and nothing has changed.

it’s been a year now since Tom & the guys cajoled us into giving up our hard earned dollars to “Save” Xanga. Telling us first that Xanga would go belly up at the end of June, then Mid July, and finally at the end of August. While the extensions were flying, so were the Xanga Team’s fingers in answering our every question —- until Xanga 2.0 was given birth and since that point, not one question has been touched. I guess money buys you answers.

It’s been a year now, since Tom & the guys cajoled us into saving this website. And has it grown?

I stopped by SaintVI’s site just now (because I knew the link would work… ) and she’s getting 2-7 comments and still posting pretty regularly. She always was an active one…. in April of this year (2014) she actually posted over 30 new blog posts. I can remember when I was doing that many per month. But that said, comparatively, she’s getting less than 1/3rd of what she used to in responses. A year back she was pulling 15-30 comments per post.

It’s been a year now, and all that’s come has been stagnation. No growth.

It was my understanding that our money was intended to help build something new and solid —- a phoenix rising from the ashes —- and yet nothing has come of it…. and our money merely vanished into the ash pit of what was Xanga 1.0. We gave — we were promised something grand to come…. and nothing but silence has been given ever since.

We were left alone to figure out how to work with what they left us. No tutorials. No improvements. No adjustments. And worse — if we tried to adjust any of our older posts, we lost all the HTML coding that carried over from Xanga 1.0 to the new one. (I Know… from personal experience… that’s why I stopped editing my older posts.) Any color coded scheme previously set up — once you tried to spell check or make a grammar correction — vanished, never to be seen again. I gave up trying to catalog what I had previously written… and even gave up posting, simply because it all seemed so pointless —- like I was only talking to myself now.

It’s been a year now… and whereas I used to post between 10 – 30 posts a month, because I had something to say, and I cared to make my point at Xanga, now, and I knew I would get feedback that would cause me to pause, reflect and maybe even change my mind — now, I’ve given up. And it would seem that many of those who hung around did too.

It’s been a year now… and there’s no grand celebration, only the creeping expectation that this one year anniversary will find the Xanga team pushing for “Subscriptions” — only to find that no one is interested… because they pulled the wool over our eyes last year, and this year…. no one cares any more.

It’s been a year now.

Welcome to the sad celebration of the death of Xanga 1.0, a living breathing dynamic community which still gave Dan “Theologian’s Cafe” over 100 comments daily, which still had many interested participants who were willing to browse and reflect and comment, which still had newcomers even up to the end….

And welcome to Xanga 2.0….

which we won’t talk about, I guess.

And for the record, if they even hint at asking me for money this year — I’ll slam the door in their faces.

Zing!Thanks to Being Liberal for sharing.

• Alan —> Like it Bro!

  January 23 at 12:59am · Like
• 

  Wayne Shuman And just where do you find this mysterious anti-war socialist Jesus??? I doubt the sign carrier has ever once looked at scripture or else they wouldn’t be saying such foolishness.

  January 23 at 1:15am · Like
• 

  Wayne Shuman Oh and for the record… by the end of the New Testament times the “free health care” had pretty much ended. Thus why Paul would tell Timothy to take some wine for his “often sick stomach.”

  January 23 at 1:20am · Like
• Kevin —> did he have to pay for the wine?

  January 23 at 1:28am · Unlike · 2
• Brian —> Wayne – not to stir a complete storm here, but are you saying that the Jesus you read about in your Scripture is pro-war, Capitalist, and did not cure people for free? I’m sorry, but I think the proof falls on your shoulders. I can readily dispense with a number of Scriptural lines showing Jesus supports people paying taxes, abhors free capitalism when it gets to its logical extremes (i.e. merchants in the temple), preaches non-violence, obedience to government (even in the face of execution), freely shares resources and shows compassion for the most poor, talks of worldly riches as an impediment to closeness with God, and heals people without ever charging a penny. Jesus never once that I have seen told people to go out and work to earn money – be like the lilies of the field, if I recall my lessons correctly. So prove me wrong…

  January 23 at 1:50am · Like · 2
• 

  Wayne Shuman Sorry for not having a quick response to your reply, Brian. I am a missionary in Southeast Asia and your daytime is my nighttime. I was asleep when you responded. But I have to say that you’ve thrown down the gauntlet and I am more than ready to reply…. having spent 35+ years studying scripture and even having gone to seminary to do so. For the record — any good Bible commentary will give you all of the information I’m expounding here…. Might I recommend finding a copy of Wycliffe’s Bible commentary or John MacArthur’s wonderful Bible commentaries. It would honestly help you to better understand what’s being said.

