The Brum Files

What I Am Is Trapped

2010-03-03T21:46:00.006-05:00

Disclaimer: I'm about to really open up and it may disturb some of you. If you are not comfortable about discussing sexuality and how it affects my personal life, you probably should not read this.

Confession time. I am trapped and I've been trapped for so long that I don't remember what it feels like to be free. Being a guy is tough and being a guy with an addiction to pornography and masturbation is even tougher. I have been addicted to porn and masturbation since I was about 15 years old. It started out simple by stealing my former step-sister's Victoria's Secret catalogs. Eventually, those did not turn me on anymore. So, I moved onto looking at my former step-father's Playboys. Playboy was fairly tame and so I turned to the Hustlers and Penthouses. While those always did the trick, I began to crave it more and more and so I turned to the internet looking for more intense porn, but could never really find it. It was then that celebrity fakes caught my attention and ever since then they have been my main source to masturbate to. Looking at girls I did not know was "nice," but my thoughts soon turned towards the girls I went to school with, went to church with, and worked with. Lust had conquered my mind. While I was a Christian at the time and "on fire" for the LORD, the temptations had taken their toll on me. Lust, pornography, and masturbation became daily habits for me. I had to masturbate. I had to look at porn. While I knew that I was in sin and in the wrong, I tried to justify my wickedness by blaming it on the girls I was lusting after. After all, they want me to lust after them, they want me to masturbate to their images. If they did not, they would not pose nude or wear those skin tight jeans and low-cut shirts. It was their fault for causing me to stumble.

On a sidenote, I do believe that girls should dress more modestly because it is hard for a guy not to look, but at the same time if we men respected women more, we would not look at girls in that way. That is what happened to me, I lost my respect for women and began to objectify them. They were for my pleasure and really nothing more.

Throughout high school, I went to these things called Purity Retreats put on by youth group. I would come out of the weekend having made a vow to remain pure and abstain, but shortly after, I would return to my ways of sin. I would put on the Ring of Sauron once more. There were other things that I attempted to help me combat my sin. Radical amputation, accountability groups, an online bible study to help with eradicating porn and masturbation from your life. Nothing worked, most likely because I did not want it to help. And so I kept doing it even after I had been caught. I remember my former stepfather catching me in the act of masturbation. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but that did not stop me. In fact, a few weeks later he announced that he had caught me to my mother and sister. That left me more embarrassed and ashamed, but I still did not stop. When we lift him and his house, my addiction followed me into our new home. I crashed the first computer my mom got because of all of the porn I was looking at. And so my mom found out more about my addiction, but that did not deter me. I went without a computer my freshman year and because of it, my lust took over me completely. I was starved of porn and needed it. I craved it. I began looking for anything that would turn me on and that I could masturbate to. And my lust went from simply picturing women naked to creating intense fantasies that I could masturbate to. In sophomore year, I got a computer and my search for hardcore porn began. Photos were not enough, and I began looking for videos and strange stuff such as cartoon porn and monster porn. This took me down a path where my need for porn and masturbating became very intense and was first on my list. Anytime my roommate was gone, I looked at porn and masturbated, and when I knew he was quietly asleep, I would do it. That is how a lot of my time in my room was spent. I once even looked at porn in the library because I craved it so much and the thrill the risk of being caught gave me. I also started looking for a girlfriend thinking that that companionship would help me slay the dragon that had bore down on me. Secretly, I just wanted a girl to do stuff with. I also must admit here and I am very ashamed of this and am sorry for it, that I began lusting and coveting after the wives of some of my friends. That disgusted me and fortunately I have been able to defeat that part of my addiction.

As I prepared for graduation, I knew that where I was at in regards to my sin, I should not get a job at a church. That summer, I was jobless, and so my days were spent sleeping, playing video games, and looking at porn. As I restarted my job at Chick-Fil-A, I started feeling God calling me to go back to school, seminary to be specific. And so, after a year of working and trying to save money, I came to seminary. Getting my own apartment was a bad idea for three reasons: 1. too expensive, 2. loneliness, 3. I could masturbate and look at porn as much as I wanted. There used to be limits to my addiction because of outside interference, but here I am all alone and can do what I want. If I wanted to bring a girl up here to have sex with, I could and nobody would know.

