My Sunday

I woke up today and did what I have done most Sunday's since decided that the church scene is no longer for me. I slept in, got up an walked to buy something to eat, got my coffee and paper and walked back. I then read my paper, watched the Sunday morning political shows, ate my sandwiches, drank my coffee and commented on my two favorite blogs.

As I was walking up the long hill back toward my house, I just had a happiness come over me. I am living in a neighborhood I love and am beginning to feel like I want to be a part of, working at a job I like though I get bored at times, and have a definite idea what I want to do with the next 5 years of my life in fairly good detail. I was truly thankful in my heart.

Then I sat back and had a productive day. I actually thought and conversed(electronically) about things that made me think. I saw an article in the paper that trully inspired me. In short, I realized that I was not missing anything by not going to church. In fact, I think I finally realized that the community I crave will be found in the local bar. It is high end and I feel out of place at times. But it is the scene I think I was born to work in. It just took me 25 years to get back on track.

Yes, one more confirmation that Sunday Church is a waste of time for me. I enjoyed myself today.

The Dominion of Grace

Ephesians 2:8-9 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast Last month we tackled a very important issue: How to bring Jesus into a culture or group without the trappings of our culture, bias, traditions and the sort. While also, not delving into some sort of relativism that says all roads lead to God and that there are no absolutes. This is a tough balance and one needs to do some deep questioning and thinking to avoid both extremes. I hope to provoke some discussion about why we believe what we believe? The question posed was: What are the essentials of the faith? In other words, what is the minimal I can believe and still call myself a born-again saved follower of Jesus? The assumption being challenged is: Is what I think is essential really essential and is what I think is non-essential really essential? The first essential I will examine is salvation by grace. It clearly says above that salvation is by grace alone. There are many other scriptures that validate this. But what does this mean? I have chosen to title this month’s letter The Dominion of Grace. Dominion means rule and implies a kingdom. I am not going to get into a long discussion of the Kingdom of God but I do want to point out two different spiritual kingdoms that a person can live under. The first is the Dominion of Grace and the second is the Dominion of Law. When it comes to salvation we can choose to live under either one or the other. Romans 6:14 states: For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. The KJV translates master as dominion. The word under, in this context, means to position oneself under something or someone. When law is our master and has dominion over us sin is our master as well. The only way to break away from the law of sin and death is to live under grace. Other verses in Romans 6 refer to dying to sin and being freed from it. It says that if we have died then we will live with Christ. This refers to being a new creation. It talks about being born-again. Born-again means is being re-connected with God. But what does it mean to live under the dominion of grace? Well we have to see what grace actually means. Grace means a kindness or favor given to someone who does not deserve it. Law, in Romans 6:14, means the Mosaic Law which is found in the first five books of the Bible. This is where people get nervous and it was the reason that Paul wrote Romans 6. When someone begins to talk about grace and not living under the law people hear, “Just do what you want there is grace.” That is not what Jesus taught and that is not what Paul was teaching. He was teaching that the law could not save us. Galatians 3:11 states, 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." Life here means eternal life. Eternal life is obtained when we are justified before God. This is a legal term that means to be right legally with God. In other words, God gave of all these laws and we can never live up to them. We are by nature objects of wrath it says earlier in Ephesians 2. It says that we are all born dead. This means that we are born separated from God and dead in spirit. We have no personal connection with God. Why? Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God according to Romans 3:23. We are condemned at birth under the law. Why? The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. In other words, because we have sinned we must be separated from God. The question then is if we are born disconnected from God how can we reconnect or reconcile the relationship? Is it by following all the dictates of the legal system and making ourselves righteous before God or is there another way? Another question could be why does God give us the law if we can not use it to get re-connected with Him? Romans 3:20 states, 20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. This clearly shows us the purpose of the law. It is to show us our sin and its consequences. It should show us our need of Christ. James says that if you have broken one commandment you have broken them all. Let’s look at grace now. If we cannot live under the law and its consequences what is God’s provision to re-connect us with Him? The Bible says that the kindness of God leads us to repentance. What does this mean? Repentance is a change of mind about who God is that shows us who we are separated from Him that causes us to seek to be reconciled with Him. Many times a change of action is preached as repentance. This is short-sighted and teaches people to seek to change themselves before they can come to God. God wants us to come to Him as we are. Although a balanced approach to the subject dictates that a loving God does not want us to stay that way. Nonetheless, clearly the change of heart is more important to God than the change of action. If the heart is not changed then the actions mean nothing. Proverbs 21:2 states that, All a man's ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart. Repentance is a change of mind and heart. We all have in our minds who God is and it is based on many things in our life experience. But only God gets to say who He is. As we see a true picture of who He is the Bible says that we should change our mind and our heart as we see His kindness. That takes us back to the meaning of grace which is undeserved kindness or favor. Why does God give us something we do not deserve? He is kind. His whole purpose for this life is to change our hearts by persuading all of humanity that He is kind. This seems to fall into sharp contrast with all the fire and brimstone preaching. This is where some will say, “This is the love gospel that will never produce repentance. We have to show people they are sinners and going to hell.” Yes, God is kind but He is also just. He will punish the wrong doer. That is all of us. So what is the point of even bringing up the law or the wrath of God? Is it to show people that they are pieces of crap and that God hates them? No it is to show them that they, and us, can never measure up in our own strength and that we need to be re-connected to God to have meaning in life. The best example of true repentance in the Bible is Isaiah. In chapter 6 He sees four things: 1. God in all His glory (which is described in Ex 34:5-7) 2. His disconnect with God and the resulting brokenness caused by sin 3. His forgiveness freely given by God 4. His new found ability to run into the hands of God and be sent out with a mission. All these are important but as a Church we spend much more time than warranted on number 2. Most of our study, thoughts, and prayer should focus on number 