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Posts Tagged ‘Christian’

Jason Upton – I’m so Disappointed

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Jason Upton - Trusting the Angels

Jason Upton - Trusting The Angels

My wife and I went to a Jason Upton concert several years ago.  We had a great time.  As a spirit filled worship leader myself, it was wonderful to see someone, on a much larger scale, operate and flow in a prophetic worship style. He has a great voice, a great platform, a great musical style. We left thinking what an awesome time we had and that we could possibly be able to follow Jason’s music with enthusiasm into the future.

But, unfortunately I was wrong. It appears as if he’s fallen head over heals into pseudo-christian spirituality. This is the same red-herring gospel that we’re hearing from the likes of Joyner, Bentley, NAR, and a ton of others, where the focus is a “spiritual Experience” rather than an authentic worship to God. It’s really narcissism in a Christian shaped wrapper.

I came across this album (and sadly there are others just like it) called “Trusting the Angels”. The whole point of the CD seems to be that “Angels can take you to higher dimensions”. I find it ironic that the Bible explicitly tells us “DON’T trust angels”, and yet here he is telling the opposite.

So I’m guessing he’s gone the way of all the other “professional prophets” who abandon a true spiritual life for the pursuit of angels, trips to Heaven, soaking, gem stones, angel feathers, talking to dead people, strange smoke, etc.

Where are the truly spiritual musicians anymore? Where are the leaders who form their theology from what they read in the Word rather than torturing it to conform to their new “enlightened”  or “higher dimension” doctrines? Where are the prophets whose prophecies actually come to pass? Where are the healers that actually heal? Where are the Christian meetings and gatherings that actually cause the earth to shake and touch the Father’s heart? Where are the apostles who demand to be taken OFF the Elijah List?

Because of my age I missed the Keith Green era. But I’m still waiting for the next great Christian musician that actually calls a generation to Holiness and strives for uncommon greatness. I was hoping Jason Upton was one of those.  But instead… I see a misguided showman – along the order of Kim Clement.

I’m just disappointed.

Evolution supporters need to define ‘faith’

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Along with ‘faith’ evolutionist need to also define ‘Evolution’. I can’t stand being in the middle of a debate on the topic and some snot nose brat chimes in with “We don’t have to explain where LIFE came from, that’s a job for ‘abiogenesis’ not ‘Evolution’ “. What? Give me a break. Just because you divide up your ‘religion’ into tiny, equally as disillusioned, subsets doesn’t mean that you can just ignore the serious question(s) that easily. So, when I talk about Evolution I’m talking about the WHOLE THING… big bang to present day. It’s all part of one big process, so I treat it as such. (But that’s another post for another day)

When I try to take the devil’s position (by that I mean ‘devil’s advocate’ of course – wink, wink), I would assume that Christians take the creation standpoint out of pure faith in God. So to take that a step further, Christians often look at the scientific data found in biology, astronomy, geology, etc and plug that in to their already existing religious view and call it ‘support for creationism’. I agree. That’s what happens. Any honest person would answer that way.

The problem is that evolutionists follow the exact same process and yet they underhandedly and shamefully deny it at every turn. An evolutionist does the same thing. He/she assumes his/her own beliefs in evolution first – and any data they find is then plugged in (when possible) to support their predetermined belief system. That’s a religious system just like Christianity. Consequently, and ironically, any data that doesn’t support their religion is simply discarded and ignored.

Think about this. Is there anything we could find in science that would make an evolutionist change his/her mind about evolution? At first I thought “No, they are just too blinded by their bias”. But really the answer is “yes and no”. Actually scientists are recanting evolution all the time, the ones who can look at evidence and make logical conclusions anyway. Unfortunately there are also those whose entire careers are based on the religion of evolution. They will never change regardless of what they find. If they did change they would lose their funding, prestige, and perceived credibility.

If something is TRUE, it is TRUE in every case. You can’t say something is ‘mostly true’ and then go ahead with it as if it were complete and proven fact. Really, there are thousands of ‘anomalies’ throughout nature that simply cannot be explained by the evolutionary process. So the logical person is forced to say “Hmmm… if that’s the case, if what I’m seeing can’t happen under the evolution system of belief, evolution can’t actually be the answer – can’t be true”.