You may wonder why I am confessing this now. I am confessing this now because I am called into ministry and more importantly for the time being, I am ready to stop. But I do not know how. A few weeks ago, I went a whole week without looking at porn, lusting, or masturbating. That is quite an accomplishment for me. But I have to admit that it was not me that allowed that to happen, the praise goes to God-Father, Son, and Spirit. That week, I was in communion with God everyday. After that week, my communion with God stopped and my sins began again. And because I am called into youth ministry, I realize that my sins would keep me from achieving that call. I realize that ministers are human and make mistakes, but to have life-sapping addiction to porn and masturbation would not be helpful for the church or wherever I serve as a youth minister. And so, I ask for your prayers for me to be in communion with God again and for me to be able to break the chains that have bound me for so long. I am tired of being trapped and want to be free.

Some Thoughts on Moral Decay

2009-05-16T20:44:00.003-04:00

As I was driving home from a get-together in Anderson late Saturday night, I came to a realization. In fact, it may have been a revelation or even an epiphany. I realized that Christianity has been corrupted. Not that it has become an agent of evil, but that, with the exception of a few, it seems that Christians are not standing up and defending their faith. I keep hearing of Christians and I am seeing it as well that are letting themselves get caught up in the ways of the world. They are letting society tell them what is right and what is wrong, which is pretty much nothing. Premarital sex, drugs, drunkenness, porn, selfishness, greed are some of the things I am thinking of.

We are listening to society tell us that it is okay to go out and have sex with anyone we want before marriage, most times it's in the context of a bf/gf relationship with plans of getting married. But it's in the context of love some may say. God designed sex to be a beautiful and wonderful thing to be respected and honored within the confines of marriage. Marriage is not just some legal jibber-jabber; marriage is a life together, where two become one, conjoined together by God. A lot of Christians and people in general aren't taking marriage and sex as serious as they should. Thus, the first corruption. We as Christians are forgetting the sanctity that God has bestowed upon marriage and sex and are letting two things get in the way; if it feels good, do it and but, we love each other. Loving each other is all nice and dandy, but a bf/gf relationship or engagement has no guarantee to last. But a marriage, that is built to last forever, as long as it is built on a foundation of solid faith in God. We as Christians need to reject this idea that sex before marriage is okay and stand up for our belief that sex is designed for marriage and only marriage.

I know a lot of proclaimed Christians, but a lot of them don't act like it. They go on living their lives as someone of the world. I've discussed why in my previous post entitled, It's Okay, Jesus Already Forgave Me. But that is part of this corruption. Forgiveness and grace have been twisted by people to meet their wants and needs. Maybe that's how all of this corruption started, with the twisting of forgiveness and grace. Let's untwist it, let's uncorrupt Christianity, let's live and practice our faith for real.

I had originally planned this to be real long, but as most of my original thoughts spurring this have left my mind, this will have to suffice. I hope that you all get the point of this post and understand where I am coming from.

The coming evangelical collapse | csmonitor.com

2009-03-11T00:36:00.003-04:00

A very interesting read. I've never been much of an evangelical, but they seem to be the majority of Christianity. If this happens, I imagine all of Christianity would be affected.

The coming evangelical collapse | csmonitor.com

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The Greater Good or Did Adrian Veidt do the Right Thing?