  (A) Scripture does actually say there is a time for war. That would be Ecclesiastes 3:8.

  Likewise, Jesus even used war as an example of just how we are to view the Christian life. (Luke 14:31-33) This would likewise explain why Paul tells the believer to put on the armor of God. (Galatians 6:13-17) and as well, why Paul would even use the word “Soldier” as a synonym for believers. (2 Timothy 2:3-10)

  God often used war for two reasons (A) to cleanse the land of EVIL men such as the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, etc. and (B.) to punish Israel themselves for their own sins. (God would call upon other nations to go to war against Israel for just this purpose.) So there is a time and a right cause for war, and scripture constantly affirms this. Whenever evil reigns, good men are not to stand idly by.

  So war did / does have purpose in God’s economy — and Jesus did acknowledge that by the use of it in example during his preaching. It may well be said that sinful men are generally the aggressor, primarily because of their sin, be it greed, lust for power, or whatever other selfish reason might drive them…. but God does use these things to His purpose and for His glory when they come about. That is why God is sovereign over His creation. And just as often God did call Israel to war, as stated previously.

  (B) Capitalism. My point here was that Jesus did not come to set up ANY political system, be it socialism, capitalism, democracy or communism.

  Jesus came to call all men to bow their knees to him — at the cost of their very lives if necessary. (Matthew 10:34-39) As Peter puts it, Believers are “strangers, living in a strange land.” Foreigners to this world. Our allegiance is not to the kingdoms of this Earth, but to the kingdom that is to come where Jesus will rule supreme. That is what makes a man a Christian — and all these other systems will someday bow to that other kingdom and fall away.As a point in fact regarding wealth — Proverbs 22:2 The rich and the poor have this in common, God is the maker of both. If you would say “Yeah, well, he’s their creator, nothing more” — Ecclesiastes 5:19 specifically states that God makes some men wealthy for their toil and efforts. It’s His sovereign right to do so as God. Thus even capitalism plays it’s part in God’s molding of men’s lives…. if you want to press the point. Likewise 1 Samuel 2:7. But the point of wealth is not so that we would worship it, but that we would rather use it for helping others and to bring Glory to God. Thus why Jesus would say “No man can serve two masters.” and be referring specifically to money. I love Proverbs 30:8-9 Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. — I make that my prayer often.

  (C) Free health care. Hmmmm, not that hard to dismiss. Jesus never went into a single hospital and emptied it of it’s patients. Neither did the Apostles that followed after him during the founding of the Church.

  ALL miracles had specific purpose —- to point back to Christ as the messiah that Israel had been looking for for nearly 2000 years AT THAT POINT. The messiah had originally been promised as far back as Adam and Eve. Pointed to again under Moses. Pointed to yet again under the judges and then King David. Pointed to yet further under the latter prophets….. and finally the last of those prophets, John the Baptist, pointed yet again and said “Here he is”. Every miracle Jesus performed had SPECIFIC intent. Thus — Jesus did not heal EVERY individual He encountered, and even one town it specifically states this. (Mark 6:5) And neither did the apostles…. and such “free healings” were only limited to the time of both. At the end of that time, when the scriptures had been written — there no longer was a necessity of validating the messenger… the very point the miracles were supposed to have. (For the record, I despise and disclaim all so-called ‘faith-healers’ of our day as fakes and frauds and not working under the power of God.)

  Point of fact — Even the healings weren’t “free” … that is to say without command. Jesus often, very often, told the individual that He healed — “Go, and sin no more.” and even told one man that should he continue the way he had WORSE would yet come upon him. (John 5:15) (BTW: in that account there were MANY people sick…. but Jesus only healed ONE of them…. pointing to exactly what I have been saying; the miracles were for specific purpose.)