1. As we see God as He truly is in all His kindness we will see that we are need to be forgiven and run to Him to heal all our brokenness. Then we will be sent out whole to a dying world. So what does this grace look like? The best story in the Bible about grace in my opinion is Hosea. He is asked to take back a woman and re-connect with her even though she had spurned his love over and over. How many of us would take back our wives if she went out and was a prostitute? How many would actually go and pay something to get this type of woman back? Not many of us. This is the story of grace: Undeserved kindness. This is true love: The kind of love that hopes for the best but expects nothing in return. The love is there and if someone wants to receive it then it is up to them. True love does not force itself on anyone. It loves whether is it loved back or not. I was reading an article a while back about being in love alone. I watched a movie called "The Holiday" that brought this to mind again the other night. The girl was in love with someone who did not love her back and was miserable. Society tells us today that we need to know we are loved before we can love. Have it simple and easy. Make sure the person will never hurt you before you give your heart away. This may be healthy in many cases but when the decision is made, “This is the one I choose, this is the one I want to love the rest of my life,” then we cannot hold back. There are no guarantees as I have found out. We can get hurt. This is the type of risk God takes with us. Will we take this risk with others? That is the nature of true unconditional love that does not give to get. It gives and expects nothing in return. This is where people will ask: Does not God expect anything out of us in return for this love? He does desire our highest good which is agape love but will not force us to do anything. It is all persuasion by love and commitment. He loves the person He has to allow to go to Hell just as much as the person who is devoted to Him. The difference is that the love for the former is wasted love. It is not reciprocated. But God chooses to love anyway. I think this is more of what is means to be chosen. It means as John states, 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This type of love is what sent Jesus to the cross. God desired relationship with us so much that He paid for us sins knowing that we could not. This love was not because we loved Him. He died the same for those who chose to accept His love as for those who reject it. Hosea went to pursue an unfaithful woman with no guarantee she would come back to him. I think I have a Hosea call and used to think that it meant that I would marry a prostitute or girl with a past. I think it means more to love someone long before I know that they love me. This is hard to think about and I have tried to run from it for a while now. I want to know someone will not reject me before I decide to love. It seems wise. Especially after what I went through in my last marriage. But I think I am learning in my heart what I have known in my head about God’s grace for years through this experience of waiting for the right one. Anyone can say that they understand a free gift and spell it out in the Bible. But who can really understand the heart of God as He waits on people He loves to respond and they go after other things? To say salvation is through doing works under the law cheapens the character of God and destroys the message of the cross. It is easy to say that Jesus paid for our sins just as Hosea paid for His wife back. But what does it really mean? That is why God made righteousness apart from the law. Apart from anything that we could do for Him to make Him loves us. This would be the gospel of a God who loved humanity because humanity first loved Him. It is a sham. The Father sent Jesus as the Word of God. Word implies message. What is His message to mankind through the death and resurrection of Jesus? Is it, “just do better and I will accept you?” Or is it, “I love you so much that I was willing to suffer for you before I ever knew whether you would reciprocate my love or not. I was willing to risk total rejection just for you.” Romans states very clearly that we can never earn God’s love. It is a free gift. Romans 4 describes a free gift that is opposed to earning wages, “Now when a man works his wages are not credited to him as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” This simply means that if we have to work for God’s kindness and favor He is obligated to us in some way that nullifies unconditional love. But if we trust in a God who can make us right under the law through that faith or trust, then it is a free gift credited to us. This can all be summed up in one verse. Ephesians 2:8-9 which is the text verse above is preceded by verses 6-7. They state, “6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Two words here are mentioned again: grace and kindness. His grace is shown to us by the kindness of sending Jesus in order to re-connect with us and expecting nothing in return except that we receive the gift. Love does us no good if it is not received. God does not demand that we love Him back. He loves us and hopes when we see this undeserved kindness that it will touch our hearts so that we will become love slaves. The word slave in Romans 6 is not the same as in Galatians. It is a love slave: A slave that stays with the master not under compulsion but because he loves him. True love demands nothing but loves whether someone deserves it or not. God raised up Jesus to a place of dominion and us with Him if we accept His grace. This is what it means to live under the dominion of grace. The second that I have to do something to merit salvation it is no longer unmerited. A gift is only a gift if it is free. If someone comes to me and says I will give you a house but you have to wash my car it is not a gift. It is now a wage and the giver of the house is under obligation now. A gift is a gift. A loan is a loan. A sale is a sale. If I expect anything in return it is not a gift. This may strike some as “antinomianism” which is preaching against the law and telling people to whatever they want. It is not in my opinion. It is painting a picture of a God who loves us unconditionally and let’s us decide what are response to this love will be. He does not tell people to do whatever they want. He knows certain things are not in our best interests but He gives us free will to choose how we will respond to what He says is best. One last thing I need to say that will lead into the next month’s discussion of salvation by faith. It is by grace and through faith. Grace is the dominion we want to live under but faith is the vehicle to get us there. It states above that we are saved by grace through faith. Faith is what connects us to the grace. Just as the car can take us to the place we desire to go. It is not a work it is a vehicle. Jesus is driving it and we just have to jump in trusting that it will get us to where we want to go. I want to live in the dominion of grace and love God because He chose me and continues to choose me. I trust in the vehicle that He has chosen to take me there: Faith in the payment of my sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The death and resurrection of Jesus points me to the kindness of God and helps me see His true character. Much like Isaiah at some point in my heart I knew I was disconnected to God and needed to reconcile. I accepted His forgiveness and now I choose to reciprocate His love. Even if I did not He still would have died to be with me. That is God’s grace as I understand it. Grace is worthless without faith and faith is worthless without grace. They go hand in hand. One is God’s favor toward me and the other is my response. Next, we will discuss what saving faith is. What response to grace allows us to re-connect with God?

