Wes Craven, the movie director known for Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street and many other horror movies including a number of x-rated movies died today. He was born in 1939 and grew up in a strict Baptist family. When I heard about it I immediately thought of your issue concerning the youth.

 

He attended Wheaton College, an Evangelical Christian college in Illinois. He said it was while he was at Wheaton he began to rebel against his Christian upbringing.

 

He published a love story about a white woman and a black man and another story about a girl who was not married but was pregnant. The college president banned the magazine and denounced him from the pulpit (as you see neither action was effective).

 

He loved movies despite growing up without them in his life—a byproduct of being raised in a churchgoing family that believed, in his words, "they were the work of the devil." 

 

Your question concerning the the youth is one that Bob Keyser and I have discussed on occasion. When Jimmy Allen was President of Harding University he said between the 7th grade and graduation from college the church loses something like 70% maybe 80% of its youth. Adults are stunned when a good Christian boy or girl leaves the church. I told Bob it didn't surprise me, it was obvious, the church never had them. When the first opportunity came along they got as far away as they could. Bob calls them little atheists. I think he's right.  

 

Wes Craven is an example of an individual who while he was at home, went along with his parents and when he left to attend college, a Christian College at that, his parents and the church patted themselves on their proverbial backs for a great job well done. But alas they were wrong, as are we. Parents can make their children do what they want them to do, they cannot make them think the way they want them to think. That takes relationship and example.

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

"The good thing about science is it's true whether or not you believe in it."

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

 

Reference June Men's Meeting minutes: you reported the concept/problem of how to get younger age group involved and interested in Bible school and in church was introduced. Not sure what younger age group is being considered but a good number of older local members are likely targets also.

 

The purpose of this email is to suggest you consider the possibility that I am not the only one who does not believe what is taught.

 

All of my life, at least to this point, I have been taught that God answers prayers. I remember as a teenager observing it looked like the only way folks got off the prayer list was to die.

 

I remember asking God for help making decisions guidance etc and I remember never being aware of any responses. For over 40 years I have asked preachers, authors of articles, etc questions relating to things they had said or written and not receiving answers. I used to thank God for our inheritance and asked him to help Foster make sound business decisions. God did nothing, Foster went to prison, we went bankrupt and a 73-year-old grandmother is working at a minimum wage job instead of visiting her grandchildren.

 

During our time at GSMCOC I have noticed public prayers are never answered do not make sense or ask God to do something he has already done or cannot do. I used to ask people what specifically they expected God to do in response to their public prayer. I was told by a respected member of GSMCOC that he did not expect anything. When I asked why he prayed he said he is commanded to so he does. Is God weird or what? 

 

As a result of my experience and observations I have concluded God does not answer prayers and is not involved in our lives. When the opportunity for coincidence is eliminated prayers are never answered. Coincidence comes when prayers are spoken for a sick person and the sick person is medically treated for the sickness. If the person is healed it is impossible to know if God healed, the individual's immune system healed, or the treatment healed.

 

I believe historically as well as currently most of what is taught as Christianity is intended to keep the laity dependent on the clergy. First to get their attention you have to scare them and then comfort them that they will be OK if they listen to you and contribute financially..

 

When the Littleton's asked their grandson be removed from the prayer list Al announced the man will spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair and that "prayer works," whatever that means. Al's comments were an attempt to convince the congregation that God had done something he had not done but that Al had told them God would do. I doubt any prayers were for the man to live in a wheel chair. God did not answer any of those prayers.

 

The reason the younger age group are not involved and are not interested in Bible school and in church may be they do not believe what they hear. You have not convinced me but you have given me reason to doubt a lot of what is taught and God has given me reason to doubt. Paul said it is reasonable to believe God exists because of what we can see in nature. Everything else we believe because we take the word of someone we trust. When people advocate something to be true that is easily verified to not be true the people advocating lose credibility.  

 

When talking with the people you might be alert for indications they reason they are not involved is they just do not believe you or trust you.

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

"The good thing about science is it's true whether or not you believe in it."

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Henry Ford

In 1914, Henry Ford made a big announcement that shocked the country. 

 

That morning, Ford would begin paying his employees $5.00 a day, over twice the average wage for automakers in 1914.

In addition, he was reducing the work day from 9 hours to 8 hours, a significant drop from the 60-hour work week that was the standard in American manufacturing.

Ford believed he was buying higher quality work from all his employees. "If the floor sweeper's heart is in his job he can save us five dollars a day by picking up small tools instead of sweeping them out."

Higher wages were necessary, Ford realized, to retain workers who could handle the pressure and the monotony of his assembly line.

In 1919, Ford raised his minimum wage again, this time to $6.00 a day. Ford said "The payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made, and the six-dollar-a-day wage is cheaper than the five.

In the aftermath of the stock market crash, he raised wages to $7.00 a day, hoping it would spark an economic recovery. But this time, it didn't work. The fault lay in business leaders who were "continually putting the profit motive over what he called the wage motive." "When business thought only of profit for the owners 'instead of providing goods for all,' then it frequently broke down."