#if you cannot accept the implications here you do not have the ability to reckon with the setting

[lightdancer1]

Any view that Dream of the Endless is not reality, however beautifully written, has to explain how Dream of a Thousand Cats and Overture fit in. The Tumblr Sandman fandom has a massive problem with media illiteracy.

If your view of the Endless goes against what the text point blank tells you it is a headcanon based on inability to understand a comic book, full stop. That’s not “death of the author”, that’s “this is what I want to believe and I alone decide it.”

[aroworlds]

What is your opinion on characters who have no love at all (not just romantic love, but all kinds)? Obviously, they're often demonized (*cough*Voldemort*cough*), but if they aren't could they work without being inherently arophobic? I (an aro) am thinking of writing a story where a character loses their ability to love and Doesn't React Well, but eventually learns to accept it. Should I go through with that? If so, are there particular arophobic tropes to avoid?

I am somewhat biased in that I’ve written an aro character who means “all love” when he says he doesn’t love (and this is explored further and more explicitly in his future stories) so, as someone who has a complicated relationship to love myself, bring them on.

I am so tired of seeing “love” billed as the ultimate indicator of a “good” character while “inability to love” is the ultimate indicator of “evil”–despite the fact that some of the most difficult things I have endured came about from someone else’s love. If relatives bullied me and friends-who-wanted-to-be-boyfriends stalked me despite and because of their ability to love, why should an inability to love mean anything when love just as often motivates cruelty? In my opinion, there is nothing inherently misrepresentative of aro-specs in a character’s inability to love–just the social tangle of ableism and aromisia and amatonormativity from other people in unquestioned assumptions that ability to love makes a protagonist. Why should it?

I talk more about autism-coding than aromisia in the following, but a lot of negative/stereotypical autism-coding is applied to aro-specs (or characters coded as aromantic) because Western society in its unquestioned ableism deems autistics as a handy pre-existing representation of “heartless” and “inhuman”. I’ve also got a second ask on a similar subject that talks about idealised representation in writing a single character versus writing multiple characters of that identity, anon, so please consider this the first half of my response as opposed to the entirety. Everything I say in response to the second ask will be relevant to you as well.

Ableism is an element here: autistic folks are often deemed unable to love, often just from an inability to perform love to allistic (non-autistic) expressive standards. There’s also an unchallenged, subtle antagonism towards survivors of abuse from family members/close partners, in that our possible questioning or dismissal of love can be a sign we haven’t “recovered” enough or are even resisting “recovery”–only when we “learn to love again” do stories award us our happy ending. Love, tied to very narrow experiences/performances (and so often amatonormative ones), is seen as the end goal of being or becoming a non-monstrous human, and while society needs to question romantic love as being the marker of a worthy hero, it also needs to question all forms and expressions of love as being said marker. If love has the capability to be as damaging and violent as anything else, why do we persist under the illusion that it still makes those who can more human than those who can’t?

I do agree with you that, if this loss of ability is sudden, your character shouldn’t react well, unless they live in a world where love just isn’t socially prized. They shouldn’t, because we’re exposed to millions of narratives that say an inability to love (or perform love to appropriate allistic standards) is to make us monstrous, and that’s a hard thing to bear. (How many aros do we see insisting that they still love platonically? That they still have close friends and adore their family? That their love makes them human and undeserving of hate, not any other quality?) I would make sure your character has a sense of these narratives and show their responses to them, because I can tell you that they’re constantly running through my head! They’re going to have a hell of an internalised tangle of what makes a good person to work through, and I’d try as much as possible to show this process as your character’s arc to acceptance. Even kind, considerate friends and relatives, used to love as a marker of being human, may treat your character’s inability as monstrous (especially if they attempt to talk about it). The more you can show this, the more you can challenge this idea of love as universal.

(For example, your character might try even harder to be empathic or supportive or compassionate, absolutely breaking themselves on their service to other people to prove they’re not a hateful person, because there’s no narrative about love not being a requirement for decency. Their character arc might be learning to look after themself, to accept that they don’t need to hurt themself by excessively performing compassion for others to “make up” for their lack of love. Acceptance, for this character, could be allowing themself to withdraw to a better balance of compassion that also acknowledges and values their own needs and limitations.)

I would be cautious in how you show this lack of love in your character, especially if you’re leaning towards indicating it by flat effect, lack of facial expressions, difficulty connecting with others, a tendency to withdrawal or isolation, difficulty with empathy, monotone voice, etc. All of this, of course, is stereotypical autism-coding (in addition to stereotypical aro/ace-coding) because that is the unquestioned, unchallenged ableist narrative we are taught–that we autistics cannot love because we don’t perform it same way allistics do. (I would argue that autistics have the same potential for love as anyone else; we just show it in very different ways.) There really is no reason to assume that any of these behaviours inherently indicate a lack of love besides ableism. You may not be thinking of this at all, but it’s such an unquestioned assumption in Western society that autistic-coded, robotic, distant behaviours are symptomatic of inability to love, so I mention this just in case.

I’d recommend taking the time to ask yourself: how does love impact our behaviours and relationships? Does love drive us to drop a few dollars into a homeless man’s hat? Does love drive us to modify how we speak and behave for the comfort of strangers or acquaintances? Does love make us laugh at a work mate’s not-funny joke or praise a casual friend’s creativity? Because I will posit, as I have for a long time, that love is (and should be) less important in driving us than compassion, and that is vital to recognise in writing a sympathetic character who does not/cannot love.

In antagonists like Voldemort, love isn’t the only thing thrown out the window in determining his villainy. A whole tangle of things like compassion, sympathy, empathy, kindness, consideration, acceptance, an unwillingness to violence, an unwillingness to hatred, tolerance, respect and appreciation are tossed out with it, all unthinkingly bundled together under the one word. In sympathetic characters or protagonists, we need to be aware of all the things usually and erroneously associated with love, because we can’t throw all of them out the window.

I suspect that a carefully-written sympathetic character who doesn’t love will show this inability less through actions and behaviours readable to onlookers and more through internal narrative and responses to other characters’ assumptions that love drives us all. I am looking at writing a character who comes to acknowledge that he doesn’t love but still acts through compassion or respect so, from the outside, it’s difficult to tell the difference. Inside, though, there may be a mess of pain and self-hate at losing something we’re supposed to have to be (according to the stories) a non-monstrous human. This approach, especially for allistic/non-autistic characters, will avoid any unfortunate implications or coding.