  So point of fact, yes Jesus healed. Yes Jesus accepted no money for those healings. But No, Jesus did NOT heal everyone. Jesus did not set up a “Health-care plan” or a system or even a general hospital in His name. Jesus did NOT even try to on either count. Nor did He command that this should be done for the rest of all time. Every healing he performed had specific intent of pointing him out to be Israel’s messiah. He simply healed, and called men to repentance.

  But unless you repent, you too will all perish. (Luke 13:3)

  January 23 at 11:03am · Edited · Like
• 

  Wayne Shuman (D) The merchants at the temple. Easily enough explained — Because Jesus, HIMSELF, explained why.

  “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:16)

  There were two occasions where this happened, once at the beginning of Jesus ministry (John 2) and once at the end (recorded in all 4 gospels). But there was a common thread — both times were SPECIFICALLY at the Jewish Passover festival. Every other time Jesus went to the temple he didn’t bother the buyers and sellers that were there (and they were there daily!!!). So you have to ask yourself — why only these two times?

  Jesus was against two specific things here. 1st the fact that these men had taken a commandment from God (re: Deuteronomy 14:24-26) and used it to become EXTORTIONISTS by robbing the people of their money by selling either inferior animals (the animals to be used were supposed to be “without spot or blemish” Leviticus 1:3; Exodus 12:5 —- because they were supposed to be a picture of Christ, who without sin died as a scapegoat for the believer’s sin. 1 Peter 1:19 & Hebrews 9:13-14) or by charging 3x – 10x’s what they were worth in market value SPECIFICALLY AGAINST other commands of the Jewish law against extortion and usury. (Exodus 22:25, likewise Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah & Ezekiel)

  2ndly specifically where this had happened. The temple was SUPPOSED to represent the holiness of God to the people — but men had turned it into nothing more than a den of thieves. Men had denigrated the God of this Universe down to nothing more than an object for their own carnal pleasures. What was supposed to be a place of prayer and seeking after God had become a place of evil. This was pointed out in Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17 and likewise Luke 19:46 — all of which are the second time he cleared the temple —- which all state: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ (<—quoting Isaiah 56:7 and pairing it with Jeremiah 7:11 —>) But you have made it a den of robbers.”

  That said we see that Jesus ONLY did so at the temple and ONLY did so at the passover and ONLY did so with specific cause …. not to make a political statement about capitalism, but rather to expel the evil men from their mockery of the place God’s holiness was supposed to be recognized by all of Israel.

  Thus Jesus wasn’t against the buying and selling of things at a profit… if he were against that He could have easily reprimanded the fisherman, farmers & shepherds or cattlemen of His day for doing the very same thing … selling things at a profit.Yes Jesus supported taxation… no question there. I’ll take it a step further — you’re called to obey the government over you in as far as they don’t FORCE you to disobey God’s commands. (Romans 13:1-7; Acts 4:18-20) That means as long as Obama is in office… He’s there because GOD put him there, not because you voted him in. (Romans 13:1; Daniel 4:17, 25, 32 & 5:21 — & Proverbs 21:1) God has a purpose and a plan for Him being there, like it or not…. even if it is to bring or exact punishment for the sins America has committed against God. (which it may well be, I’m just saying.) So whether we like Obama or not… he’s in office for a reason… to God’s purpose and plan which will always be enacted.

  Lastly (E) Jesus may have not said much about men working to gain their keep — but scripture does, and Jesus did affirm the trustworthiness of scripture. Before we get to that, though, you MIS-applied the lilies of the field verse. Here’s the context — stop worrying about your next meal and start trusting that God has it already in His control. (Matthew 6:24-35 paraphrased. In specific He states: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” harkening directly to what I said.)

  If a man does not work, he should not eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10) It’s an established precedent going all the way back to the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden and the punishment of men for their sin.

