families – EXTENSION. Our understanding of Eph 1 is that we are all adopted orphans in our Father’s family and the function of the bride of Christ is that of a mother to these real lost lambs.

So … using the same analogy of a fire being put out by removing either heat, oxygen or the fuel – think of the reverse mirror image and removal of the father, the single mother and eventually leaving nothing but the fatherless child in a fractured family unit, and without any spiritual sanctuary as the source of spiritual death and crime blazing across our country.

Our Lord found Himself very much in a similar position to us, where the letter of the covenant had taken on a rigid and controlling outward form to the almost complete detriment of the spirit of mercy and grace co-existent in that same covenant by faith. And it had found real commercial value. He was surrounded by a tangle of conflicting and dangerous politics, and like ourselves … the “detritus” at the bottom of the gulf between the very few who have everything materially, yet live in utter denial of this and those who do not, yet are enslaved to sustain that materialism creating social casualties … fatherless children.

Our Israeli friends learnt this hard lesson after WWII, when they had a vast population of very young survivors in ratio to those old enough to stand in as primary caregivers and adult role models. The lesson in church building we can learn from the Israelis is that every man is a father to every child in the church and every child belongs to the mothers. I will discuss our friend’s failures and partial triumphs later in rebuilding their nation; suffice to say – this preamble was intended to identify the primary basic social unit we are dealing with as Christians.

The family.

Remembering that our focus is on supporting and maintaining this basic ‘unit’, not simply our own but with those whom we would call brothers. That means the kids on tik in the squatter camp affect yours! It is what our ‘business’ is about as our Father’s children and keepers of his Kingdom called to serve the greatest as we wash our brother’s feet – And keeping this as a continual unspoken focus in any and all our endeavours, frees us up to be ourselves in our gifts and callings as we work to do so … with the cement of course being love.

Remember, no matter how massive a corporation or tangled its operations, its core business can always be reduced to something extraordinarily simple.

So the ideal … a church, by definition, must be in all her endeavours dedicated to building, supporting and nurturing family units – to care for the greatest in our Father’s kingdom, and by all means possible extend them. And we do this consciously aware that without grace, we become evil fathers, yet in this grace we work out our salvation with fear and trembling and watch over each others lives. As brother’s in one greater Family, we bind ourselves together by remembering Him in the fashion he commanded us to – and celebrate Him when we gather publicly with the Lord’s Supper.

The solutions Jesus presented us with as humanity, could be understood by the most illiterate and poor, yet also the educated and rich. This simple public gathering together as families, and the only neutral meeting place of cultures, rich, poor, enemies and friends and people who believe and adhere to His teachings to celebrate and feed one another’s families a sacred meal in His name and thank our Father often for each other in forgiveness and that Day’s bread – this is the foundation, the corner stone which the builders have rejected – and all He asks from us as our first act of faith. Any normalising, relational system dedicated to returning balance to the Body has to achieve this simple shift and re-focus of who we are and what we do – throughout every aspect of the church. Anything that draws attention away from this work we have been given, for any reason – is out of our Father’s will.

If we understand our core and primary business – the legacy to overcome and the embedded points of migration become clearer, the smoke is easier to see through and thus it is easier to introduce the concept of refocusing effort to the stakeholders, without engendering anxiety. Above all it remains a simple measuring rod against which all things in our midst are tested and the wire frame around which we can design our children’s common future.

One thing to remember, is that we are dealing in every aspect with human beings and a system which becomes effective eventually is only going to be one which serves to bring change – not one which demands service, that, in the final analysis – always breaks down.

I might add … when a person comes back from far, far away and you come back to the place you were, yet find it worse than you left … from exactly the same corruption that caused you to leave and swear never to come back in the first place – you pull out a sword and use the blunt edge to challenge anyone to a fight over the core issue of that corruption. Here, it happens to be about heavenly wealth that has been given to all mankind, yet is now up for sale, miracle gimmicks, for man made money, to the elite few, at the top of a terrible pyramid – and it made Christ violently angry when he confronted the same spirit of commercial religion, because it is the abomination which brings desolation … while it in turn screams louder that it brings the gospel … …. …. no matter how innocuous it is portrayed … or in God’s “best interests” it seems.

The only place you will see the light of our Father’s love is in the eyes of your brother, And you are commanded to love and break bread with him.

Those who deny it or get up to fight you are not your brothers, the men who ask for pause and create space to reason with you and listen instead – are.

As system is only as resilient as it’s weakest component – and in the analysis above, it happens to be us fathers. Without us fathers, in our own families and in the Body – the trinity of our reflection of God breaks, which makes us men – the weakest link.

The church is family; the family is the church and nothing else.

Usury.

Two men are seated at a table … at a Universal micro-economic level – what tangible object can those two men exchange in terms of absolute and real value, which allows for the poorer man to give more than the richer man … although the inherent value of that object is identical and has been from the time the same object was in the hand of our Lord?.

A plate of food, and that and that alone is the basic unit of currency in Our Business.

What happens when money in any form is placed between them instead? Any scenario ….

Usury.

One of those men owes the other something. And the money belongs to neither.

A Timothy man does not live by credit. In any form. His Father has already given him everything. A Timothy man owns everything he possesses as a steward, yet has relinquished legal control over any of it. A Timothy man understands that all the money under his control belongs to Caesar, and to that institution he will pay what he owes but the only decisions he will pray for when using it, will be for single mothers and fatherless children in the greater Family he was adopted into by faith – first. A Timothy man is a tentmaker and trader, he generates more than he consumes, so that he may have something to give. A Timothy man is driven to support the weak. A Timothy man measures all things by a different currency. A Timothy man does not live by credit – he lives by faith.

