A note on the language here, and on authenticity and trust.

I have been a Christian since childhood.  I've been in lots of different Christian churches and socialized in lots of different Christian groups.  As a result, I'm very well aware that how people talk is usually full of cultural cues (well, that's true anywhere, but I'm talking about within Christian groups), and that these cues are often used to gauge whether or not another person is a "real Christian."

I respect the fact that the Bible says to "test the spirits."  I think many Christians have got to the point that they have passed from spirit-testing into out-and-out judgment.  I've observed people getting very suspicious of other people, blowing up minor doctrinal differences into condemnation of other Christians, and deciding people should be shunned or disregarded because they don't pass some test that has more to do with Christian popular culture, or even popular culture within a denomination or congregation, than it does with the Bible.

Here is the passage, from my favorite apostle, John:

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
 ²By this you know the Spirit of God:  every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
 ³and every spirit that  does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the  antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.  (1 John 4:1-3)

What this passage says is that if someone believes that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh from God, that comes from the Spirit of God.  Paul also tells us that no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus himself says that the standard is belief.  So, I hope that Christians reading this blog who may come from different traditions than my own will look past the cultural stuff, and realize that I do profess Jesus as our Lord and Redeemer, and as God in the flesh.  I hope people give a serious look to the topics here, rather than dismissing them, and me, as "not Christian" because I don't attend the right church or use the right "Christian" catch phrases.  I hope anyone else will appreciate the lack of jargon.  If anyone ever reads here, at all--I'm not expecting a huge audience.