Yes, and

As a matter of fact I am glad I asked. I find it helps to know a person's background like what you shared to better understand what the person says in forums like this. I also noted the time of day you posted this! Do I understand right from this you are saying you're older than 90? ~~~~ As I said to @Sower sometimes it takes me awhile to write new stuff and responses, so that's (almost) all I have for right now, but I'll be back.

Now I understand, and now I'm laughing. Thanks for that! Americans don't typically put a 't' at the end. It's usu. just Shh. Or add another 'h' or two or three for a very long, drawn out version. The 't' is what threw me.

@Neighbor: let me ask you a bit more personal question or two. Are you of Scots-Irish descent and if American, what would you consider your "home place" geographically speaking? Whether Scots-Irish or not, what are your family ethinc roots and where do your parents and grandparents hail from? I've gathered you are on the north side of 60 (I'm 61). Correct? Who would you call your best friend? And puh-lease, don't say "Jesus"! Or Fred Rogers. ;-) Tell me about that friendship.

Hi, @Renskedejonge! Would you be willing to edit your last paragraph a tad for a little more clarity? Was "ssssht ssshtsssht" meant to be a polite way to say the s-word or did it mean something else? Whose house is big and fatzo? Who moved? Who sang? And did you post the video on YT or elsewhere such that we could see it (even if it's in Dutch—which I assume given your screen name and location. FWIW I lived in Belgium for 5 months in '93-'94). I think next time I post I will respond to your post more with the topic at hand in mind, because it raises a major aspect of my inquiry which @jeremiah1five's posts in this thread (unwittingly?) raise. It's just that his (her?) posts, being immediately dismissive and preachy, failed to further the topic appropriately.

Second anecdote: earlier this year I became "friends" with a faithful brother in the Lord through this same mens group. I put "friends" in quotes to emphasize where the point or points of this anecdote. I do so not because he and I weren't friendly to each other. We were. It's not because he wasn't a solid man of faith. He was. And it's not because we didn't get along. We did. No, rather it is because of the effects of time and space on a very real and practical level, along with the forces of our culture we are discussing, which create this tremendous roadblock to anything approaching a true friendship. @Neighbor points to these forces in saying: I would respond by saying that disembodiment and lack of physical presence is anything but a neighborhood. These forums exist in large part as a paltry replacement to true community (true communion.) Of course there's no doubt that a utilitarian value can be found in forums (and the "University of YouTube"). But I think we lie to ourselves—in part to ameliorate the pain of the loss of the neighborhood—in turning to these as substitutes for the blessings of physical presence. Now did you see I wrote in past tense about my "friend"? For all I know this morning of Christmas Eve, he may have fallen asleep in Jesus sometime over the last 3 weeks. In the spring of this year, a few months after our friendship began, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and over the summer and into the fall he went through various treatments, seemingly unsuccessful on the whole. Before he knew it was lymphoma, but feeling very ill, I and some folks from the mens group helped him and his family move from one place to another in our town. I also connected with him and his wife on occasion, but owing to his illness, time, and space, and the demands of our present life/culture, real connection was difficult to realize. For one, we weren't true physical neighbors. His home is about a 17-minute drive from ours. And much of the time he was getting treated and in-patient at a hospital about three hours away. I drove there at one point in November to visit him, shortly after he had gone through a particularly nasty stretch. He cried when I entered his room, for no other reason than another human came to visit him in person. In September, after a series of treatments at that distant hospital he was back home and was able to join the mens group one evening. Most of the discussion was his providing encouraging testimonies of the Lord's work in his life. At one point, however—and knowing of his involvement for more than a year with what is considered a great church in our town (large attendance, lots of small groups, supposedly good preaching, etc.)—I asked him whether he had made any actual friends there, or found any real community. He replied with a definite no, while also saying that yes, people in the church would bring meals to him and his family. He, too, has been painfully aware of the lack of real neighbors and neighborhood. Now, mind you, he has lived for the most of his life in other countries. One of the places he found real community was in a small village in Albania, in part, he said, because all of life happened within walking distance. That move we helped him with was into a townhouse neighborhood. There, he told us, he would sit outside his front door and try to engage his neighbors, to no effect. He is (or was) a friendly guy, make no mistake, and it grieved him as much as it does me this inability to connect even when one tries. The last series of contacts I had were text messages in which I was expecting the next message to be him telling me when he would be released from that distant hospital after another round of treatments to a local rehab facility. Then, radio silence. (My wife, incidentally, attempted to contact his wife in late November. No response.) So, hearing nothing, I stopped by their townhome about a week ago. No one was home (they still have two teen sons living at home). Outside the townhome was a group of three people stringing up Christmas lights. They said they knew him, lived a couple doors down, but they clearly didn't know anything about him.