2009-01-02T20:11:00.004-05:00

This is something that I've really been thinking a lot about, but really never knew how to put into words until I read Watchmen. Watchmen is a graphic novel, a comic book series all in one book, kinda like the Bible, a bunch of smaller books brought together in one big one, you get the point. Watchmen was, apparently, one of those graphic novels that changed the comic book industry, how stories were told, written, illustrated, the deeper truths, the mythology, etc. I picked it up for two reasons, I had been wanting to read it for a while, and the movie's coming out, hopefully in March, but that's up to 20th Century Fox. Anyways, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1980's, Nixon is still president, the Cold War is is about erupt in nuclear warfare, and superheroes are real, Superman and the rest are still comic books, but there are people that have been inspired to don costumes and fight evil. Although Dr. Manhattan has real powers, he could kill Superman with just a thought. Anyways, it starts out with one of the heroes, The Comedian, who is a complete patriotic dick, being killed. The rest of the story revolves around figuring out who did and why, which brings the Minutemen, the team, back together. Along the way, Doc Manhattan exiles himself, Rorschach gets locked up, and some other cool things. Eventually they figure out the who, it was Adrian Veidt and why, The Comedian had discovered his plans on accident, but it turns out that was relatively small compared to his real plot, ending the war by killing thousands of people with a manufactured...I won't spoil it for you. He claims that it was the right thing to do, that by killing thousands of people, it would save millions more. It was for the greater good.

The greater good is a term used in utilitarianism, "which is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome: put simply, the ends justify the means" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism). Let's think about this a bit. Is killing thousands of people to save millions more really moral. While it may contribute to society in that it saves millions and millions of lives, is it moral to kill those thousands. Do their lives mean nothing, do they contribute nothing, maybe some of them. Are none of them and cared for? Do none of them love and care for others? Are they just a speck of dust in the world? I say no and I say no because each of them were individually and specially crafted by God who loves each one as much, infinitely, as the next. Apply this to real life, when a criminal is executed, the war, etc. These things I have heard justified by killing that rapist or killing those "infidels" is for the greater good. While the world would be a much better place without rapists, murderers, terrorists, it is not our place to judge them and kill them because when we judge them and kill them, we become the same as them. Maybe the Iraqis do not view us as a savior, but as a terrorist. Maybe the murderer asks why it's okay for him to be killed, but it's not okay for him to kill. I'm not advoctaing murder, it's just a thought.

Do the ends justify the means? Is it okay for me to do commit a horrible act knowing that through it, something good will come of it? I do not believe so. Because like I said, each person is infinitely valuable to God. I reject the idea of the greater good. I believe that Adrian Veidt did the wrong thing. Your thoughts?

It's Okay, Jesus Already Forgave Me

2008-12-05T20:04:00.000-05:00

I don't get it, I just don't get it anymore. Why do so many Christians out there use this as justifications for those sins, mistakes, whatever you want to call them that they continue to do over and over? I'm not trying to be judgmental and I know I have my share of mistakes and sins. It just really irks me when I hear people say that because all I hear is them justifying sin. Is it okay for me to go out and murder someone because hey, Jesus already forgave me. Of course it's not alright, but I could argue that it is because sin is sin and Jesus died for all sins, right? I'm not sure where the thought process came about but I don't think it's due to stupidity, but rather a lack of understanding of sin, forgiveness, and what accepting Christ really means for your life. It's not as simple as "Jesus, I accept you into my life and ask you to forgive me. Amen." That's one step of the path. But there are many more. Now that you've asked Jesus into your heart, you have to change and eliminate those things in your life that will cause you to sin. You'll still sin after that, that's pretty much a given, but the difference now should be that you struggle with it so that you don't. I think I'm coming up on where some people may get confused. If you do fall, it's okay because Christ will forgive you. Yes, he will, but it's not a free pass to get away with whatever you want. I think what happens is this part gets put above the other parts so we don't have to deal with the uncomfortableness of change and thus comes what I'm afraid to hear, "it's okay, Jesus already forgave me."

Forgiveness is a gift, and like all gifts, we have to want it, we have to respect it, and show appreciation for it, and most importantly, we have to live it out. When we start to believe that it's okay for me to rob a bank, lust after a girl, etc. because Jesus already forgave me, we begin to abuse that forgiveness, we begin to use it in a way it wasn't intended and we no longer care about who gave it to us, how, or why he gave it to us, all we care about is going about our daily lives without any semblance of Jesus there, and believing that we're gonna go to heaven no matter what we do because Jesus already forgave us. And that leads into the whole once saved, always saved debate which I think can also be used as a cop-out to justify the sin in our lives. But I digress. Are we really free to get away with whatever we want because Jesus has already forgiven us or should we live our lives in the most Christ-like manner and not worry about coming up with excuses? I opt for the latter. Because, yes, Christ did die for me so that my sins would be forgiven. I don't want to abuse that sacrifice. I don't want to say hey, your death really doesn't meant that much. I don't want to say to him that all he died for was to give me a get out of jail free card. I want to say to him that his death means everything to me, it changed me for the better, and I want to respect that and be grateful for that.