When or if other characters find out, you can show how they differently treat the character before knowing they’re unable to love and after, because I suspect a stated inability to love may go far, in the eyes of some characters, to erase the protagonist’s acts of compassion and respect. Conversely, I’m also having side characters tell my protagonist that he does love because he’s helping his brother remake the world, which is another cross he’ll have to bear despite his position that love isn’t something he feels or desires. One approach is to dismiss a character’s humanity even though their behaviour proves it; the other dismisses a character’s right to understand and identify their own feelings and experiences.

If your character is autistic, the approach will be different in terms of how allistics read them and associate behaviours with capability of love, but this will need careful handling. I will also say if a sudden inability to love is related to enduring sexual or familial violence, this too should be handled carefully. Even without either element, there is a good chance that readers who have not questioned the idea that “love is what makes us human” may take a non-magical/futuristic reason for abruptly losing love to be sending a bad message (and even more so if your story does reference either). I’d be sure to communicate the fact that society’s assumptions about love being the marker of a good person make it easy to excuse a whole lot of violence wrought in its name–in other words, break down the assumptions about love for your readers so they can contextualise your character in this light.

(When I start specifically talking about my protagonist’s pondering of love, there’s a lot of reflection on the damaging acts he and his family wrought in love, where love for him drove his people and whether it is something he should desire or value going forwards.)

If you keep all that in mind, though? I think you’ll be okay, because I do not believe that writing a character who doesn’t love is any expression of aromisia if we discuss and discard the assumption that we must love to be human.

I have a desperate want to see characters more like me in fiction, anon. If you hold tight to the ways your character expresses compassion, respect and tolerance, and keep an eye on the risk of autistic-coding (and consequent negative aro-coding) in how their behaviours may express their lack of love, and work to break down your readers’ assumptions about love as primary, I don’t think you’ll have a problem. We definitely need narratives that end with acceptance–that show a character’s realisation that we are not monstrous because we cannot love.

This is an important, valuable message, and in this area I do love without complication or hesitation: I’d love to read it in a story, anon.

[workingontruth]

Part 5 of 7: The Gospel (In Full)...Stage 3; Surrender Me

June 21, 2019

[Forgive Me. Fill Me. SURRENDER ME. Command Us. Fuel Us.]

Can the good news of the Good News get any better than the moment in time when a human soul hears the voice of its Creator, and is enlivened by that Creator to accept his invitation into a rebirth as a citizen of heaven? Indisputably not (Stage 1; Forgive Me).

Still, it is our life in Christ that is intended to bring technicolor substantiation to that eternity-shifting moment when the Holy Spirit took up residence within us (Stage 2; Fill Me). And I’m concerned these days that our default handicap as first-world, self-resourcing people is prevailing over our ability to substantiate our new lives as ones belonging to another primary citizenship.

Going right for the bull’s eye on this third stage of the Gospel (something I’ve not done so well in my two previous entries on topic), and in the words of Dr. Tony Evans which I previously touched upon in Part 2,

“Our problem today is we have Christians who want God to get them to heaven, but who do not want Him to own them on earth.” (Adonai – The Owner of All, a sermon message by Tony Evans aired on The Alternative on or around April 15, 2013)

Last minute insert:

I SO dislike that I feel this concept of surrender has to be met with such directness and seeming negativity. But, acceptingly, to make sure I’m not miscommunicating the point by going soft around the edges, I’ve chosen to do so. Nonetheless, the beauty that comes to us on the other side of surrender is not negative at all, but wholly positive, joyous and freeing! It is because we don’t really know the heart of God that we come to this topic with a spirit of trepediation. Oh, how I wish I could communicate this better.

Here’s another way to look at the surrender of which I am speaking in this entry: I’m asking us to give up our paint-peeling, wood-framed, backyard sandbox and rusty water hose for the seemingly endless, snow-white sandy beaches and aqua warm waters of the Caribbean! C’mon, man! I can honestly say the most cherished words in my vocabulary have become surrender and brokenness. I don’t believe there is any other way to experience a deep and abiding walk with Jesus but through these dual remedies. We don’t have the space or time to go into it beyond that herein, but I had to try to bring a positive notion of this precious stage of the Gospel to the fore. 

Okay, where were we…oh yes…

“Our problem today is we have Christians who want God to get them to heaven, but who do not want Him to own them on earth.” (Adonai – The Owner of All, a sermon message by Tony Evans aired on The Alternative on or around April 15, 2013)

The evidence of this truth is all around us. Look at the way most who call themselves Christians live. In a phrase, we’re long on freedom in Christ, but short on living in compliant obedience as an act of worship to a Holy God (Ps. 103:11, 112:1, Jn. 14:24). We’re long on grace, but short on purity (Phil. 1:27, Col. 1:10). We’re long on self-indulgence and short on self-denial (Luke 9:23, Heb. 12:1, Mark 8:34). We’re long on having the glory of God ride with us down the highway of life, but we’re short on giving up the wheel of control.

This tells me we don’t know God. This tells me we don’t know who we are as Kingdom citizens in our new birth. This tells me we haven’t known the deep joy of an intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit as we walk alongside Him. And this tells me we certainly don’t know surrender. For if we truly knew surrender, it would be the sweet anthem being sung over more of our lives.

Surrender.

I address the absolute necessity of this “white flag” kind of posture before God throughout Set Free (especially in the Introduction, and in chapters 12-17, 25-29, 34)…though I never mention it as a white flag. Annnnnd...hold on just a moment here .... Haha, I just searched the manuscript; I mention surrender 92 times. I had no idea! Certainly, it’s a repetitive theme throughout…but I believe it holds the key to the Christian life. 

The Gospel calls us to the utter surrender of ourselves. How could we not if our theology of salvation is accurate? Is this not the message of Romans 6? Only as we daily reckon upon and cooperate with what God says is true of us as ones put to death and buried in Christ will we ever be able to live into its truth (Romans 6:4-7). 

If God has put our old man to death, then that slain one is incapable of reigning from the grave unless we refuse to cooperate with truth and, instead, choose to live in a lie. 

This whole matter of surrender was supposed to have been settled when we asked God to make us into a new creation by forgiving our sins, disconnecting us from our sin nature, and by recreating in us his resurrected Life. It is only we who give Satan the power to deceive us with the continual lie that we cannot trust God in ongoing surrender. 

Yes, the ongoing Christian life demands our cooperation. 

And because I cannot help myself, here’s a freebie; I just posted the very center of chapters 25-29 referenced above, Chapter 27,  HERE (scroll down the page to find Chapter 27). In it, I address the core of our inability to surrender control of our lives, and all of the evolving circumstances therein. 