Too true, it took me a while to get back to this, so in that respect it's totally understandable to see this go down a different path. I wasn't perturbed or upset when I asked you to "get a room," and like I said, "Please, though, stick around on this thread if you'd like to continue with the thrust of my initial post and questions! :-)" I suppose it was my hope that my initial response to @jeremiah1five (in which I was perturbed, hence the "Grrr" at the end!) would have been interpreted as it was intended: "Completely missing the point. Go start a new thread if you want to." And FWIW, I don't have lots of time on any given day to participate here, and add to that the fact that I both ponder what I want to say sometimes over the course of days at a time and then take a long time to write things out coherently (with lots of editing before I ever hit the "Submit Reply" button), it can very much look like I disappeared.

OK, time to begin to respond, as likely this will take a few installments. But before that, I have to say I think I better understand what it means to "hijack a thread." I very much appreciate your contributions, @Sower, but could you and @jeremiah1five please get a room somewhere else? Please, though, stick around on this thread if you'd like to continue with the thrust of my initial post and questions! :-) Sure, I think that is an accurate label for this essay, and yes, I too believe what Esolen describes is accurate in general, and I lament it. Sure, I recognize like others here that there are always hidden pockets of genuine neighborliness, true community, and yes, even kids playing outside, but these are in our day exceptions. My outside-playing childhood was during the late 60s until the end of the 70s, just before that "transitional" decade in which @AnOrangeCat was born. I have felt the loss of this way of life keenly, but perhaps from two internal motivators, I have never been able to resign myself to this loss. The first motivator, whether from nature or training (my day job is architectural design), is having a critical eye or mind. I don't at all mean by this what most folks would take that to mean, being harshly critical and curmudgeonly, with no intention of going beyond the critique (my two sons would dispute the curmudgeon part). Rather, I mean by this seeing the problems and articulating what they are for the purpose of correction to something better. Problem-solving resides in the heart of architectural design. The second motivator, I believe, is the Holy Spirit. If he shows me something is amiss, then he also asks me, "What are you going to do about it?," just as I believe He does with all of the Father's children. The question is always, do we have the ears to hear? To resign oneself to "the way things are" reflects an unwillingness to change, to turn, to rethink. I honestly can not say that I am willing. This is not the same thing as saying I am not willing. It is simply saying that when it comes down to it, when I hear what God is telling me to do beyond a shadow of a doubt, I wonder whether I will do that thing. Perhaps this is because I simply do not know what to do differently, or God has not yet said anything. Or, it may be that my initiating this dialogue is the thing I'm supposed to do on the way to whatever change may be in front of me (really us, to include my wife, at the very least). ~~~ Continuing on, I will give a few anecdotes of my own to paint a further picture of the problem(s) Esolen writes about. I'll start with just one in this post. I meet with a group of men which was formed (not by me) as an attempt to bring guys together to be "real" with each other in our walks with God. The organizers take great pains to say, "This isn't a Bible study" (though the Word is often discussed) and "This isn't church" (though I believe it is just as much an "assembly" of believers gathering in Jesus' name as anything else one might want to label church (please, no rabbit trail on this point!)) The guys who meet come from varied backgrounds and churches. One particular regular attender is the head pastor of a church. He's a fourth-generation pastor, and I think second-generation pastor of his particular church. The reason he started meeting with us was because his wife strongly encouraged him to do so. Why? Because, as he said, he found no true community of friendship within his own church, and his wife knew he needed this! Now I have no doubt he and others there help one another out in crises (the basis of which you, @Neighbor, seem to define your neighborhood). This is all well and good (and it clearly occurs in across cultures and countries when disasters strike), but what about actual friendship? I have a book on my shelf written in 1983: The Friendless American Male by David W. Smith. This problem is of course nothing new, as others here have rightly pointed out. There are countless articles and essays and books about alienation and atomization; the lack of friendship and true community extant in our culture. I know this. You know this. But how do we respond to this as those who desire to hear what the Spirit says to the churches?