Man, Who Doesn't Like Bob Marley?

2008-11-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've been getting into Bob Marley a bit as of late, thank Sawyer from LOST for that, and with Obama in office, I just feel this new excitement, this transformation, an apotheosis, a redemption that is about to begin first in the US and then spread through the world. Marley's Redemption Song really speaks to me in this new and exciting time.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the Book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.
Won't you have to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

Some People Just Need to Get Their Facts Straight

2008-10-23T18:55:00.001-04:00

Now, I've tried real hard to not get caught up in all this election hoopla. I realize that it's important to vote, but these campaigns and their supporters are really taking it too far, especially in the case of the Republican party. I find it cool that McCain stuck up a little bit for Obama when the crazy lady called him a terrorist. But, the rest of this country is going crazy. You're either for Obama or completely against him because he's a Muslim and when he gains power, his reign as the Antichrist shall begin. Seriously, a professed Christian is the Antichrist. Never saw that one coming. I kind of thought it would be someone from Europe, not Hawaii. Anyways, what really got me was an email I got from one of my aunts. It was the most ridiculous, theologically unsound document I've read. Hell, here's what it says:

How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations?

"Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months, and you know what that is.
Almost a four-year term of a Presidency.

All I can say is 'Lord, Have mercy on us!'

According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is: The anti-Christ will
be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with
persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says
that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace,
and when he is in power, will destroy everything..

Do we recognize this description??

I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to post this as many times as
you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet..do it!
I refuse to take a chance on this unknown candidate who came out of nowhere.

From: Dr. John Tisdale
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Friends,

As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . .'we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . .' As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!
'Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

Last time I checked, The Book of Revelation made no mention of the antichrist being a Muslim. It couldn't have, Revelation is dated to have benn written about 95 or 96 AD, whereas Islam didn't get its start until sometime in the 7th century, that's pretty much 700 years after the Book of Revelation, so that's a big F right there, a lack of knowledge of dates. And history is all about dates. Obama is not a Muslim, he is a professed Christian and if Islamic roots make you a Muslim, then Christianity is in for a big shocker, alot of their symbols and celebrations are rooted in Paganism. Christmas, certain crosses, etc. have their roots in Paganism. If Obama's a Muslim because of his roots, well consider me a Pagan cause of mine.

Unknown candidate, I'm pretty sure more people have heard of Obama than Miss Alaska, I mean Sarah Palin. When she was announced, I had to ask who she was. And so did alot of other people.

And the whole Christian nation thing, what the hell does that even mean? The dude who wrote this has no knowledge of religion or history. It's these ignorant people that make me so upset because as Forrest Gump says, "Stupid is as stupid does." Fools following fools. Just what this country needs more of, stupid people who believe this crap. Anyways, this country is in no way, shape, or form a Christian nation. Apparently, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inherently Christian and found in no other religion so that makes the USA Christian. Wrong. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are found in a lot of other religions. Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and many others all seek life, liberty, and happiness. The only difference is how these things are sought out and what they are. I would venture to say that life, liberty, and happiness do not mean the same thing to every single person in the world. So, we are all looking for those things. Obama, McCain, Yasser Arafat, me, you, the Chinese guy down the hall, that annoying French guy in your Econ class. We're all looking so to say that those values are explicitly Christian are what makes America Christian is a fallacy. And our forefathers, they were deists. They believed that God made the world and stepped back to let us run it ourselves. Good ole Thomas Jefferson, he cut out parts of the Gospels, namely Jesus's miracles to make it sound, i guess you could say, more real. He was a deist and believed in Jesus' morals and teachings, but not the supernatural stuff. So, the founding fathers probably really had no concern of making Christianity the official religion of America. They were too busy escaping from tyranny and the like. So you really can't say we're a Christian nation to begin with.