  Cursed is the ground because of you;
  through painful toil you will eat food from it
  all the days of your life.
  It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
  and you will eat the plants of the field.
  By the sweat of your brow
  you will eat your food (Genesis 3:17-19)

  There is plenty that the scriptures say about men working to earn their wages — it’s even used as a parallel for grace being the sole means of man’s salvation — For the WAGES of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. Wages are something you earn… thus your death comes upon you because you’ve sinned against God, it’s the final payment for all the rebellion you’ve enacted throughout your whole life — unless you turn to Christ and repent.

  Proverbs 28:13 — he who denies his sin shall not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes it shall obtain Mercy.

  January 23 at 11:05am · Edited · Like
• Jeff —> Wasn’t it Jesus who healed lepers for free… and said love thy neighbor as thyself… I don’t care about what was written before or after he was here, just how he lived… and I feel he would look at the divided church and say that we all are missing the point.

  January 23 at 2:42pm · Like
• Brian —> Wayne – thanks for the detailed responses, I greatly appreciate it. I apologize for the delay in my reply; I have been pretty sick for the past two weeks so I’ve been sporadically online.

  I greatly admire that you are a missionary; I have several friends who have gone down that path and served in a variety of countries, and it is a great calling, and one that has done a lot of good in the world. Not to be too snarky – but it also a rich tradition of Christians providing free healthcare and education.

  January 29 at 2:35pm · Like
• 

  Wayne Shuman Brian, sad to hear of your illness, what was it that had you down for 2 weeks? I am not being sarcastic here, I’m being genuinely concerned. If it’s still hanging on, I would have no problem praying for that for you.

  As to my being a missionary — please do understand… I don’t buy into the whole “Social reforms to change the world” bent of modern liberalism and the social-gospel folks. I personally know that to change a man’s circumstances does NOTHING to change his actual problem(s) — which would generally be his sin and rebellion against God.

  When I speak of being a missionary I specifically mean it in the classical sense of “teaching people that Jesus Christ alone will save them, if they renounce their idolatry (be it classical as in the sense of Taiwan’s many Buddhist temples which represent an abomination to the one true God or modern in the sense of men worshiping their cars, their women, their booze or their football team) and turn in repentance for having lived ALL their lives in rebellion to God.” I speak of being a missionary in the sense that I am here to PREACH the gospel, not simply give men a meal, some health care & a nice pat on the back and falsely tell them “it will be OK…. just give it time.”

  Romans 3:10-18 (Paraphrased and with 3:23 added) NO MAN seeks after God…. not a single person on the planet… they have all chased after the vanity of idols and become worthless before God. Thus have ALL men sinned and fallen short of God’s standard… a standard that they do all they can to ignore or excuse themselves from.

  I am a missionary who believes that ONLY — O-N-L-Y — belief (RE: complete abandonment to, wholehearted trust in God’s way of viewing things — and when the bible speaks to “heart” it doesn’t mean your emotions as the modern understanding lends to, but everything within a man that leads him to make an active decision, that is to say his entire thinking process) in the Gospel of Christ will change a man… everything else fails because it does not address the root problem of man’s condition: Sin.

  And ONLY those who believe in that gospel will ultimately be saved from the coming wrath of God…. something else that Jesus pointed to but we like to ignore. That’s a pointed remark to Jeff’s comment. Jesus didn’t come to live a perfect life as an EXAMPLE for men to follow — Jesus came to pay the price of men’s sin, if they will admit freely, openly and clearly before God and men that they are in fact gross transgressors of God’s law. Jesus, himself, said it best: Think not that I came to call the (self) righteous men to God, but rather I came to call sinners to repentance. (Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32 as compared with John 9:39-41 & Luke 18:9-14 — all the words of Jesus for you, Jeff.)

  Now that all said (which is negative) let me be positive. Salvation is free. Salvation is the free grace of God given to any man who will accept it as the gift it is and stop trying to foolishly earn some sort of respect before God by what they assume is “good deeds” that they’ve done. Salvation comes simply by trust / by faith / by belief in the transforming message of the gospel (Romans 1:15-16) and the only “righteous” men on the whole planet are those people who have surrendered themselves to Christ’s perfection and stopped trying to claim that they themselves are allegedly so. That goes back to the whole “I did not come to call the (self) righteous, but sinners to repentance.” comment of Jesus.