Totally agree, though I admit I'm having some wry fun here when I say: Would you avoid analogies when you use "the language of the culture"? Using the word "pioneer" describes a concept via analogy. ;-)

Thank you for the responses so far. I'm appreciating the thoughtfulness and looking to engaging more fully when I next have a good amount of time. I esp. appreciate yours OrangeCat because you fully and completely responded to each and every question (A+—but still like some of the others because there's some good food for thought there). Anyone else want to tackle this?

@Neighbor Since you responded to the actual inquiry, I will be responding to your post in due time, but would like to see if others respond to my inquiry. @luigiYou engaged with my inquiry, but just barely, so no response. @jeremiah1fiveYou utterly dismiss the inquiry and turn it into an opportunity to preach at me, rather than to engage. Whether you are right or wrong in your points is completely irrelevant, but one thing is for sure: by not reading the article, you completely miss what the author is saying, you completely misinterpreted the first 3 paragraphs, and you prove to not be a neighbor to me (a brother in the Lord) in your dismissive approach. So, like you not wanting to waste your time actually listening to what another brother says, I'm not going to waste my time listening to or responding what you had to say. Seems only fair. Grrr.

What @Your closest friendnt just said. I'll say it this way: No, no, no, no, no. A thousand times No! Why would I "oppose you to your face"? Simply because, as said before, you preach "another gospel," which is not good news, and even further, in its essence says that Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross was pointless. We have no need of it if all we must do is obey all the commandments, or at least show God that we're trying. Again, it's one thing to say you believe celebrating Christmas is an error and you have not the freedom to do so yourself. That would be all well and good. I have some very dear friends and siblings in the Lord who recently came to the conclusion that they would no longer celebrate Christmas. They are following their own consciences, but neither would the judge me for doing so. But, when you go WAY beyond and accuse anyone who does celebrate as being in essence a Godless pagan, that's another thing entirely. And here again, you completely misread and misunderstand Paul's teaching in Ro 14. PS to Moderators: I do not believe I am exhibiting "righteous indignation" in this thread, nor am I attacking the person. This is too important a matter to leave as just a topical discussion about the origins of Christmas traditions, and @Bro.Tan has gone well beyond that scope. And yes, this belief should be opposed in no less strident terms as Paul and others in the NT did.

I would like to start a dialogue by first referring you to an article written by Anthony Esolen and published in the May 2005 edition of Touchstone (“A Journal of Mere Christianity”). The article is titled “Where Went the Neighborhood?” Even if you don't participate in this thread I would still suggest it worth the read. If you do desire to enter into a discussion then after thoughtfully reading it please start by responding to these questions: Do you think Esolen accurately depicts the reality of life in most of the US and Canada? (Since he doesn't go beyond these two countries, neither will I. But, if you happen to live in another country and want to participate, by all means...!) Do you think that since 2005 the conditions he describes perhaps have gotten more extreme? If you do not believe Esolen's depiction is accurate, please tell us why, and where you find this real neighborliness, this community which he suggests is gone from our way of life. Describe in detail your situation and why you think it exists where you live. If you believe his depiction is accurate, how does it make you feel? Then, think through ways in which you could act to change things in your own sphere. What would you do? What could you do? Or…Do you believe there's no real point in doing anything about it?