I think of the 5 Stages in The Gospel (In Full), this third benchmark is our greatest challenge. But only in its wake can we find the keys to the final two stages. 

Okay, because this is the undercurrent theme of an entire book, I must limit my focus here and point you to Set Free for the extent of my heart on the matter. 

But for the purposes of this 3rd Stage of The Gospel (In Full), let’s simply say ... 

It is only through an unrestrained surrender of every part of our lives that we find the freedom God intends for us.

But this kind of surrender is not easy. It takes the Holy Spirit to help us detect the depth of the talons of self-confidence, pride and self-resourcing that cling to us if we so much as glance in the direction of our old Adam–for Satan’s lies are always ready to dog us if we allow him to turn us inward upon ourselves.

And then, in our quest to find the life of freedom and joy Jesus intends for us as his children, there are the very practical, cultural realities of our heritage–how we’ve grown up as Americans. The very taste of surrender as it proceeds from our lips is somehow detestable, not to mention culturally unacceptable.  

In our secularist dialect as Americans, surrender is a vulgar word, full of weakness, defeat and loss. As a nation, we would claim to have earned our cherished freedom through victory, not surrender. Tyrannous, controlling, power-hungry, freedom robbing regimes have needed to be kept at bay. Therefore, as freedom-loving American citizens, we equate surrender to a loss of freedom, to enslavement and oppression.

But as heaven’s citizens, everything is turned upside down. This is because the authority to which we have surrendered is the Author of perfect freedom, perfect administration and perfect joy. He is not tyrannous. He is not oppressive.

Think of it; as Christians, surrender was the initial, beautiful act which brought us out of slavery and into freedom. But somehow, too many don’t equally understand the ongoing nature of the Gospel to be reflective of a perpetual and unconditional surrender.

In short, the evidence of our lives reveals that we don’t trust God with our life … “just” our salvation.

How weird is that?! 

Notice the pronoun usage above. It speaks volumes. If we really understood the real-life, theological implications of the cross over our lives (which should be an essential part of early discipleship), we would rebel against the idea that the life we now live even belongs to us. It doesn’t. 

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20

But until we electively deliver ourselves to him without controversy (after our having been saved), he cannot have his way with us. I have illustrated this to much greater effect in Chapter 27 (again, scroll down the page to find Chapter 27). 

No, the title deed to our lives belongs to the One who paid the full purchase price for it. It is his life.*

     * (Pardon the short pronoun diversion–couldn’t help myself.)

But we somehow think that although we gave our eternal destiny into the hands of God, we are left to living our lives here and now according to the insights of the old man God put to death when we gave our hearts to Him. Now we wouldn’t come out and say it that way, but the way we live our lives betrays us.

In short, we have an ownership problem.

I believe we all want to experience the after-effects of the Holy Spirit’s having filled us. We want the victory-aiding power of God in our lives. We want the internal, personal affirmation that this God to whom we gave our hearts is real. But, and here again is the point, until we recognize Jesus as Owner, He does not have free reign in our lives to do as He pleases (Did I mention Chapter 27 in Set Free?).

Until we recognize Jesus as Owner, we will never own a true revelation of the Spirit’s indwelling which could revolutionize the life of any Christian.

So, this begs the question,

“How then can we experience a life-changing, perspective-altering recognition of the Spirit’s indwelling?”

The tough news is that we cannot do, find or earn this. Our options are limited. There is no formula but release. There is no prescription but ongoing surrender. God is God. We are not. What we do know is what He tells us–that if we knock, the door will be opened to us. What we do know is that He will not give us a snake when we need bread, that He has purchased us with a great price, and that He desires our fellowship so much that Jesus died to gain it–rather than live forever without it. What we do know is that He desires to live through us and empower us supernaturally, differentiating us from the on-looking world, that His name be praised through our lives.

But until we own more than a surface acquaintance with surrender, we will live our lives in the in-between. Until we lose our appetite for control, until control of our lives becomes to us something nauseatingly repulsive, we will be unable to successfully live into our new citizenship. 

I think now is a good time to remind us that there are two kingdoms up and running (Jn. 18:36, 14:30, 15:19, Eph. 2:1-2, Matt. 6:33, Phil. 3:20).

It is vital new believers understand that they have been supernaturally transferred from the kingdom of darkness (this world) into the kingdom of Light (heaven). It is critical that they understand how they have factually become citizens of another place (Jn. 18:36). This is an important, foundational building block onto which their future faith and identity in Christ can anchor.

When we choose to place our trust in Jesus, our life, and thus our citizenship, is transferred over from the world (John 15:19) to a kingdom of another place (John 18:36).

But Greg, you say, why does my life as a believer still look so much like it did before I came to Christ? Why is there still a discontented ache in my life? Why am I not more satisfied as a Christian? Why can I not find this “increasing obedience” in my daily life instead of repeating the same, selfish behaviors which possessed me as a non-believer?

Dear Christian friend, if you feel your life is the poster child for James 2:17, where the bible says that faith by itself, if not accompanied by outward evidences of that faith, is dead, then you may still be holding onto your life. It may be that you cannot advance in your Christian walk with God because you are unwilling to surrender control of your life (all of it) over to God. And in so doing, you are regularly keeping the Holy Spirit living in you at bay. Study Mark 6:5-6 and Matt. 13:58 if you don’t believe our faith and trust, or the lack thereof, can keep the power of God on the sidelines of our lives.

Any way you slice it, the authentic Christian life is the one that looks like it from the outside in. If you know your life isn’t taking on the appearance of a new life, steadily increasing in surrender and taking on the character of Christ, then it is time to address this incongruence with the benchmark of an accurate theology of who you are in Christ.

James inextricably links our faith to the outward manifestations of that faith when he challenges someone who believes that an inward faith alone is sufficient in itself. 

“Show me your faith apart from your works,” he says, “and I will show you my faith by my works.” – James 2:18

A saving faith is always accompanied by outward evidences of that faith. Coming to Jesus means, in the challenging words of Billy Graham, that 

“...the Lord Jesus Christ will come into your life and reform, conform and transform you into an obedient follower. If that is not your desire, you have every reason to question whether or not you have been saved.”

Part of the Gospel’s Stage One repentance is a change of direction in how we live our lives. If God truly has our heart, then He will also have our behavior. Period. If He doesn’t have our behavior, we have every reason to question whether He has our heart.