  For without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

  Now, that said, do you really still admire me as a missionary since my aim is so singular as to call every other religion on the planet (including atheism which is literally the worship of self or of mankind in place of God) ‘idolatry’ and Christianity as the only means of a man’s redemption before God?

  4 minutes ago · Like

Recently I was asked to explain why Roman Catholicism fell under the umbrella of a heretical cult rather than a Christian Religion. While it is true that they have a thin veneer of Christian terminology and practice, under the cloak lies blasphemies so foul that it is no wonder God used Rome as a metaphor for the Whore of Babylon in Revelation. Here was my response to the question. I’m honestly hoping that Cut and paste will work here without me having to type in scores of HTML coding.

For the record, my list is actually sequential with the most heretical reasons being at number 1 and proceeding down from there. So Number 1 really is the Number 1 reason why Rome fails as an honest Christian endeavor.

(1) Above all else — denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s substitutionary death. One only has to review the doctrine of the Mass to understand what I mean here. To the Catholic system — Christ died to BEGIN a system of DAILY sacrifices upon the ALTAR of the MASS. Thus they claim that Christ’s death wasn’t sufficient for us — Blasphemy of blasphemies…. to tell Jesus that his death wasn’t enough.

(2) The placing a man at the head of Christ’s Church — The pope did not die for the sins of the world, neither does he supplant Christ in role of leadership. A body can only have ONE head. That is Christ, as rightly defined by Scripture.

(3) Idolatry. Be it Mary or saints. Be it graven images or apparitions. The dominant theme recurring in the Roman Catholic Heresy is the idolatrous worship of CREATED things in place of God. They even worship the wafer they assume carries the physical properties of Christ…. and tell men that this is right, holy and just for men to do and if you disagree — Curse you to hell.

(4) The replacement of salvation by faith through Grace with a works based system. No man can buy off God no matter how many Hail Mary’s he has performed. (Pssst….. Mary doesn’t hear your prayers by the way…) Ephesians 2:8-10 should easily dispel any question, but if you must, then review Galatians 3 & 4… for some real eye-openers on works based religions.

(5) The rejection of scripture as the sole basis of attaining a knowledge of God. Gaze deeply into yourself and listen for the voice of God…. yeah…. right. The Catholic mystics are a demonically inspired lot if ever there was one. God calls us to look to Scripture to hear his calling upon us, as well as for us to learn who He is and what He desires of us.

(5.1) The rejection of the AUTHORITY of Scripture upon the believer. In it’s place they would assume the AUTHORITY of the Church, it’s priests, Bishops, Cardinals & Popes.

(5.2) The rejection of the FINALITY of scripture, as written. Sorry, When the Pope speaks Ex Cathedra, it’s meaningless to the true child of God. The Pope would do well to remember the warnings of Revelation 22:18-19.

(6) The reinstatement of the Jewish priestly system, complete with daily sacrifices. Why else do you think they put so much stock into their priests and Mass. Christ did away with the whole matter when he said “It is finished” and sat down at the right hand of the Father. Now we are A-L-L priests, and there is no need for repeated sacrifices. Catholics would do well to read the book of Hebrews and 1 Peter.

(7) Purgatory…. the damnable heresy that men have a second chance after death, despite Hebrews 9:27. I wonder how many billions of deceived men and women will sadly awaken to find that that lake of fire is eternal…. not temporary.

(8) The placement of Mary into the position of affecting our salvation. Forget all the other Mary-dolatry…. this one thing alone is the gravest. For there is ONE MEDIATOR between God and man, Christ Jesus. To deny this —- is to deny the honest means of our salvation. To place a human between Christ’s atoning work and our acceptance before the Father is utter blasphemy.

That’s the top 10…. but I’m sure the list could be expanded greatly.

Rome hasn’t changed — because — Rome believes it’s self to be perfection… and you don’t change perfection. Thus when the Vatican 2 Council sat — they changed nothing of the anathemas called down upon honest Christians from the Council of Trent. All they did was change the language.

