Remembrance VI: The Jesus Brand

Many, many, many years ago I got a call from a church to design and produce invitational fliers. The church was new – it was a demographic outreach of a particular denomination. The church is located in the highbrow section of town. Successful people live in that part of town and certain pedigree of businesses occupy the real estate. It is an expensive locality, one of those areas rent is paid in dollars per square metre. The church comprised the affluent, the successful, the succeeding. They wanted to reach out to their kind – their business and professional colleagues. […]

Remembrance V: Spiritual Anniversary

My favourite lecturer in university was an atheist. No, he wasn’t my favourite because of his atheism, though he did try to influence our young minds in that direction. He taught me Phil 201 – Logic. It was compulsory for first year law students. In teaching us syllogism he would illustrate with stuff like this: “If God exists there will be no evil in the world. Evil exists in the world. Therefore God does not exist.” Of course the first premise is contentious, if not fallacious. Who said God and evil cannot coexist? By what exclusionary law can God and evil not coexist? And why juxtapose God and evil? Shouldn’t the proper juxtaposition be God and Satan, or evil and goodness? And if God represents goodness how come goodness and evil can coexist but God and evil cannot! Nonetheless he was a wonderful lecturer – hardworking, approachable, fair and dedicated. He represented what teaching should be. He critically engaged my teenage mind, made philosophy most interesting. I think I took four philosophy courses that year, though outside of philosophy I also enjoyed sociology and economics. These were powerful foundational knowledge and they would prove very useful to our brand consulting practice. We drew from so many disciplines. The irony though is that I got born again right in the midst of this rational assault on faith. How strange!

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Remembrance IV: Prosperity

Modern Pentecostalism tends to equate prosperity with righteousness. That’s a shame really, and it’s not scripturally sound. A materialistic gospel is its own danger. God is not against the prosperity of his servants however, and we see copious references to this disposition in scriptures. As far back as 1,000 BC David had written, “Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favour my vindication and want what is right for me; let them say continually, ‘Let the Lord be magnified, who delights and takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.’” Psalms 35:27 AMP. Though we must note the word “prosperity” is rendered blessing and security in some other translations. But the general point is that God wants his people to prosper.

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