This is going to be an experiment. If this actually happens, what you will see is a photo taken this summer of my mom and dad with my two daughters. Dad turned 78 while we were there and Mom is 77. Abby, the brunette, is 18, and Amelia, the blonde, is 15. Well, here goes.

A New Day

As you can see, if you look at my profile, the man is stepping out from behind the mask. I have been keeping myself unknown to most, by hiding behind the screen name of Pelajus. I have done this because I hold theological positions that are minority positions in my denomination, the Church of God, Cleveland, TN.

However, this week, my wife and I decided that, while we are not leaving the Church of God, that we have to leave the church that we have been members in for six years. We have ministered there, as unpaid assistants, to the pastor who is there. While we love the pastor and the members dearly, we realized that we don't belong there. We have had to keep our beliefs about the Rapture quiet, as everyone believes in a pre-Tribulation Rapture, and we don't. If we even intimated a view contrary to that teaching, folks got all upset and unsettled.

We have different beliefs about Bible translations. I believe the King James to be an archaic relic of a bygone day. To everyone else, the King James Version is the only Bible that God ever wrote.

My wife and I believe that the televangelists of today are the worst lot of hucksters and heretics since Johan Tetzel, during the days of Martin Luther. Many fall down and worship these clowns.

There are other things that have finally indicated to us that it was time to pull up and leave, but we have been fighting this for some time. After all, the two of us have shared a major teaching burden in the church, and our leaving will leave holes in the Wednesday night and Sunday morning teaching. We are not so proud as to think that we are irreplacable, but since the church is running less than 30 a Sunday morning, there isn't much left to draw upon. We hated to leave the church in the lurch, but for the sake of our selves and our teenage kids, we have left the church we attended.

This isn't a happy post, I realize, but it is the truth and situation we face at this time. Where will we go? We honestly don't know. We gave notice of our departure on Wednesday, and here, on Friday, we don't know where we will be going to church this Sunday. The wife says that for the time being, she doesn't want to attend any Pentecostal churches. Coming from a woman raised in the pentecostal Assembly of God, and who is ordained as a minister in the pentecostal Church of God (yes, both of us are ordained ministers), this is an amazing statement.

While we don't want to turn our back on our Pentecostal brothers and sisters, and don't want to deny our Pentecostal heritage, we just don't feel that we can take the small-mindedness of what we have seen over the past few years.

So, the bottom line is this: we still love God. We still desire to serve Him and His Church (pentecostal or non-Pentecostal). We will follow HIm.

A new day is starting for us, in which we can still follow the old paths of God.

Norma Desmond Was Right

Have you ever thought about the power of old movies to delight us? Now, I do realize that today’s movies use modern technical advances that make them absolute marvels of dazzling special effects, but how many of the films of today are going to stick in our national conscience? I guess Norma Desmond had it right, “It's the pictures that got small.” (Sunset Boulevard)

And that holds true for the actors and actresses of our day, those who people these little movies, doesn’t it? Can anyone say, with a straight face, that today’s crop of actors/actresses can hold a candle to the icons of the past? While we may be able to point to a few who can command a film (Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Sean Connery come to mind), think of the pantheon of cinematic greatness of the past: Jimmy Stewart, Humprey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston, to name but a few. Each and every one of them towers over today’s cinematic pygmies.

Even the lightweights, the funnymen and comics of our day seem to pale in the face of those who have gone before. After all, think about our “great” funnymen, and who comes to mind? Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler?? How can he or the others hope to compare to Charlie Chaplin, or how can Bill Murray compare with the timeless humor of Laurel and Hardy? The only consistently competent comedian today doing quality work is Steve Martin, whereas even such second-tier comedic talents, such as Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye, make any any attempt at comparison the equivalent of running up the score in college football. And that doesn’t even consider such comedic genius like the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton.

Is it any wonder that American movie-going is dropping? After all, we have come to the point where our most successful stars seems to be animated fish or penguins. Yes, Norma Desmond was right.