This is so frustrating I’m finally to a point where I will cease supporting Xanga. I was reviewing an old post, and noticed something that needed changing. A Minor thing, just wanted to hightlight a point to make it stand out more clearly. Easy enough, just copy & paste the color coding (span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(223, 128, 32);”) from one spot in the post to where I wanted the point made better. (I know, I know, HTML coding uses Karats ><, but if I put them in the blog, then what I was trying to show vanishes into the background as coding…. ya know?)

Only that's not how it worked. When I hit "Save" (or rather "Update") instead of a nice, bright shiny new point made clear, instead I lost ALL previous highlights throughout the entire post. All of them. Now all the HTML reads is (Span) — (/Span) with no actual coding telling it what to do.

THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE POST!!!!

This is it, I've had enough. I want my money back from Xanga and I am through with this place. 3 months now I've been waiting for them to fix this and make it better… and nothing.

I'm leaving. I don't like WordPress all that much, but at least there I don't have the headache and hassle I have here when it comes to posting my thoughts.

Will it ever end? (I do literally have 47 spam comments in my “discarded” folder) It would seem that Spammers love the new Xanga more than the old one.)

I have now posted my third blog post at WordPress that I have not imported back over to my “paid for” Xanga site. I guess that means I have lost complete faith in Xanga’s future and where XangaTeam has taken us at present (I would describe it thus: Adrift on a vast sea of emptiness.) and to which they haven’t made response to since Sept. 3rd when they cut us loose gave us this empty boat to explore.

I see posts by only those who are my “Friends” before the changeover, but I haven’t seen a single “Front page” from which to discover anything new.

Meanwhile, over at WordPress, I’m writing posts about Ojo Taylor (former lead singer for the Christian band “Undercover” and now avid atheist) and the sad state of “christian” music today, about what happened on the cross (I’ve gotten some rebuke on that one for how I’ve chosen one particular word… I’m presently trying to figure out how it should be phrased), and also a reposting of one of the first pieces of non-fiction I ever wrote, way back in college in 1997.

Three posts that never made it to Xanga….. and only 5 months ago I was one of the PAID life-time members of Xanga who was encouraging everyone to not abandon ship. I even entitled one of my blog posts “Going down with the Titanic” and stated that I wasn’t abandoning ship. (If this was the OLD Xanga, I would have linked you to that post… But I haven’t mastered how to do so in the new.)

Folks…. the Titanic has sunk.

If I could retract my pledge of support… at this point, I probably would. There just honestly doesn’t seem to be any life here any more outside of SaintVI, quest4God and Aloysius Son. (Oh and lest I forget, SonnetJoy.) Xanga 1.0 is dead, and I cannot —- in all honesty —- praise what has arisen from it’s ashes. Where once was a grand community there has come….. silence. And moreso importantly, where once there was a XangaTeam, responsive to our questions…. again, there is only silence.

Kinda makes you wonder if they are all still out there. If, indeed, anyone is out there.

The point was raised at a facebook group that I belong to, that if Christ is the Lord over His Church, then why waste our efforts “tearing one another down” and set aside our “differences” in order that we might simply invest ourselves into the labors of our Lord. I took the time to make a lengthy reply, which then (as it often does) impressed upon me that it could become a post on it’s own right. Here’s my response, in full.

Galatians 6:1-3 — 1 Corinthians 5

There does come a point where we need to hold firm to the truth and stand our ground in defending it. (1 Timothy 4:16, Jude :3) Two differing opinions cannot be equally and likewise “TRUE“. The moon is not (A) made of rocks and (B) made of green cheese. In the latter case, one needs to dispel the lies and teach the truth.

Since Arminianism teaches things counter to the truths of Scripture, can it be said that those folks HONESTLY worship God? Or…. do they worship an IDOL that they conveniently NAMED “God“, and then applied all their theories to this idol and call others to bow down likewise. It seems to me that scripture only has ONE interpretation precisely because it reflects the heart of GOD, not man. It behooves us to get it right and not hold to personal opinion, no matter how popular that opinion might be.

As to Arminians, they hold to highly an exalted view of man. They would have us believe that man is not DEAD in his sin, that every man could and should have the power of FREE CHOICE, and that man conversely could loose his salvation by simply choosing to walk away. Seems to me, their whole “religion” is based on exalting the position of being “man”, made in the image of God.