The bible asks,

How can we who died to sin still live in it (Romans 6:2)?

But it is super important we realize God is after more than our conduct; He is after our heart.

When God has our heart and not merely our behavior, our conduct in Christ becomes joyously compulsive–and our obedience comes along for the ride by default!

Indeed, when we try to live the Christian life by pleasing God out of the shallow resources of the old man (who has been done away with when we gave our life to Jesus–Romans 6:4, Colossians 3:3), we are quenching the power source who lives within us as children of God!

When we fail to understand that the power to please God lives in us by his Spirit, we can easily revert to the thinking that the best way to abide in Christ is by earning his favor day-by-day, in what we do. And when we live this way, not only are we incapable of pleasing God, but we have lost sight of the freeing core of Christianity; we cannot earn God’s favor or proximity to him by what we do. This is as true after coming to Christ as it is prior to our coming to him for our salvation.

The only thing that gains us proximity to God is the blood of our Saving One, Jesus Christ.

So, until we let go of the self-preserving tendencies of the old man who died in Christ when we gave our heart to Jesus, we’re going to be stuck – never making it over the “hump” of the mid-stage of this Gospel (In Full).

Cutting right to the chase again, and in slightly different words than in the fourth paragraph of this entry, you may never experience deep communion and the intended freedom of the Gospel because you love your sinful self-reliance more than you love your God. I do not make this inquiry of our hearts glibly, but with a sadness of heart. There are likely dozens of scenarious that play out in our daily lives where asking this question would be appropriate: 

Do I love my sinful self-reliance more than I love my God? 

This inquiry of our hearts is a call to surrender. This is a call to help us make choices that glorify God and enliven his Spirit’s ability to mold us into whose we are! 

In closing, I want to point us to the glorious upside of surrender. When we surrender, we are set free. When we surrender, we are no longer Christian imposters before God. When we surrender, we lose fear and gain God’s confidence. When we surrender, John 15 begins to come to life for us.

Once through the marvelous inbreaking awareness of the Holy Spirit’s work in us we emotionally and subjectively understand we are not The Vine, then we are finally gaining in our journey toward an honestly fulfilling life.

Once the Spirit of God within us has been welcomed to break us, the resulting surrender frees us from the pressure of having to lead our own lives. Instead, we begin to understand how to follow–as we abide in Him, the true Vine.

In Jesus’ very words to us, he says this in John 15:1, 4-5, 9:  

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Then Jesus goes on to tell us that our surrendered obedience to him will enable us to abide in his love. In so doing, we will live our lives without quenching his Spirit in us. Then, in verse 11, he gives us this glorious conclusion to the matter:

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

We can find an unmitigated, boundless, full joy that doesn’t hinge on the moment-by-moment circumstances of life when we learn to surrender and abide in the Source of our life.

And my prayer is that in this day of the duplicitous-living, ever-distracted evangelical church attender, there will be an increased emphasis on helping believers understand the theological basis behind the new life in Christ. Scripture contains plenty of Spirit-empowered illumination to help many a believer surrender once and for all to the One who purchased and rightfully owns his bride.

[metalporsiempre]

Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will broadly be defined not just by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century turns upon this latter consideration. While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers.

It is clear, however, that the European Parliament is making inroads towards taking an AI-centric future seriously. Last month, in a 17-2 vote, the parliament’s legal affairs committee voted to to begin drafting a set of regulations to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence and robotics. Included in this draft proposal is preliminary guidance on what it calls “electronic personhood” that would ensure corresponding rights and obligations for the most sophisticated AI. This is a start, but nothing more than that.

If you caught any of the debate on the issue of “electronic” or “robot” personhood, you probably understand how murky the issues are, and how visceral reactions to it can be. If you have not caught any of it, now is a good time to start paying attention.

The idea of robot personhood is similar to the concept of corporate personhood that allows companies to take part in legal cases as both claimant and respondent – that is, to sue and be sued. The report identifies a number of areas for potential oversight, such as the formation of a European agency for AI and robotics, a legal definition of “smart autonomous robots”, a registration system for the most advanced ones, and a mandatory insurance scheme for companies to cover damage and harm caused by robots.

The report also addresses the possibility that both AI and robotics will play a central role in catalysing massive job losses and calls for a “serious” assessment of the feasibility of universal basic income as a strategy to minimise the economic effects of mass automation of entire economic sectors.

We, Robots.

As daunting as these challenges are – and they are certainly not made any more palatable given the increasingly woeful state of geopolitics – lawmakers, politicians and courts are only beginning to skim the surface of what sort of problems, and indeed opportunities, artificial intelligence and robotics pose. Yes, driverless cars are problematic, but only in a world where traditional cars exist. Get them off the road, and a city, state, nation, or continent populated exclusively by driverless cars is essentially a really, really elaborate railway signalling network.

Artificial minds will need very real rights. Shutterstock

I cannot here critique the feasibility of things such as general artificial intelligence, or even the Pandora’s Box that is Whole Brain Emulation – whereby an artificial, software-based copy of a human brain is made that functions and behaves identically to the biological one. So let’s just assume their technical feasibility and imagine a world where both bespoke sentient robots and robotic versions of ourselves imbued with perfect digital copies of our brains go to work and “Netflix and chill” with us.

It goes without saying that the very notion of making separate, transferable, editable copies of human beings embodied in robotic form poses both conceptual and practical legal challenges. For instance, basic principles of contract law would need to be updated to accommodate contracts where one of the parties existed as a digital copy of a biological human.

Would a contract in Jane Smith’s name, for example, apply to both the biological Jane Smith and her copy? On what basis should it, or should it not? The same question would also need to be asked in regard to marriages, parentage, economic and property rights, and so forth. If a “robot” copy was actually an embodied version of a biological consciousness that had all the same experiences, feelings, hopes, dreams, frailties and fears as their originator, on what basis would we deny that copy rights if we referred to existing human rights regimes? This sounds like absurdity, but it is nonetheless an absurdity that may soon be reality, and that means we cannot afford to laugh it off or overlook it.

There is also the question of what fundamental rights a copy of a biological original should have. For example, how should democratic votes be allocated when copying people’s identities into artificial bodies or machines becomes so cheap that an extreme form of “ballot box stuffing” – by making identical copies of the same voter – becomes a real possibility?

Should each copy be afforded their own vote, or a fractional portion determined by the number of copies that exist of a given person? If a robot is the property of its “owner” should they have any greater moral claim to a vote than say, your cat? Would rights be transferable to back-up copies in the event of the biological original’s death? What about when copying becomes so cheap, quick, and efficient that entire voter bases could be created at the whim of deep-pocketed political candidates, each with their own moral claim to a democratic vote?