This comment alone shows how completely opposite an understanding of the Word and the good news you have, @Bro.Tan. But in perplexity I am confident you have some way of reconciling the complete contradiction to the Word seen between your statement and Mk 7:19b; Acts 10:9-16; Acts 11:4-10. Peter, the Jew among Jews, was told not only by Jesus in person but by the voice of God from heaven: Get over it! Something new has come! It is one thing to have different degrees of understanding of the freedom God has bestowed on His children (hence the need for a teaching along the lines of Romans 14, for example), but it is another thing to take the stance you have, hence my perplexity. I can only take from your position one of three possibilities: 1) You are completely deceived and unable to see and hear the Truth, or 2) You are deliberately attempting to lead people astray, preying upon their fears by using the Word incorrectly, or (and I will allow for this) 3) We who disagree with you are deceived. On this last, I can only refer to Ro 8:16-17 and all of 1 John as response. The true test of deception is found there, and again, that test is completely opposite of what you write. The way I express this test is quite simple: what is your focus? Is it Jesus and his finished work on our behalf (which by so believing leads one into perfect obedience), or is it something else? Focusing on the other things (Christmas practices and traditions in this thread's case, or the Law) can never (EVER!) lead one into obedience. "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (as already pointed out by a previous poster). Your words are death. Since you for whatever reason refused to answer the thrice-asked question about how you follow the Law as regards the Sabbath, let me try one last tack, with two requests: 1) Would you please provide your own testimony about how you came to know the savior (or better, how you came to hear him calling you, and how you responded)? 2) Would you please tell us how you arrived at the place you are at such that you say the things you say? I think your answers would provide valuable insight into your position and help us to better understand why you say what you say.

@ Bro.Tan: having followed along and read through your comments, I feel very much like Paul must have felt when he confronted Cephas, as Paul describes in Gal 2:11 and following. Indeed, were you to come to my own town I feel I would have to "oppose you to your face." Your words, I fear, do nothing but draw attention away from the finished work of our Lord. The net result seems strikingly similar to what Paul describes a few verses earlier (Gal 2:4): it comes off as an attempt to bring the faithful into bondage. But I, like Paul, and many here who have patiently tried to respond to you, "will not yield in subjection to you for even an hour" (v. 5 paraphrased). Paul goes to great length in almost the entire letter to the Galatians to refute the Judaizers, "so that the truth of the gospel might remain with [the Galatians.]" I have no doubt whatsoever that you read that epistle and likely the entirety of the NT in a completely different way (as evidenced by your take on Hebrews—a complete misunderstanding of the thrust of that letter), such that my words will have no effect. Still, I felt compelled to try. Take just Hebrews 3:18-19, for example. You argue that not following all the commandments (now giving an exception to the sacrificial laws!) is the basis for eternal damnation, but here the writer makes a direct connection between unbelief and disobedience. That is, those who fell, and those who fall, are those who simply will not believe in God, in the work that He accomplishes, and the work that he has fully and completely accomplished in his son. No, instead your words serve only to draw the focus off of Jesus and his sacrifice on our behalf, back into the Law—and you can not see this! You tell us we face mortal danger because we put a tree in our homes (that tree is meaningless and those who put their faith in Christ's finished work know this). Rather, I tell you that you are in mortal peril because your word is ultimately not the good news about Jesus. Instead it is everything but, potentially leading one away from the Lord and resting in His work. So here's an interesting off-topic question which I have thought about recently, and thought about as the basis for a new thread: do "wolves in sheep's clothing" know they are wolves? I mean by this: if a wolf is wearing sheep's clothing and he looks in a mirror, what does he see? Does he see a wolf or does he see a sheep? Because this wolf lives by deception does that deception extend to himself? What does he ultimately believe about himself?

I don't usually find myself asking a question like this, and when I do I have to make sure I am not asking this by way of judging others (which is easy to do!) Rather, I believe the real question we should ALWAYS be asking of ourselves (not others!) is: do I find myself honoring (loving) Jesus in whatever activity or relationship He has placed before me or that He has given me freedom in which to participate? Do I actively love my brother, my neighbor, the widow, the orphan? Does Jesus want you to remember or celebrate His birth? If so, fine. If not, leave it at that.