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.

Recanting some more

Mumford and Sons caused me to recant my long held position on folk music – and it turns out they’ve undone another little piece of music snobbery.

Despite the liberal application of the “f” word in their current single – which probably turns off heaps of Christian listeners – it appears that the guys in the band are in fact Christians. And since their songs spend a fair bit of time dealing with Christian stuff I could begrudgingly define their music as Christian music. And we all know how I feel about that.

I looked it up online because I was pretty convinced based on some of the lyrics that the album Sigh No More is at the very least a musical documentation of someone’s dalliance with God, and Christian belief.

I’m intrigued by some of the lyrics from this album. Clearly they’re about a man struggling between the flesh and the spiritual. Here’s a post with a bit of an analysis of the lyrics, and here’s one from someone who couldn’t take all the Jesus talk…

Here are some of their lyrics.

Dust Bowl Dance
there will come a time when I will look in your eye
You will pray to the god that you’ve always denied
I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun
I’ll say you haven’t met me, I am the only son.

White Blank pages
Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I’m clean, I’m clean

Awake My Soul
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker

Roll Away Your Stone
You told me that I would find a hole
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

And here are some songs for your listening pleasure.

December 8, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: You may now update your status

Here’s an interesting way to begin married life.

Something there seems a little bit amiss. But you know, things aren’t real until they’re on Facebook.

December 8, 2009

Did somebody say “free chocolate”

I received a reply today. From Cadbury.

Dear Mr Campbell,

Thank you

We have received your email and will be in touch via the post.

Kind regards
CADBURY PTY LTD

December 8, 2009

What’s the opposite of serendipity?

10 things Obama can learn from Woods. Well done Golf Digest.

This is about as funny as Dream Theater’s pulled September 11 album cover. A triumph of coincidentally bad timing.

December 8, 2009

On atheism, Fox News and Christmas

If I was an atheist and I had to watch this on my news program I’d be really annoyed… Particularly because O’Reilly is fixated on the idea that Christmas is about the baby Jesus – it’s not, it’s about the birth of the Lord Jesus. He grew up and did some stuff. That’s why we care.

It’s in response to this ad from the Humanist society…

The ad has a clever tagline. It’s a shame they can only trot it out once a year. But sadly, that’s not really what humanism is. That’s what secular humanism is. John Calvin has been described as both a Renaissance humanist and a “Christian humanist“.

December 7, 2009

The world’s saddest group blog

Online therapy sessions are pretty sad. First there was My Life is Average – it’s kind of group therapy.

Now… there’s “My Life is Twilight“… for the truly sad and lonely.

So im 25 yrs old I have been a twilight fan since 2 months before the 1st movie came out I read the boks and loved them, Ive allwayz loved the whole vampire thing so Twilight was just my thing, so in august I got the cullen crest on my right arm Ilove it and now I feel im a cullen…

December 7, 2009

Pac Can

How’s this for an in store display – Pacman and ghosts made entirely out of tinned fish.

From a bunch of “Canstruction” art on Flickr.

December 7, 2009

Deconstructing Disney

When I passed horrible and scathing judgment on the Little Mermaid the other day people leapt to the poor thing’s defence.

But here’s another analysis of Disney princesses – and it’s not pretty. The fairytale existence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

And here’s an analysis of the men in the stories…

They deserve each other really.

December 7, 2009

The real food chain

Despite what you might have learned in school – we are not on top…

December 7, 2009

More on appropriate iPhone use

I meant to post this photo with the iPhone flowchart I posted this morning.

Clearly iPhones are designed to be used when you’re on holiday in Townsville…

They’re all playing LineUp.

December 7, 2009

On the Passive Aggressive Link comment

Sometimes my blogging friends post things that I’ve posted months before as though they’re original, or exciting.

This hurts my precious blog ego. Until I remember that I post so much stuff that sometimes I forget it, and I don’t read 90% of other people’s posts fully (except for you, dear reader).

To draw their attention to the fact that their post is old news I post a nice, agreeable comment. Including a link to my take on the post from months back.

It’ll read something like this…

“Oh yeah, I totally agree, especially in this post I wrote about the same thing four months ago”…

This is the ultimate passive aggressive blogging action. It uses one of Simone’s blog love languages (the comment) to gently rebuke the recalcitrant reader while simultaneously asserting one’s own superiority.

I will try to stop this. My last passive aggressive link comment was last week. I think I’m doing better already.

December 7, 2009

A Biblical world view

Here’s an infographic of the world if the Old Testament was read completely as a literal and scientific document with the spiritual realm housed in the physical.

From Flickr.

December 7, 2009

The rules of Shotgun

Here are the official rules of Shotgun. In case you were wondering.

Though I think there should be an exception that comes into play when someone actually has a shotgun in hand. They should get the seat. This is not included in the rules.

Here is one rule I didn’t know about…

The Balk
This rule is applied when you have called Shotgun and are waiting for the doors to be unlocked. If you lift the handle while the doors are being unlocked and therefore cause the Shotgun door to remain locked, then you are “voided” for that ride. At this time Shotgun is available for all of the other passengers to call.

December 7, 2009

Totally gay flowchart

Here’s one man’s summary of the arguments for and against gay marriage in flow chart form.

The moral to this story is that when Christians are dealing with political issues we need to keep a healthy balance of “love” with our “truth” – and we need to stop saying stupid stuff.

It’s mostly an American thing – but it’s an interesting way to present both sides of an argument.

Via here.

December 7, 2009

Socialist pigs

From Aaran, in the comments on an earlier post:

In a bid to be politically correct and not scare little children the message has inverted to promote the foolishness that the original was meant to warn against. Now that the first two don’t get eaten it promotes a welfare mentality; you can get away with being lazy because there is always someone you can bludge off when you need.

It made me laugh. Have any other fairy tales or fables been hijacked.

December 7, 2009