How do you feel about a voter base comprised of one million robotic copies of Milo Yiannopolous? Remember all that discussion in the US about phantom voter fraud, well, imagine that on steroids. What sort of democratic interests would non-biological persons have given that they would likely not be susceptible to ageing, infirmity, or death? Good luck sleeping tonight.

Deep thoughts

These are incredibly fascinating things to speculate on and will certainly lead to major social, legal, political, economic and philosophical changes should they become live issues. But it is because they are increasingly likely to be live issues that we should begin thinking more deeply about AI and robotics than just driverless cars and jobs. If you take any liberal human rights regime at face value, you’re almost certainly led to the conclusion that, yes, sophisticated AIs should be granted human rights if we take a strict interpretation of the conceptual and philosophical foundations on which they rest.

Who will win the AI vote? Shutterstock

Why then is it so hard to accept this conclusion? What is it about it that makes so many feel uneasy, uncomfortable or threatened? Humans have enjoyed an exclusive claim to biological intelligence, and we use ourselves as the benchmark against which all other intelligence should be judged. At one level, people feel uneasy about the idea of robotic personhood because granting rights to non-biological persons means that we as humans would become a whole lot less special.

Indeed, our most deeply ingrained religious and philosophical traditions revolve around the very idea that we are in fact beautiful and unique snowflakes imbued with the spark of life and abilities that allow us to transcend other species. That’s understandable, even if you could find any number of ways to take issue with it.

At another level, the idea of robot personhood – particularly as it relates to the example of voting – makes us uneasy because it leads us to question the resilience and applicability of our most sacrosanct values. This is particularly true in a time of “fake news”, “alternative facts”, and the gradual erosion of the once proud edifice of the liberal democratic state. With each new advancement in AI and robotics, we are brought closer to a reckoning not just with ourselves, but over whether our laws, legal concepts, and the historical, cultural, social and economic foundations on which they are premised are truly suited to addressing the world as it will be, not as it once was.

The choices and actions we take today in relation to AI and robotics have path-dependent implications for what we can choose to do tomorrow. It is incumbent upon all of us to engage with what is going on, to understand its implications and to begin to reflect on whether efforts such as the European Parliament’s are nothing more than pouring new wine into old wine skins. There is no science of futurology, but we can better see the future and understand where we might end up in it by focusing more intently on the present and the decisions we have made as society when it comes to technology.

When you do that, you realise we as a society have made no real democratic decisions about technology, we have more or less been forced to accept that certain things enter our world and that we must learn to harness their benefits or get left behind and, of course, deal with their fallout. Perhaps the first step, then, is not to take laws and policy proposals as the jumping-off point for how to “deal” with AI, but instead start thinking more about correcting the democratic deficit as to whether we as a society, or indeed a planet, really want to inherit the future Silicon Valley and others want for us.

To hear more about the future of AI and whether robots will take our jobs, listen to episode 10 of The Conversation’s monthly podcast, The Anthill – which is all about the future.

Christopher Markou, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

[silviajburke]

The Secret $20 Bitcoin Blueprint

This post The Secret $20 Bitcoin Blueprint appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Today, I’m going to introduce you to the red-hot cryptocurrency market. Perhaps you’ve heard of Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrencies, but maybe they seem too mysterious or shadowy for your tastes, not something you’d like to invest in.

Hopefully I can clear up some of that mystery today, because this is a market in which you can potentially amass a quick fortune.

For example, some lesser-known cryptocurrencies have skyrocketed between 12,000% and 56,000% over the past few weeks. Just think of how even a small investment in some of these cryptocurrencies could do for you.

And the good news is that you don’t need to know anything about Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies to take part in the bonanza. And you can get started with as little as $20.

In fact, what I call “penny” cryptocurrencies are one of the last legal ways for small investors to grow rich, starting with just a few dollars in your pocket.

OK, so maybe you’re wondering right now just what is a cryptocurrency exactly. Here are the basics…

Essentially, a cryptocurrency is a digital currency that operates outside of any government control. That means these currencies cannot be manipulated by central banks like our own Federal Reserve, or other central banks around the world.

In many ways they’re the modern equivalents of gold and silver, which were pure forms of money before governments and bankers got around to manipulating them for their own benefit.

So in a sense today’s cryptocurrencies are probably the last “pure” currencies on earth. But their potential impact goes beyond even that…

In the past, all transactions took place with an intermediary — like a bank — overseeing the process. The bank would verify the transaction, adding a certain level of trust.

But cryptocurrencies are completely revolutionizing the old system — cutting out the middleman entirely.

Instead, digital transactions are made peer to peer, without the middleman. And the new system is regulated by “blockchain” — a decentralized database that records each transaction.

Blockchain is essentially the trusted backbone of all cryptocurrency transactions. Within the blockchain, transaction records and payment details are spread across a massive public database open to all bitcoin “miners” in the network.

These “miners” are people with super-powerful computers — each competing to confirm and authenticate each transaction in the network.

They’re not doing this for free, mind you. If a miner’s computer program validates the transaction first, he or she is rewarded in Bitcoin.

At that point, the verified transactions are added to the blockchain database. So the next round of money transfers can be authenticated by miners — and so on.

That immediately makes the process transparent and verifiable. In addition, miners’ computer programs confirm transactions and reset every 10 minutes. And each 10-minute group is called a “block.”

Each proceeding block is also verified by the mining software and then linked to the last block — creating a chain.

There’s no centralized location for transactions to occur. Ultimately, this decentralized system — with so much computing power behind it — is virtually impossible for hackers to breach without an enormous amount of computing power.

Think of it as millions of locks that would need to be picked in a rapid amount of time rather than hacking into just one place. So it’s ultra secure.

It all may seem very complicated if you’re not familiar with the process, but it’s really quite simple.

It’s also important to know that bitcoin transactions represent only a fraction of what blockchain technology is capable of. The ability to maintain a decentralized system of verified data — which is bulletproof from hackers — has much deeper implications.

It can be used to track electronic voting, health records — ultimately anything that currently requires a “trusted” middleman.

As Don and Alex Tapscott write in Blockchain Revolution, “the blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.”

And it all takes place beyond the prying eyes of the government or the banks, so it increases your personal freedom.

Luckily for investors, this new paradigm is becoming more and more popular, allowing us to invest in new cryptocurrencies as they hit the market.