My Great Day At Lunch

Ever since I became a born-again Christian I had wanted to be a Pastor. I liked the idea of meeting with people, as a spiritual leader, and telling them what to do with there lives. This is what was modelled to me so it is what I thought I needed to be and do. How to pull off the great lunch meeting was what I thought I was being groomed. Well I realized about a year ago that this was not my calling. This was not what I was cut out to do. It was something that others had put pressure on me to do. Once I realized this all the weight of the world came off my shoulders and I knew it was okay to be myself. It really was.I realized that I did not have to emulate the church culture around me and conform to the expectations of others to be acceptable to God. I am actually a happy person now. After a year of soul searching, I decided to get back into teaching. Today was my first little rest since I came back since Summer School is over. I went to school with nothing to do but just be a coach and mentor today. I decided to take our star quarterback out to lunch. We just sat and talked about life. No pressure and no religion needed. Just a man who had it rough in some ways and does not want kids to repeat his mistakes, sitting down with a former crack baby that has overcome a great deal talking life and football. I have been to the most remote places in the world seeking the acceptance of God and the approval of man. But I think God was more pleased today. I really do. I was just being me. The good and the bad. Just me. I also had fun talking to this kid who has potential but needs some direction. He asked for help and I am going to give it to him. I think this is what it is all about. How about you?

Unity and Diversity- One Faith Part 1

Ephesians 4:1-8 As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling the you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to one hope when you were called-one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why is says: “When He ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.”