I am being very simple here in my statements, believe it or not, but the entire gist of this is that Calvinism places God where He properly belongs: Sovereign over HIS….. H-I-S…. Universe. Arminianism simply says “it’s all about US“.

The earth is round, the earth is flat —- Tell me which one will sail off into the sunset without fear that they’re gonna fall off?

Improper theology likewise produces improper responses to God. If I believe that —– “ I ” —— hold the power of —- “ MY ” —– Salvation, and that I can lose it at any time…. then how is my response to God going to reflect that? I will live in terror that my next sin will be my fatal blow. It all becomes a effort of works to keep myself “saved”.

PRAISE THE LIVING LORD JESUS that I am set free (indeed!!!) by the power of the (honest) Truth — Nothing shall ever separate us from the Love of God. (Romans 8, John 10, Philippians 1:6) And I do rejoice likewise (and am supremely humbled by the knowledge) that God choose unworthy me to be saved (Romans 9, John 1:12-13) and granted me the GIFTS of: Repentance, Faith & Grace. (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 13)

Because trust me — If He hadn’t moved to quicken my Spirit by His own precious Spirit — I would still be lost and dead in my sins just like everyone else.

I have three friends who are actively still posting on Xanga. Knight in Croatian Armor, Sonnet Joy & SaintVI all seem to somewhat update their blog, but for the most part, Xanga has become a sad & lonely place. Everything that once made this place so wonderful seems to have evaporated in the change-over.

That said I have to admit that I started on my first serious topic post today….. over at WordPress. Seems that lately I’m seeing more & more traffic there than I am here, and it’s all on old posts i’d written. Whereas I typically get about 2-3 SPAM comments per day here, I get about 1 regular comment a week over there. It’s actually made me decide that as much as I don’t care for this “blogging format” that Xanga has forced upon us (the whole WordPress bit and all) I do at least care if my thoughts get read. Thus when I went to post up something serious in nature….. I didn’t turn to my PAID FOR blog…. I actually turned to WordPress. Just because people randomly seem to be dropping by and reading what’s being said.

I do have to say that here….. now…. it’s really hard to tell any more if I have visitors or anything beyond the pesky scammers dropping random fake comments. My last post was either censored by the Xanga team for fostering to much negativity or was wholly avoided by one and all as not worth commenting. The other option might be that there really are crickets chirpping outside my Xanga-window.

So this new post title — I want to submit it to the Xangateam as a potential moniker. I mean, really, it kinda seems to fit. Xanga: a sad & lonely place.

It really does have a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

So today I went back-tracking through my Archives on Xanga….. only to find it so badly screwed up that posts from 2010 are logged in 2011, a post I know for a fact that I wrote on June 5th, 2011 (my birthday, so there’s no question on when it was posted) is missing entirely from that month, and other posts which were posted a month earlier… are found later. In short, my whole Archive system has been botched, hacked to shreds in the move from Xanga 1.0 to Xanga 2.0….. and there’s really no way to fix it, nor is there any way for me to figure out what’s where any more. It’s all randomly oblivionized.

From having to deal with SPAM comments (oh they’re sly now…. leaving you comments that ALMOST sound applicable to the post…. but always including their JUNK WEBSITES as the link for their name.) on an almost daily level, to the fact that blogging here has become so painful as to actually make me NOT want to blog (I HATE HTML CODING!!!!!)—- I am honestly considering asking for my money back and pulling entirely out of Xanga 2.0. They’ve lost everything that made Xanga 1.0 so special.

Let me hasten to add this – What real posts I have made recently, I have likewise copied over to my Word Press account…. and guess what…. I’m actually getting REAL responses from REAL people and not spammers. Go figure. WordPress, which is based on the same format as the new Xanga 2.0, somehow garners me more people dropping in to randomly comment and subscribe THAN THE NEW XANGA 2.0 DOES!!!!

