Stephen Colbert is a most fantastic interviewer – if you want the interviewee to feel particularly awkward. On Thursday he took on Bert Ehrman – who is pushing a new book about contradictions in the bible…
Colbert, a practicing Catholic, rips him apart. A bit. It’s interesting viewing.
John Safran had himself nailed to a cross yesterday. Apparently.
The man is nothing if not committed to his quest to understand religions of all colours (and creeds).
Father Bob – his radio offsider on JJJ – described it as an attempt to understand religion at a forensic level…
“For him, religion is the heart of the cosmos.
“If he did do it, it would have been for a forensic investigation of religious practices.”
An AFP report from Manila said the Australian, who was half-naked and wearing a long-haired wig with an improvised crown of thorns, joined Filipinos in a procession carrying a huge wooden cross to a crucifixion site.
He could be heard moaning loudly as the nails were driven into his palms and as his cross was hoisted up, allowing him to hang for about five minutes.
When he was taken down, he was rushed by men dressed as centurions to a medical tent for treatment. “
I mentioned the ABC radio’s unique take on the stats released by the Centre for Public Christianity yesterday. Dan has helpfully shared a link to the ABC Radio transcript of the story I was listening to on the world today.
The reaction to the statistics has been somewhat amusing. On the one hand 55% of the “non born again” community don’t believe in the resurrection. Which should be comforting to atheists, Muslims and the liberal church.
The Uniting Church in New South Wales was one of the first organisations to put its own spin on the findings – claiming most of the 45% of (non “born again”) people who believe in the resurrection only believe it in a metaphorical sense.
Many Australians, although certainly not a majority, would see Jesus as metaphorically real, or his resurrection as metaphorically real, but would expect that the bones of Jesus would be found in Palestine.
And that’s my own position.
But I think that the resurrection of Jesus is principally about the continuing reality of Jesus of Nazareth in this world. – Ian Pearson from the Pitt Street Uniting Church…
Hmm, interesting take on things. You’ve got to wonder why this guy is still a “Christian” minister if this is what he thinks. If they found the bones of Jesus in Palestine I’d throw in the Christian towel. Immediately. If it’s all just a metaphor you’ve got to ask “why bother at all?” – Exactly the point Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen raised…
If he just rose metaphorically, well, it’s Alice in Wonderland sort of stuff, and is not worth worrying about.
I wouldn’t be a Christian if I thought that. Just wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
But that’s not what the New Testament says; that’s not what the evidence says.
The evidence is really talking about a real resurrection from the dead.
The atheists on the other hand. Well. They still kind of miss the point of serving God if you believe in him – which many clearly still do… talk about imposing your value judgments on others…
The world needs to get away from this dependence on an imaginary super person in the sky, and start looking at the problems that we’re encountering in real terms – David Nichols, the president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia
Research released by John Dickson’s Centre for Public Christianity has been given widespread media attention today.
The ABC radio’s idea of “objective” coverage was to give the Atheists a chance to use this as a platform to call for a secular society.
But it’s a pretty interesting statistic when it comes to reaching the “unwashed masses” – it seems almost half of the country’s non-Christians could be considered “low hanging fruit” – believing that Jesus rose from the dead.
This survey did not include those who define themselves as “born again” which possibly means it did include church going liberals, Catholics and others who tick the “Christian” box on the census.
Here’s the SMH story on the stats.
I sometimes wonder why some people I respect in real life, and who show all the hallmarks of humility have such arrogant online profiles or personal webpages.
I won’t link to them – but as a general rule they’re as good as they say they are. It just seems a little arrogant to claim to be as good as you are – though I was accused recently of being a typical Australian with tall poppy tendencies – so maybe that’s it.
I wonder if having an online brand blows the idea of humility out of the water. Certainly social media encourage talking about yourself in the third person – but the fact that you feel compelled to write a bio of yourself on your webpage highlighting your field of expertise does not lend itself to humility.
That is all.
Well, not literally. But the second post in the debate on video preaching over at toph-online has just been reposted after a hiatus (first post). I wrote a long comment on this post. I was a little bit angry – but it’s a helpful discussion.
Here’s the final summary of my thoughts on the matter on that post. Which you should read – along with the previous posts, and the comments. I think.
“Video preaching driven by the preacher is inherently arrogant, and video preaching driven by adherents is inherently idolatrous.”
As you can see, I’m not a fan. But there’s a lot of interesting points made on both sides of the debate.
I spent last Saturday morning going through some old family home videos ahead of dad’s 50th birthday (on April 12). I have to edit them down into a nice little family video production. Dad has set the video production bar pretty high – as you’ll see on his design4church blog. Here’s the MPC promo video for this year’s “Rechurch” theme…
Oh the shame. My parents recorded some very cruel things that will no doubt come back to haunt my two sisters who have not yet celebrated 21st birthdays. Tomorrow I will resume this task.
I wonder if there are ethical problems with posting videos of your younger siblings doing embarrassing things on YouTube without their consent and many years after the fact?
Would it balance it out if I posted skeletons from my own closet? Like the matinée performance of my starring role in our fifth grade (at school not a comment on quality) musical performance of Oliver.
A few weeks back I made the suggestion that I was looking for something meaty to post about. But it had to be something that wouldn’t in any way disqualify me from future Presbyterian ministry. Simone suggested I write about prayer in church. I’m sure this was mostly prompted by a comment I made on her blog about a frustration I have about the “quality control” some churches employ when it comes to prayer time.