This verse speaks of a unity and diversity in that unity. It says grace has been given to each one. This use of the word “grace” means ability given through the Holy Spirit. So what does real unity mean? I think this is the question that must be asked to keep two destructive things from happening:

1. Cultural and traditional additions to the faith mutating the pure seed of the gospel and causing different cultures to feel they have to deny the God given things in their culture to become a follower Jesus.(Un-necessary legalism/ someone’s personal standard is imposed on me)

2. The Essentials of the faith being compromised and allowing the sin in other cultures and traditions to remain thus creating syncretism.(destructive relativism where all things are ok and true)

What is essential? What does essential mean? Well ultimately only God knows
Someone’s heart and can judge if that person is saved. But it is irresponsible to just leave it at that and allow people to go through life never challenged as to what they believe and where that belief will take them. Essential means to me all of what the Bible says a person must believe to be born-again, saved, and go to heaven. This is the minimal a person can believe and be considered a part of the church which is all those described in the above passage.

The purpose of this teaching will be to combat both of the pitfalls cited in the first paragraph. My desire is to promote discussion and create an awareness of the good tension between these two pitfalls. God requires unity but loves diversity. To achieve true unity as a world-wide church we have to accept and appreciate our diversities. We have to learn to appreciate the abilities that He has given others.

This concept has been on my mind for many months and has come out in these teaching letters over the months. Much of the tension within me in regards to the tight rope between legalism and syncretism and the wrestling I have done with God has been spawned by a meeting called The Foundry that I attend on Thursdays. The entire idea of the Foundry is to challenge the assumptions of the Christian faith and ask good questions. In other words, why do we believe what we believe? The format is a discussion. A question is asked to challenge an assumption and the idea is to open the floor for other questions that raise the level of discussion so that we leave with some good questions to think about. Hopefully this inspires individuals and groups to find the answers. It often gets heated and that’s ok.

What does it mean to find the answers? Are there an answer for everything? Obviously not, but sometimes we must challenge our assumptions to see that there is no clear cut answer. Hopefully this will lead us to realize that the people we think that we disagree with are not as wrong as we thought. Most nights at The Foundry two sides of the issue our presented as polar opposites. I think the leaders of the meeting push the discussion this way for us to see that polar extremes are not usually good and that most of the time “both” is the answer.

The last discussion was on community and the need to be interdependent. What is community? It would seem to have something to do with unity. Unity is my job now. God and my base have commissioned me to go out and work in communities and find what God is already doing and try to get people to work together. This is really hard. Especially considering some true Christians look at other true Christians and think they are the enemy and sometimes not even saved based on some non-essential doctrine.

The hyper-Pentecostal looks at the Baptist and says you are not saved if you do not speak in tongues and the hyper-Baptist looks at the tongue speaker and says you are of the devil. This is an extreme example but illustrates my point. The other danger is “ecumenicalism” and trying to get everyone “Christian” to work together. If a person or group is not saved, according to the Bible, they need to be evangelized whether they call themselves “Christian” or not.

So is diversity in our unity on God’ heart? In my opinion, yes. I have read many articles from denominational headquarters that have tackled one or both sides of this issue. Can this be dangerous? You bet. I think the key is open discussion and balance.

The first theme I would like to discuss in my writings is from Ephesians 4:13- until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and becoming mature, attaining to the fullness of Christ. There is a lot here and I have spoken on these things in earlier months. However, I would like to zero in on one part of this: Unity in the faith. To put this in context we have to go back to verse 1 of chapter 4 where it talks about living up to the calling that we have received. I said months ago that this was an invitation to carry the Name of Christ with full authority and responsibility. I said that this calling was already attained legally and we try to walk in it relationally and explained the difference.

This leads me to a huge point. The end of this calling is the fullness of Christ. It is not salvation from sin. Salvation is a starting point not an end. God wants us individually and corporately to achieve the fullness of Christ. As we reflect Christ, it does not matter where we go as long as He goes with us. This is the key to missions. Paul talks about pressing forward to the goal of the upward call in Philippians. This is heaven but it is also for the here and now.

As I was preaching about this last Sunday I explained a vision I had seen while praying over this guy I had met. It was a mountain with Jesus standing at the top waving him up and calling for him to come. Between him and Jesus was a winding path illuminated by light. Behind him was all dark. I then spoke over him the scripture where Paul says to forget the former things and press on. My sense was that this older man had come a long way in his life that was represented by the darkness. God did not want him looking back to see where he came from he wanted him looking up and trying to follow the lighted path upward to Jesus.

Not that God never wants us to look back and see where we came from just not all the time. We can get stuck there and never move on. This is what Paul was talking about in Hebrews and Corinthians when he said they still needed milk and were still talking about all the things of initial salvation when they should be talking about walking in the fullness of Christ. What I have found that so many lack an understanding of the essential things that we must have unity in to even talk about fullness is not wise. Statistic after statistic backs this up nation-wide. To live worthy of this upward call to come up the mountain to Jesus we have to understand the calling we have received. What does it take to bear the name of Jesus and be a true Christian according to the Bible?