The cryptocurrency markets have really taken off ever since two of the world’s most important countries — Japan and Russia — passed or are planning to pass legislation recognizing digital currencies as an official form of money.

And if that wasn’t enough, other countries — like Canada, the UK and even the U.S. — are beginning to embrace this mega-trend.

In fact, experts have predicted that the United States government even has plans of launching their very own cryptocurrency.

But here’s the most important part:

This summer, some 260,000 businesses are predicted to accept some alternative currencies as payment for goods and services. And that number will only grow in the years to come.

So this is a mega-trend that’s just getting started, even though the first cryptocurrency has been around for several years…

The first cryptocurrency exploded on the scene back on May 22, 2010, when a web developer purchased two Papa John’s pizzas using 10,000 units of Bitcoin.

Back in 2010, Bitcoin was trading for less than a penny. In fact, 10,000 bitcoins were worth about $30 at the time.

Then the price of the digital currency quickly skyrocketed higher.

By 2014 — just four years later — that same $30 starting stake was worth more than $5 million. But get this…

Today, that same $30 is now worth a life-changing $22.7 million.

Imagine back in 2010 you set aside the amount of money you might have spent, say, buying your family a meal at a fast food restaurant, forgetting about it… then discovering seven years later that your $30 investment had blossomed into $22 million.

Indeed, an individual bitcoin is now worth over $2,300. Here’s the thing, though…

There are now over 831 cryptocurrencies exchanging hands on the “open markets.” The vast majority trade for just pennies, just like Bitcoin did back in 2010. That means there’s a chance to strap yourself to the next cryptocurrency rocket before it launches into the stratosphere.

Imagine owning a tiny pharmaceutical ahead of FDA drug approval. Or a little software company before a major takeover. On such news, overnight gains can far exceed a simple price double.

That’s why the opportunity in cryptocurrencies is so compelling. And now’s the time to get positioned.

You see, the ultimate catalyst is brewing right now. Over a quarter million new retail outlets are gearing up to begin accepting dozens upon dozens of alternative currencies from all around the globe.

And in a recent seven-day span, over 159 separate cryptocurrencies more than doubled in value!

So if you take action right now, you can easily turn a tiny grubstake of $20 into an absolute windfall fortune.

But don’t just take my word for it…

The Financial Times reports, “Some alt-coins have jumped four or fivefold in the past week alone… and an investment of just a few thousand dollars a month ago… is now worth close to $500,000.”

According to BuzzFeed, a number of cryptocurrency users have claimed that with the digital currency’s recent spikes, they are officially millionaires.

The problem is you shouldn’t just go and buy every single cryptocurrency just listed. As the rapid growth of Bitcoin proves, picking the right one is key. Especially since there are over 831 cryptocurrencies out there.

But I’ve run every single one of them through my stringent five-part filtering system. And based on my assessment, I’ve pinpointed five cryptocurrencies I believe investors should get into immediately.

Regards,

Louis Basenese for The Daily Reckoning

The post The Secret $20 Bitcoin Blueprint appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[themegamenarablr]

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[workingontruth]

PART 2 of 7: The Gospel (in Full)…Introductory Thoughts Continued

April 7, 2019

In this second-half introduction to my 5-Part Gospel premise, I want to be clear that this series of ruminations on what I’m calling The Gospel In Full stems from my own life-long tendency to view the Gospel as the pronouncement and resulting acceptance of the message that brings any seeking individual into a personal relationship with God.

QUESTION: Is the Gospel merely “the pronouncement and resulting acceptance of the message of Jesus for salvation?”

In so much as this has been my mental picture of the Gospel, what I’m trying to do here is flesh out how it is that this euangelion (Greek for good news) involves not only the pathway to new life in Christ, and one’s wholehearted reception of such news which literally translates a soul-life (the real “you”) into a new birth in Christ, but that it’s message also necessarily comprises an entirely new way of thinking and living in this life as reborn children of God (2 Cor. 5:17, John 3:3, 1 Jn. 5:4, I Pet. 5:3). 

I know this is not new a new idea for most of us who have lived in fellowship with Jesus for many years - nor for those who have been well-discipled into Christ. 

“Of course,” we would say, “the Gospel has ongoing implications.”

But I am wanting to work this through for many sitting in our churches today who are yet to understand the demands and blessings that await the believer who unconditionally surrenders his or her life, and all that used to be theirs, into the hands of the God they claim to have come to know through Jesus Christ. I’m wanting to answer the question, “What does THAT look like?” 

I’m wanting to answer the question, “Now that I have, by faith, personally embraced the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf for the forgiveness of my sins (and sin nature - which is very important to understand as different than what I have done that displeases God...see chapters 42-46 in Set Free: A Lifelong Christian's Overdue Discovery), how is this spiritual makeover on the inside supposed to effect my day-to-day life on the outside?”

“Now that I have, by faith, personally embraced the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf for the forgiveness of my sins, how is this spiritual makeover on the inside supposed to effect my day-to-day life on the outside?”

The good news of the Gospel is that its “good-ness” comes, to a great degree, to our earthside man in its living out - now! The Gospel’s effect is not only for the next life–something securing our future, but is intended to become an absolute game-changer in the here and now. It is intended to cause a “letting go” of our entire list of priorities - all we have...all we are and ever hoped to be. The effect of the Gospel is to have us live into a completely new and very real citizenship - one characterized by an entirely new allegiance. 

“The Gospel is intended to become an absolute game-changer in the here and now!”

So, through this Gospel In Full idea, I am emphasizing the idea that the Gospel is intended to increasingly set us free and bring us previously unimaginable purpose and deep satisfaction as we mature into our newness in this life. 

Now to many of you who are leaders in biblically-based, evangelical churches and who are living into ever-increasing personal fellowship with Jesus as you walk with the Living God, it may seem silly for me to even have to say that the ongoing good news of The Gospel is as important as what happened at the very moment of saving faith. You would even tell me that a life not bearing the marks of obedience, a life not living consultively with the Holy Spirit in ways which contrast the secularist society in which we live, would be a life in which you would question whether such an individual had really even given him/herself over to Christ. 

But my great concern is that far too many of our churches today are filled with secularist-living Christians who are somehow learning to speak religiously, but are living mostly like the world in their daily decisions, and possess a thorough inability to exchange the emotional and social preferences of their old Adam for what should be a wholly new nature in Christ. 