And it is true that we are a nation where many religions are represented and that is awesome because a person like me can learn about them and make friends with a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, and I can take away important truths that significantly change my life for the better. So, I too am proud that we are not a Christian nation because that would suck. I am proud that we are a nation made up of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, etc. because we all present different views that can challenge us and if we're open, shape us into more knowledgeable, better people. And that quote at the end, isn't that ironic that they used that. Isn't roaring exactly what they are doing? Roaring so loud that it mutes tolerance, intelligence, and most importantly, love. If they were really courageous, they would stop talking and listen to what the world is saying instead of just their small circle of Close-Minded, Conservative, Republican American christians. I'm gonna be quiet now so I can hear the voice in the wind, the voice of love.

A Godly Life?

2008-09-29T19:03:00.001-04:00

In the past couple of weeks, I have had discussions with people concerning homosexuality and the fact that Ray Boltz has come out of the proverbial closet. Now, I've never heard any Ray Boltz, in fact I have no idea who he is except that he was a Christian worship musician and a homosexual.

For a long time, I hated gay people, I condemned them to hell before getting to know them. Well, my last year at AU, my conservatism wore thin due to many people and many conversations that started with environmentalism and spread to all sorts of things. Suffice it to say, I find myself to be more religiously and politically liberal these days and to be honest, i feel more comfortable and confident in what I believe and in myself than I ever did, but I digress. I got to thinking after this Ray Boltz bit came about. I got to thinking what makes him a bad Christian, what makes him not able to worship God? If it's because he's gay, then we all need to stop worshipping, we are all bad Christians, because and I know this is cliched, sin is sin, there are no levels in God's eyes or at least tha is what we have been led to believe. If that's true, we are as guilty as Ray or he is as guilty as us.

But we keep worshiping and living our Christian lives, seemingly oblivious to our sins. So I asked myself, what is a Godly life? I don't think it is a simple answer, but I think it is clear. I do not believe that a Godly life has anything to do with doctrines, by-laws, sub-laws, constitutions, rules, laws, congregations, denominations, and so on and so forth. A Godly life is what it is, a Godly life, that is, living Godly and Christlike despite our miscomings. I'm not saying we should let those be, but I believe that living Godly will help loosen those miscomings. I should probably define Godly more clearly. I believe that living Godly is living out unconditional love, it is living the way Christ lived. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said that he is the way, truth, and life. Not his personhood, but the way he lived his life. Living Godly is doing things the way Jesus did them, living the way Jesus lived, and spreading the truth that he spoke about. And part of that truth, way, and life was to love and accept all as they are.

So, why can't gay people do the same thing? God loves them as much as everyone else and if they love God too, why can't they spread the Gospel, worship, or heck even be Christians. Afterall, they are sinners just like the rest of us, me, you, and everybody. We are all the same, children of God whom he loves. Why do they have to be treated so differently?

If you haven't picked it up by now, I'm saying a gay person can live a Godly life if they want to. Who am I, a fellow sinner to tell them that they can't.

Open your mind to the bigger picture.

-The Brummett

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

2008-07-30T18:54:00.001-04:00

This summer has sucked miserably. No job, no money, my Mom has hardly any money, and to top it all of, my Grandpa died on Father's day. I thought things would be smooth-sailing after graduating from college, but that's what they don't tell you. The post-college experience is tough and there might be times where you won't be making it, you can't even struggle it gets so bad, and the only thing you can do, especially in the times we, the American people, find ourselves in is just sit and wait. Then comes boredom so you get out there and look, but there are barely any jobs, so then you just give up. And wait and wait and wait. Like Tom Petty says, "the waiting is the hardest part." You do all you can at home to keep yourself busy and your mind off things, but it's hard when you want to hang out with friends, but you can't because you have to save that gas for when the waiting is over. I've been waiting for the whole summer and luckily it's going to end in about a week. Not the most in-depth or thorough, but I'm just starting out. Maybe, even though the waiting is the hardest part, maybe it's also the part that will eventually pay off the most. I don't want to wait around this time, so I will do something about it. Maybe it can help create motivation, patience, and the drive to not give up next time.