There is much debate on this and some will leave out things that are essential and others will add things that are not. But the Ephesians 4:13 tells that there is ONE FAITH. If this is stated then I assume that means it is possible to find out what this one faith is. I think this is the foundation of any discussion of unity in the body of Christ. I think it is the bed rock of a solution to the two pitfalls cited in the first paragraph. This journey to fullness is not any easy one. But is has to start at saving faith. One man was quoted as saying, “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.” If the Body of Christ at large lived by this we would begin to see the scripture fulfilled that says the world will know we are Christ’s (Christians) by our love for one another.

To put our search for the essentials of the ONE FAITH into perspective let me share part of my journey the last few years. I was born-again into a Charismatic Non-Denominational Church that had a heavy emphasis on short-term missions, spiritual gifts, apostolic ministry, the prophetic, deliverance ministry, and some other things. I am grateful for all the things that I learned. I believe in all these things and was taught to walk in them. What I was also taught, more by watching than anything said, was that others had little to offer and at times it seemed like they were the enemy. We began to compare ourselves with ourselves and it was not good.

It is no different in any church I have been in and I am not picking on my old church. I am not exactly what this is but it is everywhere. It manifested itself in me by thinking that what I was doing was the only thing and my approach to it was the only way. I was dogmatic about things where God requires liberty. I had almost no charity or love at all. I wanted to be “unified” with people that thought like me and looked with suspicion at anyone that was not in my little bubble. This was both towards people in my own church and from other movements that I did not understand. I was so “super-spiritual” that I thought I had to right to judge what was and was not of God.

I see this attitude everywhere. I have been reading periodicals this week from denominations that I had never heard of until the last 8 months and would have assumed were filled with unsaved people. They all have good things in them but are isolated and refuse to learn from others. To use Nehemiah’s wall for an example, they are working on their gate that I think God gave them but could care less about anyone else’s gate and what the overall picture is. Their gate is the most important gate so it must be built. It must be built but it is no good if the other gates are not finished. In some cases, I think they are building with some of the wrong materials and their friend next to them has the right material but they would never know it because they do not communicate.

People look at the tower of Babel and say that God does not want us communicating to build something. That is wrong. He does not want us communicating to build something for our name. He does want us to communicate to build something for His Name. It is called His kingdom and to get a full picture of God we have to all types of people, races, economic levels and other things. The glory of God dwells, at least in part, inside all cultures. It is just a matter of taping into it by plugging that culture into God. Not into tradition of religions but into God. We need to start communicating and not fear tension or debate.

The next months will be dedicated to provoking discussion about what the essentials are. I hope to challenge assumptions and spur some healthy dialogue about what unity in diversity means. I challenge you to talk about this with someone from another church, movement, denomination, or lost person that may consider themselves Christian but is not saved because they do not have a revelation of the minimum to be saved. But we should be careful not to label someone non-Christian until you ask them what they believe and why? Do not look at their behavior because my fear is that yes we will know them by their fruits but I think we are so dogmatic about things that do not matter as much as we think that we are looking for different “fruits” than God is.

I will spend the next 6-10 months picking what I consider an essential based on a few things:

1. Exegetical certainty(sure of the context)
2. Theological importance(Does it paint a right picture of who God is)
3. Biblical Emphasis(What importance does the overall counsel of scripture ascribe to this)
4. Historic agreement in the church(That is the true church)

Here is my tentative list of essentials:

1. Salvation by Grace Alone
2. Salvation by Faith Alone
3. Resurrection of Christ
4. Deity and Humanity of Christ
5. Trinity
6. Sin Nature
7. Repentance
8. Atonement

This list could change through personal study, prayer, and feedback from you. I am not an expert on this and do not claim to be. I am interested enough to study it and report my findings to challenge assumptions and promote discussion and personal study.

When I am finished going through what our ONE FAITH is then I will discuss some other important but not essential doctrines that every Christian should know but are not essential to saving faith. These some call “cardinal” doctrines. These are the things that it is important to know and lack of knowledge can cause problems in this life and the next. But this lack of knowledge will not exclude someone from heaven. The third topic will be debatable issues that we should discuss as a Christian Community but are unclear. The message never changes but the way to deliver can vary due to culture, economic level, generational differences etc…

This will get messy for me and I am sure some of my assumptions will be shattered as I study all this. Please check out http://www.thefoundrytogo.com/ and see what we discuss every week. It will change your life. Next month we will discuss salvation by grace alone.

