Despite the financial hardships and the extended family dysfunctional, I have an incredible amount of things to be thankful for again this year. I pray you do, too.
“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.” —George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789
Jeff Jacoby notes how Whole Foods is being restricted from opening its doors in Massachusetts on Thanksgiving. The law cited by the Bay State’s attorney general is a holdover from the old, puritanical Blue Laws. Blue laws have long been a subject of liberty in our country, and I would posit their usage is in direct opposition to the freedom Christians should have in their Savior.
First, the Puritans got it wrong with regard to the Sabbath, since the Blue Laws had to do with conduct on Sunday. Sunday is not, and has never been, the Sabbath. That falls to Saturday, the last day of the week. Sure, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and certain Baptists, and other Sabbath-keepers get that part right, but that doesn’t make their legalistic view of the day of worship right. Not since Christ has come.
Second, the keeping of the Sabbath, one of the Ten Commandments, was part of the covenant God made with the nation of Israel. Not with all of mankind, but solely with the nation of Israel. In other words, unless you chose to believe in the God of Moses, the God of the Torah, you were not bound by the Law. This holds true to this day, including Christians.
Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish them [the Law] but to fulfill them.”. So even if you do believe we were all once under the Law of Moses, if you believe that Jesus was who He said He was, that He is the Son of God, then you should believe we are no longer living under the Law, but rather solely in the grace of our Lord and Savior.
Do you really think God cares what you do on Saturday or Sunday? Does God want you to take a day to worship Him? Of course. But for a Christian, anything and any time can be worship to God. When one becomes a Christian, one is accepting in to their heart the Spirit of the risen Christ. We are indwelt, and the true Christian life is one of not trying to abide by a bunch of rules to make ourselves appealing to God, but rather allowing God to live through us in our daily lives. So your entire life could be one long worship of the Father. Still being imperfect beings, we know that isn’t the case, but the potential is there.
Does God want you to take a day of rest? Of course. He set the example Himself. But in Christ, the day of the week for you to take is up to you. Christians worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, because the early Church wanted to distinguish itself from Judaism. Our pastor works on Sunday, and I’m sure his Saturday is spent in preparation for the next day, so when is he supposed to take his rest, according to the Law? (For the record, Tim’s stated his day of rest is on Monday; he doesn’t keep office hours, and the other ministers handle any needed visitations.)
Because He came to fulfill the Law, Jesus told us how we should live: love the Lord God with all of our heart, mind, and spirit, and love our neighbors as ourselves. I’ve looked through the New Testament, and I don’t see anything in there about not conducting business on Sunday. Or Thanksgiving, for that matter.
We don’t have the problem of grocery stores not being open on Thanksgiving here in Texas. For one, Whole Foods competitor, Sprouts, will be open in our town from 8 AM to 3 PM, for precisely the reason Whole Foods notes in Jacoby’s column: in case people need last-minute items. I’m not sure if it’s an all-volunteer effort, as is the case with Whole Foods, but that’s not really the point.
Blue laws have never had their place in the lives of those who truly understand their New Testament. If car dealerships want to be open on Sunday, they should be. If Whole Foods wants to be open on Thanksgiving, they should be, in Massachusetts as well as anywhere else.
“To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature….Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind.” — Alexander Hamilton
When I was growing up, my biggest childhood rebellion had to have been in the area of music. Having been raised on what is now considered “classic” country—Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Alabama, The Oak Ridge Boys, Johnny Cash, etc.—as well as artists such as the Statler Brothers and Neil Diamond, I turned to hard rock and heavy metal in middle school.
I never grew my hair long, nor actually attended a metal concert, so my rebellion in this area was limited still. This is also the pretty typical rebellion for most kids, going with something totally different from their parents’ music.
When I became a Christian at age 15, I hunted around for similarly styled music with uplifting Christian lyrics. Stryper was the pop metal band that broke in to the Christian music area first, and to this day is probably the most well-known Christian metal group.
In 1987, what I consider the best Christian metal band, came out with its self-titled release: Whitecross. Whitecross was quickly dubbed a Christian version of Ratt. Vocalist Scott Wenzel’s screechy rasp echoed that of the secular band’s Stephen Pearcy. Guitarist Rex Carroll, however, blew away most of the metal guitarist field with superior technical skills. With those two talents, plus pull-no-punches lyrics, Whitecross shot up the Christian music charts and cemented the band’s place in not only Christian but all metal music.
Fast forward to 2005, and the reuniting of Scott Wenzel and Rex Carroll, along with one-time Whitecross drummer Mike Fieghan, to re-record Whitecross. The only shortcoming to the original release was the less-than-stellar production. The drums were hard to hear, and the entire album sounded as though you were listening to it through a thin wall. The best way I know how to describe it is “slightly muffled”.
The band also chose to include the song “Love on the Line,” which was never included on any Whitecross CD release. It was the main attraction on the Love on the Line $6.98 EP cassette. The only known CD release of the song was on the Heaven’s Metal box set, which I happen to have, until now. The song, also re-recorded, is now at the end of the original album line-up, and is followed by a new instrumental by Rex, “Reanimate”. The “new” re-release is titled 1987
My copy arrived last week, and has been in heavy rotation since. Wenzel’s vocals may have lost some of the screechy rasp when compared to the original, but they’re still strong. I would say on some songs, the slight loss of the screech sounds better than the original.
The second song on the album, “Enough is Enough,” is, to me, the quintessential song that makes the Whitecross to Ratt comparison, and the re-recording is strong in keeping that comparison alive. Carroll’s licks are as good as before—the man has taught guitar for decades, before, during, and since the Whitecross glory days of the late ’80s and early ’90s—and casual listeners won’t notice the subtle differences in Wenzel’s vocals compared to the original.
As for me, I’m enjoying the re-release, and Rex, Scott, and Mike should be proud of their effort.
How are we in the body of Christ to love, accept, and forgive one another? Just as God in Christ has loved, accepted, and forgiven us! Seeing this, I recognized that this is a law of human nature. Whether we realize it or not, we will treat other people with the same measure of love, acceptance, and forgiveness that we (rightly or wrongly) think we are receiving from God. We will never love one another with a higher degree of love than we think we are receiving from God. In other words, if I think that God likes me when I’m good but is hammering me when I’m bad, how do you think I’ll treat you? Exactly the same way!
I don’t think I’ve ever met a Christian who, sometime in his life, didn’t ask the question, “Why don’t we find more love in the church?” To me it has become a simple answer. “The reason that there’s not more love in the church is because of a lack of understanding of God’s love in the church.” Religious people can become so mean because (in their own minds) they’re serving a mean God. That’s why aggressively defending the message of God’s grace against legalism is not just nitpicking the Scriptures. Our concept of God’s love and grace is an issue that affects every area of our lives, especially our relationships.
If you call yourself a Christian, you owe it to yourself to read Classic Christianity. Outside of the Bible itself, no book has affected my outlook like this one since Mere Christianity.