Instead of turning out wonderfully selfless, beautifully broken and surrendered believers who are loving others in all walks of life into relationship with God, living daily in the light of the truths of the Word of God which set men free from their many sinlaiden bondages, we are turning out social activists who are letting the emotions of their lost culture continue to rule in their hearts.

Instead, we have increasing numbers of equivocating (at best) Christians who are unwilling to live into their new lives in Christ because they don’t like what it means to live in the light. 

Instead, we have Christians living from offense to offense, loving the affections of the world more than their love for God. 

Instead, we have immature Christians who, instead of being discipled into their newness, are rather learning to bring disrepute to the Body of Christ via social media as they attempt to hoist their secular, godless perspectives onto their brothers in Christ. 

Instead, we are turning out Christians who do not understand the most basic character qualities of God while, themselves, living terribly confused and duped by the counterfeit love of this world. 

Do enough church-attending Christians understand that their lives in Christ are truly ones set free from the bondage of this world’s duplicity? Are we discipling believers into understanding that their lives are now expected (and demanded by God) to take a very different tack as they journey on in something much more than a “new found religion?” 

If I were to point to what I believe to be the core challenge for discipleship today, it would be that we are not sufficiently engaging new believers in a theological education of their newness. Said another way, we aren’t helping Christians escape the worldview of their old, secular nature in exchange for the completely new worldview of one who has been recreated into a new, spiritual nature – into the absolute newness a change of citizenship brings! 

What it comes down to is that many Christians lack a truly Christian worldview.

We cannot fault new believers for this. 

And without looking back onto what has not been done well, I want to help bring a catalyst onto the scene of action to help facilitate within new believers an accurate understanding of the extent of their newness resulting from their astounding position in Christ. Without such a download of the foundational elements for a Christian worldview, secularism is what’s left. This secularism, then, is the only lens through which we can view the world and our position within it. 

NOTE: By secularism, and this is very important to understand, I’m not talking about heathenism. Rather, secularism is merely our proclivity to continue living with the eyesight, through the lens of, our human sufficiency and knowledge, not identifying the supernatural or spiritual realities ever-present around us. 

As a result, so far as our practical living goes, our abiding comes mostly from the confidences our human cognitions bring to the scene of action. Secularism is viewing the world without an entrustment into the supernatural. And so, we accept the Gospel as the Good News of salvation, but then attempt to live out our Christianity owning little more than our familiar, secular worldview. 

And herein lies a great danger:

This secular worldview/mentality shuts down the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, displaces our dependence upon God with the self-reliance that understandably typified our old nature, and generally turns our Christianity into a religion no different than any other–in terms of its ability to be lived out. 

So, because we lack a truly Christian worldview and secularism is what’s left, it’s through secularism’s impotency that most believers attempt to live out their new lives as Christians. And, except in brief fits and starts, it does not work. In this state, many new believers come to a place where their experience tells them that Christianity “just doesn’t work.” And they’re right; without having been sufficiently educated in their new identity as a reborn creation in Christ, they are left unarmed to live into the truth of their new citizenry against a very calculating and ruthless enemy - the prince of this world.

Said another way, it seems to me that far too many First World Christians (for lack of a better descriptor) are ones who have “stepped across the line of faith” by the grace of God, having honestly put their faith in the power and authority of the cross, but are then unable to discharge that same supernatural authority into their daily lives as followers of Jesus. Most are so dominated by their western culture (secularism), that their old secularism is still their dominant worldview. 

This is the huge challenge we have ahead of us as ones who desire to disciple new believers today. 

This is why I believe our paramount priority must first come in helping new believers identify with their new creation, understand their new heritage, and successfully employ their newness as they live into their new life! 

The only way to begin escaping the secularistic worldview is to help believers understand how they became a new creation and how that newness of life and citizenry has trumped and triumphed over the secularism of their old, now dead, nature (Romans 6:4, Galatians 2:20 for starters). Only as we help Christians identify more so with their new life than their old will they escape the limitations, fears and worries characterized by their old Adam and their secular worldview. Reckoning upon what is true of us helps us live into it.

Now with those ruminations behind us, and returning to the purpose of the upcoming five-entry theme which attempts to broaden our understanding of the good news of Gospel, here’s the rub; if we do not live into our intended newness of life as a Christ-follower, and are not being discipled (taught) into our new identity as a child of the Living God, then the “good news” of the Gospel replicates itself as little more than the formal arrangement that brought us to the starting line of faith – i.e. a one-time decision that saved us from an eternity separated from God. Given this limited outlook on our new spirituality, we continually point back to “the Gospel” as the great news from God that brought about the forgiveness of our sins. Therefore, many of the further implications of our rebirth, like the fact that we have also been restored from our sin nature, aren’t even there to take hold of. 

From this vantage point, it’s almost as if to say, 

“Ah, the Gospel! The good news which had the power to bring me from death to life.” 

But this kind of reflection upon and gratitude for “the Gospel” is mostly for the moment of our conversion–when we asked God to forgive us for our sinful condition, without hope of heaven or a future relationship with God for eternity. 

And so, we wipe our brow as if to say, 

“Whew, I’m so glad I’m saved from hell now. I’m so glad my life is on a new trajectory. Heaven awaits! And until that time, I even have hope that the next life will be all that this life just cannot deliver upon.” 

And in so doing, we have missed the great supernatural, ongoing purpose and impact of the Gospel! In so doing, we miss the part that actually represents the courageous, day-to-day walk alongside God in the power and authority of his life in us. In so doing, we entirely miss the intended, ongoing impact of the Gospel upon our lives in the here and now. 

Not helping things much is the honestly commendable rush we gain as evangelicals when helping people cross the line of faith into Christ. For truly, and I am being completely sincere here and without sarcasm, there is little better in this life than witnessing a man or woman in that surrendering, Spirit-enabled moment when a soul is brought back into relationship with its creator, the living God. Oh, to witness the inbreaking of the supernatural God into a human life is such sweet victory! But because this is such an upper, we continue to focus the overwhelming majority of our time and creativity on helping to set the table for this initial transaction with God. Mind you, I’m not saying this should lessen one bit! 

But I challenge you to show me a church that extends their level of creative, evangelistic fervor equally into their discipleship practices, pressing new believers onward into the continuing journey of becoming–of living into their new creation in Christ as citizens of heaven. 

I’m afraid new babes in Christ too frequently perceive that their first steps are to discipline themselves in the direction of new spiritual practices and behavioral expectations–such as Bible reading and church attendance. But in so doing, are we really just introducing them to religiosity–to the “stuff” of Christendom? To the bondage of the law which Jesus came to erradicate? 