One more thing that has me upset now — whenever I post a link to a former blog I’ve written….. whoever made the last comment at that blog, THAT’S WHO’S PICTURE SHOWS UP AS THE THUMBNAIL!!!!! Not my picture, but someone else’s!!! What gives?

and I paid $48 for this?

John, you need to address what you’ve done to Xanga, because at the moment…. Xanga sucks. This coming from a former Life-time supporter.

So what happens if you pull the plug on your Xanga 2.0 account? One really has to wonder now. In any case… how many others out there are dissatisfied and why? Leave your comments (but not your spam) and let’s see if we can push this into someone’s face to get this problem fixed. it’s been 27 days now…. why does Xanga feel so….. lonely…. now.

This was something I wrote out to a brother from Ebay who was struggling who asked me to pray for him. He said he was often discouraged in his walk with Christ and felt like giving up. Here’s my comment which might help several people along the way of their own Christian walk:

1 Corinthians 10:13 — No temptation has come upon you except that which is common to man, and God is faithful, he will provide a way out.

• 1st) way out = prayer for strength, guidance or help. Keep praying until help comes. Remember Elijah prayed 3 times… Daniel prayed for several WEEKS…

• 2nd) way = Turn to a brother in Christ — that’s what we’re there for. Galatians 6:1-3, 1 John 5:16 — hold yourself accountable to someone nearby…. that’s what the Church is there for.

• 3rd) way out = Grace for when we fall. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, God is Faithful and Just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is a promise. Every time you see the word “WILL” in scripture, it’s a promise you can bank on. God’s grace is new every morning, His compassions never fail. (Lamentations 3:22) —- WE —- may beat ourselves up for our failures, but God knows we are but flesh, he knows our struggles, and he understands. All he is looking for from you is to build in you the ability to keep turning back to him, to keep coming back to him and to remember that HE IS OUR STRENGTH…. that we have none of our own.

This is my current status update on Facebook — worth sharing and taking note of here.

At the moment — and hopefully it won’t stay this way — but at the moment, Xanga 2.0 sucks.

(A) There is no interaction with random sites.
(B) there is no front page for which to meet, greet or read random bloggers who have (had) something to say.
(C) They’ve eliminated the whole “community” feeling of Xanga 1.0.
(D) Reviewing my own posts is painstakingly slow, unutterably frustrating, and tends more often than not to drop you into EDIT mode rather than review.
(E) Speaking of edit — since when did I have to have an HTML coding degree to blog?
(F) actually accessing my site cost me 3 straight days of headache, as they are now Cap sensitive and one of my blogs wound up as bethelAbba when it should have been BethelAbba. (never did figure out what happened to JulieMillerFan… I finally gave up trying to figure out the password and demanded a new one.)
(G) Sooooooo it’s supposed to be SPAM free…. so why are there 5 SPAM comments waiting for me when I finally access my website? I thought the changeover was supposed to eliminate that headache.

Now that I am attempting to post this as a blog I have to add the following

(H) My blogging now lacks the customary color coding that was unique to my posts. That is to say there is no longer a quick simple way to highlight thoughts by offsetting them through highlights or changing the font colors. That sucks.
(I) There’s no longer a simple, quick, easy way to indent thoughts so as to make them stand out and make for simple, easy review.
(J) The whole inclusion of HTML coding into my blogging makes my thoughts look foreign to me as I type them. Makes it extremely difficult to back track and edit as I go. Makes it painful in fact. Now there’s all this HTML to sort through —- in order to figure out where my thoughts are, and where the coding ends, uses a lot of unnecessary time I’d rather put to something else.

It seems that Xanga 2.0 has a lot of kinks to work out… and as a PAY TO PLAY blogging service now…. they’d better start working if they want to keep my money in the future.

Afterthought:

What gave Xanga it’s initial greatness years back was word of mouth advertising….. talking about your blogging with friends, sharing the weblink with them, encouraging them to join along and blog too…. we talk about what’s important to us. Now…. with this paid format…. who’s gonna be recommending their friends to plop down $48 in order to blog and join the community? I’m just asking the one question Xanga should have been thinking about when they started down this path.

Seems to me that Xanga 2.0 just fell flat on it’s face and will probably self-implode by this time next year. I’m just saying.