Out of My Mind

There are certain range of Christian beliefs that amaze me in their perversity. Like this from the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Wilkinson's life has been all about miracles: He routinely asks God to perform them, and God, he says, routinely does. A solidly built 58-year-old, with silver hair and rimless glasses, Mr. Wilkinson led his nondenominational ministries to explosive growth over three decades, sponsoring thousands of Christian seminars and training battalions of Bible teachers.

But his life took a sharp turn after he wrote "The Prayer of Jabez," a 93-page, $10 tract published in 2000. It is based on a passage in the Bible's book of Chronicles, in which an honorable man named Jabez asked for God's favor. "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, and that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain," Jabez prayed. In the story, God granted his wish.

The lesson, Mr. Wilkinson says, is that God wants believers to ask for blessings. Those who ask -- by reciting Jabez's 33-word prayer -- unleash miracles. Those who don't ask, don't receive.

That's beautiful and inspiring. "Gimme" as a foundation for religious belief. Obviously, I have to go back to the New Testament and study a lot more. Right now, I'm having trouble with the tossing the money lenders out of the temple stuff. I'm sure at least some of them must asked God for a blessing of using the temple as a place to make money....

And Mr. Wilkinson also was able to reconcile hubris with apparently conflicting Christian beliefs.