Though we wouldn’t sit them down and say it in these exact words, I wonder if new Christians “see our actions” which might convey (though we don’t mean to), “It’s time to start changing our behavior so as to get in line with the restrictions and recommendations of the Bible.” 

Of course, we definitely wouldn’t say it that way, but that doesn’t mean our newly born believers aren’t hearing it that way–in what we recommend they now do. 

Now don’t mistake what I’m saying. I’m not saying that living out the Christian life isn’t good. I’m just saying that the motive and source of strength from which we “do the doing” is the key to living the Christian life. And that if we focus on the who we are in Christ as a first step in the Christian life, if we acquaint ourselves intimately with the story of our new Life, then our lives will organically reflect our new identity without having to ever work our way into pleasing God. 

I think for most of us who grew up in the church, we grew up thinking of the Gospel only as Christianity’s entry point. We thought of the Gospel as the prayer you prayed to accept Jesus into your life - the diving board off of which you plunge into your Christianity. And so we primarily believed that the Gospel was a message for people on the outside - without Christ. Because once you’ve experienced the Gospel, you move on from it, right? Once you’ve taken the plunge, then you need to move on from that point, right? And so Christian growth from that point on consists of doing things like getting to know new bible facts, and mastering new Christian principles like the 5 principles for having a better marriage, and 3 steps to being a good church member, and 4 ways to get along with annoying people, and endless numbers of things to do! 

And so it’s as if we think that after you receive the Gospel, if you become more busy ... busy at church - you’re always there when it’s time to volunteer, busy in your community, busy in your neighborhood, busy at the food pantry, busy being the world’s change agent...the busier you became, the better Christian you are. 

In fact, you may be under the impression that good Christians are tired Christians. And every time you go to a seminar or faithfully attend a sermon series, you learn more about what real Christians DO. Real Christians go on missions trips, they care for the poor, they get involved in adoption, they’re in accountability groups and small groups ... in other words, Christianity becomes a terribly wearisome TASK of a terribly demanding task master. 

And, for me, over the course of decades, I finally came to realize that no matter how busy I was pleasing God, serving, doing, my heart...my HEART, wasn’t really changing in significant ways. If anything, all of my doing, over years and years was having the opposite effect on my heart. When we become weary of all the doing, it becomes easy to almost resent God. Here we are, God, putting it all on the line! Look at everything we’re doing, and teaching others to do - and we’re worn out! This Christian thing is HARD, God. I thought your yolk was easy and your burden light! 

And we begin to feel this way because we are trying to DO Christianity without living in the ongoing nature and intended ongoing purposes of the Gospel - in FULL, not just in part. 

I’m afraid in many of our churches, an emphasis on what to do precedes a full understanding of what has most thoroughly already been done. And so as a result, we’re trying to live Christianity in task mode rather than living it with the supernatural strength and vision that comes from a heart that is overflowing with a personal and subjective experience, strengthened by the ongoing goodness of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit of God enlivened within us. 

Here is my belief:

If new believers first grasp who they are as full-blown citizens of a new heritage, and how the architecture or composition of their new life came about outside of themselves, then they will, more often than not, do the important growth practices of discipleship and the “becoming” stuff in an almost irrepresible manner - out from a place of heartfelt gratitude–out of their love for God and exceeding gratitude for who they have become! Theirs will become a relentless obedience from the heart once they’ve experienced the jaw-dropping and bedrock foundations of their rebirth through Christ. And in such a place, I think we would see more believers who would sooner walk any road, deny themselves any sin or seek any spiritual accountability than to quench their new-found and intimate fellowship with the living God. 

But without this Spirit-driven understanding of their new nature, their doing can too easily become the perceived next steps of the Good News, going forward. And what had begun to germinate as a seed of a love relationship with God is quickly snuffed out by the expectations of behavior. 

I think we too often we get the cart of behavior before the horse of knowledge. 

Put another way, the emphasis must not be on the doing, but on the relationship. Once relationship is thoroughly, scripturally established, the doing becomes an act of eager, almost compulsory obedience (which is vastly different than an emphasis on behavior).

We do not want new believers to perceive the following:

“Okay, that commitment behind me, it’s time to buckle down and learn about how I’m supposed to live this Christian life. Let’s. Do. This.” 

And without ever intending to do so, I’m concerned that is what we are conveying. And we call this discipleship! 

[Insert: That said, I am thankful beyond words that some churches are committing themselves to incredibly exciting discipleship initiatives! Grace Church in Noblesville, Indiana has been one such bright spot. Northview Church in Carmel, Indiana is another whose leadership is becoming steadfastly committed to the importance of discipling believers into surrendered followers of Jesus. But what I’m angling for, and what I’m hoping to encourage is a kind of “state of the union” learning that should kick off every believer’s understanding of his new life…and this also for many who, like myself, have lived with Jesus as Savior for decades.] 

But this aforementioned and all too common “buckling down” doesn’t sound like good news to me! Instead, it sounds like going back to school–ugh! And it has in its root the ramping up of our SELF-discipline …falling back upon the tendencies of the old man. And all of this “buckling down” demonstrates a terrible misunderstanding of our new life and the source of our power, not to mention a bad reflection upon the nature and character of God. In firstly ramping up our learnings about how to now behave as a Christian, we take a supernatural understanding of the life-giving and freeing transaction of our salvation right out of the frame. 

Rather, I believe our first objective must be to help new Christians grasp the incredible, supernatural “why” and “how” of the miracle of the new life into which they have just entered! 

So, yes, I would say that the Gospel is intended to change everything about us–but from the inside out. And the new believer needs to understand in what and whom lay their moment-by-moment victories as they grow into their new wineskin (just a bit of Matthew chapter 9 Christianese there). 

But we don’t take the time right out of the gate to help them understand the new wineskin into which the Spirit has been poured! 

Do we think a beginner’s course in theology is too much for our new babes? If so, I disagree. I believe it must be the starting point of our discipleship.

And a complete worldview swap out that such focused instruction can bring is a great thing–it is the ongoing “good news” of the Gospel! The effect of the acceptance of the Good News is a new identity–a glorious setting free of the God-ordained purpose for a life brought back into unity with its Creator!

So, this is why I want to convey that my request of God to “forgive me” is really only the initial stage of the Gospel. It is stage 1 of 5. But what a glorious stage it is! It is the stage that literally translates us from death to life, and releases us from the continual search for fulfillment in this life.