Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.

The problem with the liberals

You might be thinking, on the basis of the title, that I’m going to talk about politics. If you want to know what I think is currently wrong with the Liberal Party read here.

Today’s rant is about “liberal” Christians.

I don’t think there has been anything more harmful to evangelism than the watering down of the gospel. There are plenty of things atheists could say about what the Bible actually says that would be grounds for choosing to reject God. But nothing annoys me more in the dialogue than those weak kneed Christians who try to apologise for God’s behaviour. Especially when it comes to that archaic ban on gayness (which is a genetic trait so can’t be wrong) or those cultural ideas of marriage and family. Read any forum where gay rights are being discussed (and I’m not actually opposed to gay marriage necessarily) and you’ll see the type of people I’m talking about.

It is important to place the Bible in historical context and to understand what the text meant to the original readers. But these liberals need to go back to reading their Bibles. They’re kind of missing the point. Right from the nation of Israel to instructions for Christians the idea is that at some point God has to be counter cultural – or there’s no point? How are the people of God to be different if everything that’s natural is fair game? It just doesn’t make sense.

Liberal Christianity is less logical than atheism. Atheism functions on a type of rational and logical framework. Liberalism takes a bizarre mix of the supernatural element of Christianity and the emotional anything goes morality of Atheism and tries to blend them. It stinks.

We should expect sin to be natural. In fact, I’d go as far as to say we should have an inherent distrust for anything that seems natural to us, as humans, because human nature is sinful.

I can see where they come from, sometimes, we are called to love people. Loving the sinner but hating the sin can be pretty confusing. But to suggest that certain behaviour is ok for Christians just because it’s instinctive isn’t just a slippery slope. It’s a fireman’s pole. Straight down.

The fundamental assumption of Liberal belief – from what I can gather – is that somehow we, in the 21st century, are better qualified to understand the mind of God than those primitive disciples and their apostolic proclamations – and heaven help anyone who tries to base a worldview on the Old Testament.

Science, culture and psychology have helped us understand our sinfulness better – they do nothing to turn that which God calls sinful into something pure.

That is all.

Things that are of the Devil

  1. Pokemon
  2. Video Games
  3. Bad Preaching

I believe that one of the three items in that list is actually a tool of the devil. This guy disagrees.

The Links effect

It’s been a while since I last shared some significant link love. And I like doing these posts – it reminds me how much fun the blogosphere is…

I’m looking forward to working at a church that cares about the small things – like fonts – next year (not that our current one doesn’t – it’s just I don’t work for it). Simone is writing a new series of Sunday School material on 1-2 Kings.

Jeff’s sermon on evangelism prompted some interesting application of his application. He also posted on the gender pay issue that cropped up in the comments of Benny’s last (or second last) post.

Ali noticed that conversation starter cards are springing up everywhere.

Kutz designed a cool shirt and perhaps started a sub-movement.

Ben created a word game.

Tim posted some good analysis of the World Cup bid (and other Football goings on) via YouTube – Play Fair,
NIKE: TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL (high quailty), Balanced view of the world cup

Stephy at Stuff Christian Culture likes covered the wardrobe choices of “relevant” preachers in the US. But before that she took on two of my favourites – prayer requests as gossip and oversharing via prayer request. What’s worse than oversharing via prayer request is oversharing via prayer request on Facebook.

Lee who has turned into a regular comment in these parts has a couple of blogs – I guiltily enjoy Lemon Harrangue Pie more than the serious one about being a Contemporary Calvinist. But both are good stuff and I commend them to you.

Dave Miers has a great list of books people should read in their first year out of highschool – at the very least you could put them on your holiness shelf.

Andrew managed to pick a fight with some atheists on Tumblr. Having first picked one on Twitter.

Stuss reviewed Australia. She didn’t like it. I haven’t seen it. I don’t plan to. It’s a bit like the Passion. I know all the good bits so a movie is only going to cheapen the experience.

Conference blogging was all the rage – Izaac shared some thoughts on NTE talks.

Over at Christian Reflections Mikey liveblogged the Geneva Push’s In the Chute conference. There were lots of posts. Here were 24 I enjoyed.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the good stuff around the blogosphere but it has, for now, exhausted me.

If you’ve got something you wrote or read that is worth sharing – put it in the comments for all to see.

High steaks art

Steak Filter v0 – init from AKA MEDIA SYSTEM on Vimeo.

I am plugging composite video into a big steak, which is then cooked. The video signal going through the steak is the image of the steak cooking. Gradually, the steak loses moisture and signal can no longer pass.

Pac Mug

When this mug gets hot the ghosts disappear.

Need I say more…

Get yours here for just six pounds.

London’s burning

What better way to commemorate a famous fire than to turn the skyline of the city in question into a fireplace decoration.

Now, to fetch the engines…

Via core77.

Street cred fail

Anyone who grew up playing Streetfighter 2 knows that the Shoryuken is a most potent weapon.

Here’s Big Bird unleashing the awesome power of a shoryuken (dragon punch) on the cookie monster. He knows where it’s at…

But is it worthy of a tattoo? This guy thought so. But unlike Big Bird he doesn’t have a clue how to land the killer blow.

Unfortunately he made a little mistake. see, to hit that move you’ve got to do this →↓↘ + P

From kotaku.

Become a muppeteer

How well do you know your Muppets? Here’s a collection of 101 Muppets from the well known to the obscure, with an informative rollover.

Here’s a screenshot.

Baco-lantern

Symphony and Motorola

Vodafone put together this cool little mobile phone orchestra.

It does remind me of that scene in Black Books where Bernard takes a wooden mallet to a mobile phone.

Chess block sing

Lego stop motion videos are one of my favourite things. And I’ve got a soft spot for hip-hop. The Wu Tang Clan have never been my cup of tea – but this Lego version of their Chess Boxing video is pretty cool.

Wu-Tang Lego: Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ from davo on Vimeo.

When all else fails… succeed

Chocolate fudge coated candied bacon = awesome

Bacon beer was cool. Bacon Jam sounded pretty great. But this one has to take the cake. Candied bacon by itself sounds like a taste sensation. Coat it with fudge and it’s just decadence.

Here’s how to make it.

Bear with me

Sharing gummi bears has been an almost impossible task. Until now. The average gummi bear is too small to split more than two ways.

The GummyDevil, on the other hand, has more than enough gummi goodness to go round…

You can buy one for about 30GBP.

If you need tips on how to share the big fella then this instructable on Gummi Bear surgery will come in handy.

Roasting oven

Neil from Ministry Grounds has started importing Behmor Coffee Roasters. Based on the specs, and an email from Neil, this will be a much more efficient way to roast coffee than my current breadmaker/heatgun setup.

So I ordered one yesterday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Also, for Townsville people, Robyn and I are making (and selling) coffee at Stable on the Strand this year. If you’re in the neighbourhood you should drop by and exchange your money for our coffee.