Osama Bin Laden: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?

I had a great experience this summer. It took 12 years to finally be able to teach American History. This was after a 6 year hiatus from teaching altogether. The experience I had made it worth the wait though. The class was seven eleventh graders, one girl from the Middle East, and one boy that should have been in my World History class but I let into the morning class because he had to work in the afternoon. All but the girl from the Middle East were African American. The unique thing was that many economic classes were represented among the African Americans which is not that common in our District. This was a pretty diverse group. I started teaching one day about the Progressive Era, “Manifest Destiny”, and the “Gilded” Age. Essentially, I was trying to get them to see that, despite a few new wrinkles, most of the issues that were important in that day are still important now. I began to talk about progress, the role of financial capitals, and national expansion. After I explained the importance of large financial capitals to the expansion aspirations of every world empire, I asked the students where the thought the next financial capital would be to replace New York. As I began to talk about Dubai the girl from the Middle East began to share with the class for the first time. She went on to tell the class about Dubai and the importance of that region in the world. An Islamic region that the other students had heard about on the news but now had a face to put to the stories. In short, they were being confronted by the “enemy” that they were being told we had to eliminate right in their very own classroom. She was being confronted by the same. This was the first day they had interacted at all. However, from that day forward she was my source of veracity about world affairs when the American kids did not believe what I was telling them about how others viewed the US. I kept telling them how lucky they were to have someone from a different part of the world in their class. This interesting dynamic came to a head one day when I asked the students if we were going into another era of “Manifest Destiny” in regards to the War on Terror. Most thought that we needed to respond to the attacks of 911 but definitely also thought we were in Iraq for oil. Then I decided to stir the pot. I told them about Michael Collins the Irish freedom fighter that brought Great Britain to its knees by assassinating their officials in Ireland one by one in cold blood until they agreed to Irish independence. I asked if he was a freedom fighter or terrorist. All agreed that he was a freedom fighter except the girl from the Middle East. Then I asked a provocative question that would seem cut and dried to all Americans. Nonetheless, not the entire world thinks like Americans. I asked if Osama Bin Laden was a freedom fighter or a terrorist. The girl from the Middle East said terrorist and then went on to defend what he did. She stated that it was a response to America being over there and killing babies in the name of freedom while we were trying to steal their oil. Another student called her on her inconsistency and asked if this was true, why did she call Michael Collins a terrorist? After a minute, she finally blurted out, “He is a freedom fighter” in total honesty in regards to Osama. All the American students were shocked. But they heard her out and began to connect the possible “Manifest Destiny” links to the current War on Terror. The definition that we had was, “An imperial invasion touted as benevolent or necessary.” It made them think for sure about how they could call Osama a terrorist and Michael Collins a freedom fighter if America was in Iraq for oil as they all thought. Then I went around the room and asked the Osama question again trying to pin them down. The one girl who had confronted the girl from the Middle East on her inconsistency and had also said Osama was a terrorist for sure had changed her mind. She was not sure now. The reason: “I have heard another perspective and I need to think about it more.” This made my return to teaching worth all the headaches in one crystallizing moment. Not because I have some agenda against the war or to make Osama look good. I am not sure how I would answer my own question to be honest. But I do know that I need to think critically about these things and not just accept what the Western media tells me as true. I need to value and consider all perspectives before I make a stand. This is especially true as we begin to evaluate the cost and benefits of globalism and its implications for our ever changing new techno world. History should answer the question of: How did we get here? My hope is that this discussion not only connected the past era of “Manifest Destiny” with the present but peaked students’ interest to make sure the all this “global” progress is not “gilded” as some thought the last shift from one era to another was during the Industrial Revolution. By “gilded” I am referring to the “Gilded Age” where many felt that all the progress looked good on the outside but once you scratched the surface and look deeper you saw the dross on the inside. This is a relevant question about “globalism” in my mind. Anyway, we went on to many more great discussions about whether Tupac was a thug or a prophet, why the Jews did not fight back against the Nazi’s, whether Martin Luther King or Malcolm X was right, and how all this related to their lives? The students would get mad when they would say both and I would tell them to get off the fence and pick a side. But I think they got my overall point that this stuff is more complex than it seems and very little in life is black and white. Most of all I hope they learned to be able to back up what they say with historical examples. All in all it was the best teaching experience I have had. I will miss that class.