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Should Christians Burn Sage?
Smudging, the burning of bundled sage, is an indigenous practice that has been around for centuries. Various people groups throughout history have used this for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. The indigenous beauty blogger, Bianca Millar, says she and her husband burn sage along with other herbs to “thank the Creator for the new day and send up our prayers.” Burning sage is also used by herbalists or alternative healers. Claretha Yeager, an Acupuncturist and reiki master based in Chicago says she frequently uses smudging—or burning sage—to help rid her patients of negative emotions. She claims that sage smoke unburdens people of their negative energy to feel better. Burning sage has …
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Do you expect captives of the enemy to act like they are free?
Would the non-Christians you know label you as "judgmental"? How do we walk in the tension between maintaining our principles and standards while wooing people to Jesus? How did Jesus do that? These are critical questions that we must wrestle with if we want to be Christ-followers in our post-Christian world. In a series of interviews with sixteen to twenty-nine-year-old outsiders, 87 percent of them labeled Christians as judgmental (UnChristian, What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity And Why It Matters, Baker Books). They described most Christians as people who looked down their noses at anyone different from them. They said that most Christians they knew reflected a…