A Timothy man’s business is to break bread.

Usury.

Money … how can we trust God to bring healing to the Body with something that belongs to man and corrupts him? How do you make a poor man feel rich? How can we give that which is priceless to a world in which we are in debt through loans, credit and usury. Count honestly … and what exactly do you own?

Because once you realise the debt must be paid and no more made – the real question becomes: What do you really want to own?

This is not a prophecy; it is pure analysis – the day that churches all over South Africa gather once a week, and the onus is upon each and every faithful believer and member of that church to provide two plates of food through a buffet or organised collection for the ingredients – And invite one stranger to that celebration of The Lord’s Supper – will be the dawn of everything our Father wants for us. It will only come through Timothy men.

Test Him.

In feeding the multitude, Jesus was telling us that 100% of a single loaf, once divided equally – feeds more than the sum of its parts until baskets of leftovers … I don’t think Keynesian Macro Economic principles were invited to that party – Capice?

I write this as to brothers and sisters and with Our Father listening. Validation I have in my Father’s love, and I hope this reaches the right ears, who then take it to Him like I have and allow it to become heart and a life of faith.

I, unfortunately … am called to other creative engagements and lovelier responsibilities beyond this discussion and consider any merit I have brought it complete.

Bless you…

Al

Who’s Ash? From the letter above, he sounds like an interesting guy, I suspect I’d enjoy having a chat with him. But anyway…

I’m not completely sure what you expected me to do with your email account, my apologies for not digging into it in detail. If anyone would like me to check something specific, I’d be happy to do so, but I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to piece together everything I could/should verify. (I have enough trouble trying to piece that kind of thing together for computers at work – an interesting challenge, but quite energy-sapping , and doesn’t really energise me in the way that some human interactions can these days.) As I mentioned, I did change the password, because I’m so concerned about abuse by unknown and untrusted third parties. Let me know if either of you need the new password…

Until our paths cross again, which they might, all the best to you, Natasha and your baby, may you build a wonderful family,

Hugo
(who hopes to some day have the same opportunity. )

May you know our Father’s love richly.
Al Lovejoy

Once again thank you for the conversation, I will most certainly make plans to come and break bread with you…soon!

I’m quite up for exploring more about the Early Church and Pentecost, it’s one of my favourite topics…If you must know now already…I do not attend a local church. I haven’t done so regularly for two years now…for me, even these letters are part of what I call “living church and being church”

The reason I posed the question about salvation and other religions is exactly the reason you have mentioned…What of the fate of other people…who sincerely follow what they sincerely believe and are probably of the opinion that it is right or even more right than what we believe? The problem that is obviously difficult to get around is the Bible and Jesus…and Jesus is one thing I firmly believe in…yet, as Christians we say that the Disciples of Christ will be known by their fruit. I cannot help but look at some Buddhists or people of other eastern religions and notice how some of their followers seem to mirror way better than most Christians what we call “the fruit of the Spirit” …if it is only through the Spirit that we are able to live the “Spirit life” then how is it that they do this? Even if these people are damned as many preach, there must be at least something that we can learn from them…something we have missed?

Another reason I posed the question is that…the sort of formulaic responses church’s ask for with sinner’s prayers and sticking your hand up doesn’t really appeal to me…it’s sort of a once off thing and voila! You’re saved!? Is salvation not meant to be somewhat of a lived theology? Yet these “blind” people have only bits of the truth and broken theology…but their faith in it…and the way it permeates their lives is remarkable. ..

I’ve got some other dodge questions…like, can religion be redeemed? Is it something to be redeemed? Can someone sincerely seek Christ from within another religion…I guess this brings it down to what exactly is religion? I think we’ve too much equated religion with the faith itself (I think you said this)…This is why when people ask me why I don’t attend a church, I ask them which church they mean…

I’ve been doing some more meditating on the gospels; the Jesus portrayed by many today doesn’t always match up to the one I read about in the Bible. I cannot judge because often I’m guilty too…thank God for his grace…

As for the Shofar people…my heart is quite sad for the many people who are so easily led astray by these huge guns…I have a personal story which you may find quite funny…not of Shofar, but something similar in the South…I play keyboards as a hobby, anyhow…through some connection with a gig or so, this guy calls me up from the church and says…he senses God has told him I’m the right guy…I must say I get extremely sceptical when people speak on behalf of God and sound so confident about it…he never even met me before…so I agreed to spend the day…I wasn’t convinced…God hadn’t told me anything…so he decided to better the deal for me with a promise of “sorting me out financially” …R500(standard gig price) a service and for practices…this was the first time I heard this sort of thing…I’ve no issue with people being paid if that is the occupation, but I’ve never heard of it being done in such a crazy way…apparently a week later my friend also got called and this time he was the person God had laid on this guys heart…wow, God changes quick hey? I enjoy offering my services…freely too, and I just felt it wasn’t right to do that because I have huge issues still (personal thing) with the money idea…I’ve just been friends with some pastors for too long…and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. If I wanted a job, I’d go play at a Jazz club (not that I’m that good…I’m not) or something…

Thanks again, Ash
PS: Will come and visit soon…I want to.

I have to fight for them like I do Hugo, from where I am watching … no one else is. And my Father loves them all as much as me.

I will repost that document in this thread because in one respect, this S word incident – affects the entire church and although certain of my brothers and sisters in Christ might not like my tone, they should be asking themselves why they don’t listen. I don’t speak on my behalf, I speak to my Father. I really and truly believe in our Father’s unchanging love and I trust Him, that He guides me when I speak to Him.

Al