Take the moon. Where did it come from? I know there are many ‘theories’, but none of them are actually physically POSSIBLE through natural science. So if evolution can’t explain it, and yet it does exist (it’s obviously observable), then evolution has FAILED. Period. There is no evolutionary process that can account for the moon.

Oh, and a side note, the moon is just the tip of the iceberg. Check out Saturn’s rings (some are braided together – how is that possible?), Why does mercury have a magnetic field when it shouldn’t? Why doesn’t Venus have a magnetic field when it should? Why is the moon a different chemical makeup than the earth? Why are every single one of the planets made up of different element combinations when they should all be the same? I could go on and on (and that’s just talking about space).

The point is, evolution in the broad sense is a faith, even though it is marketed as ‘science’. A true scientists would say “nobody knows how life began, we can’t seem to duplicate it in the lab” – period. No emotional production, no philosophical caveats. It is what it is – a scientific fact. A religious scientist (who’s honest about it) with a ‘faith’ framework would say “I believe life began through abiogenesis. Although we have no actual evidence for that, that is my theory of choice.” Along the same lines, a Christian scientist might say “Science can’t produce life from non-living matter, and we simply don’t know how it happened. Therefore any theories on how that came about are on a ‘faith’ only basis, and I personally believe what is claimed in traditional creation.”

Here’s the bottom line. There’s a long list of things that simply can not exist under the assumption of a purely ‘natural’ evolutionary process. They are mathematically, chemically, and biologically impossible. Therefore we can only come to the logical conclusion that evolution is bust, dis-proven, illogical, irrational, old, dead, so “yesterday”, and just plain dumb. To continue to believe in it is purely a matter of the heart – a “FAITH tradition”.

(Side note: I have yet to hear of any solid scientific evidence AGAINST the creationist perspective. If you have any, please comment below and I’ll check it out.)

Review of Sara Groves

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

I appreciate a broad range of music and I’m really not loyal to any of them particularly.  There are some that I avoid like the plague, but even in those genres there are a few exceptions. I don’t care too much for modern Country or Rap or anything that requires high levels of drugs to get into.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of garbage out there.  Not that it’s always profane or otherwise immoral… just not that good and often way over processed. Perhaps over publicised too.   I get the feeling that artists don’t spend time working on there lyrics and putting together a really good product.  It’s more about getting a CD to market quickly and then getting on to the next thing.  Like McDonalds – “Next!”.

Sara Groves - Tell Me What You Know

Sara Groves - Tell Me What You Know

Fortunately there are some bright spots in this otherwise gloomy atmosphere.  One of them for me is Sara Groves. 

Her Website: www.saragroves.com

I heard one of her songs on the radio a few years back.  The song was “What I thought I wanted”. It captivated me.  This was something you wouldn’t hear on the monopoly mainstream stations, and it was very creative and thought provoking.  The synth patterns and musical compositions were great. So, I immediately went out and bought the album (“The Other Side Of Something” 2004)  just for that one song. Then I discovered, to my pleasant surprise, that the others on the album were just as good. Particularly “The Boxer”, depicting life as a boxing match, and “Esther” about an African missionary. 

To bring this forward,  I recently picked up one of Sara’s later releases “Tell Me What You Know” (2007), and it’s surprisingly just as good. 

I’m not sure how to classify her music.  I want to say a mix between pop and folk, but that doesn’t really do it justice with the keyboards and electronics she uses. It’s definitely not hard ‘guitar drive’ music, but not back-woodsy either. 

To be honest, I get a little bit of criticism from some of my friends when I tell them I really like Sara’s music. Somehow I think she’s not ‘trendy’ enough for them.  You can’t necessarily “rock out” to her beats at a party.   However, she is a true artist, she’s original, not mainstream, and definitely not cookie cutter. Her lyrics are well placed and and thoughtful, and her melodies, although sometimes slightly on the melancholia side, are fantastic.  I would sacrifice ‘trendy’ for quality any day.

My hat is off to you Sara Groves.  Keep making good music.

I couldn’t find any clips on YouTube of my favorite songs, so here’s a promo clip.
Sara Groves Promo