So here goes.
I think prayer is important in church. That’s obvious. I am in no way diminishing the fact that talking to our heavenly father is an integral part of church life – and must be part of the church service.
Public prayer is an interesting creature. Done well it can be encouraging and uplifting. Done very well it can spur people on to Godly thinking and concern for others – not to mention that faithful prayer is important to the spiritual life of a church community.
Done badly prayer can appear to be nothing more than a press release about the upcoming activities of a church. “We pray for the upcoming dinner socials, we pray for the car wash, etc…”. When prayer points are pulled straight out of the church notices they’re neither informative or insightful – it’s fair enough to pray for the fruit of an evangelistic event, or for an important training event, or in fact to pray for any ministry or event being run by the church in question. But to do it from the notice sheet verbatim is an easy trap for the nervous prayer – and serves nobody.
The other trap I think churches can fall into is forcing (or teaching or instructing) prayers to write down their prayers. Unless you’re a trained reader reading will always sound like reading not like natural speech. It’s unavoidable. Inevitable even. If you’ve got someone reading their prayer it doesn’t matter how well prepared they are – it will sound read. And things that sound read don’t sound like they’re from the heart – and prayer should be (and public prayer should sound) from the heart, not from a script. Especially not from a script that sounds overly honed for the benefit of keeping tight and presentable.
But… I hear you say. “But if people don’t write their prayers down they ramble and umm and ahh and that sounds so ungainly”… well I say “so what”. And if that’s really a problem train people in public speaking rather than get them to write down their prayers. Nobody wants to hear ramble – so train people to pray from points.
When Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray (ie when he taught them the Lord’s Prayer), and later when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to the crucifixion, there was no mention of putting your thoughts to paper first. He prayed from the heart and with purpose, and subject to God’s will. Those should be the criteria by which we judge church prayers.
I struggle to come to terms with the idea that prayer is like music – and that those serving the body of Christ through prayer should be as prepared as the musician or the preacher. I know where the intention comes from. I too am a pragmatist. But I don’t think there’s anything worse for outsiders than praying to our living God in a stilted, unfeeling manner – a manner I think is encouraged by insisting on scripted prayer.
That is all. Next time I feel the need to write something that will make people angry I’m going to pick on church music. Sacred cows are fun topics.
“They make for a strange trio of bedfellows, Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, David Marr, the journalist, and Janet Albrechtsen, the columnist – public figures whose views on politics, society and religion could not be more different.”
There’s an interesting debate taking place tonight. It’ll be online. It’s about freedom to offend (protecting freedom of speech). The above is the team for the affirmative… details are here.
Give your atheist friends a spray with this miracle cure (peppermint breath freshener) and watch their smug superiority melt away…
Chris just beat me to the punch on this. Video preaching. Some are for it. Some against. I’m mostly against. I think you’d have to be pretty arrogant to think that your sermons should be broadcast to the thousands in your auditorium – and then to thousands more in multiple auditoriums elsewhere around the city, state, nation or globe.
But wait you say… Mark Driscoll does it – in a “multi-campus” format for his church – Mars Hill – in his city – Seattle… Driscoll also wants 900 men to plant churches in the US – how’s he going to find 900 men world wide if he can’t find 8 suitable men in his own city?
I understand the practicality of embracing the model. There are no doubt thousands of people who’d like to listen to Mark Driscoll in church every Sunday. I’m happy enough for Mars Hill to pursue that model provided it’s in the same city and being driven by humble pragmatism – and not the inability to find the people to do the preaching elsewhere…
There were some interesting points raised by the original article – by an emerging church type (which means he has a bone to pick with Driscoll – even if he doesn’t name him specifically… oh wait, he does)…
“This is the rule: Technology, taken too far, creates the opposite of what it was intended to create.
Still doubt it? Ask yourself- Email was meant to keep you in touch and ease communication, right? But when you are trying to process 100 emails a day, you don’t feel in touch, you feel crushed. You’re not communicating- you are wading through spam, forwards, fyi’s… Your emails get shorter and shorter, more and more terse, and mis-communication happens more often than not. “
“If we’re not more thoughtful about this, soon, every city and town will have the Driscoll franchise… maybe even two or three. And the Andy Stanley, Ed Young Jr franchise as well. Is Joel Osteen too far behind? Hybels, Warren, Groeschel… the market is going to get crowded.”
See, here’s my concern. Nicely articulated. We want not just one preacher for a generation – but a generation of preachers. Bible teaching is enhanced by a diverse platform of voices all spurring one another on. There’s one preacher in that list of luminaries who I’d listen to. Only one. And yet, a world full of churches with just these seven men is technologically (and therefore technically) possible.
This really is the biggest question mark raised over the Mars Hill model for me – and by extension the Acts 29 church planting philosophy. Sure, Driscoll’s a gifted guy. A once in a generation preacher. But that doesn’t mean we should all be listening to him in our churches week in week out.
This is part of a collection of very expensive novelty rugs from Dan Golden. I like it because it’s making fun of bad doctrine.
That is all. For now.
Saudi Arabia is not a nice place to be if you’re a Muslim looking to become a Christian.
Anyone who wants to preach the message that Islam is a religion of love and tolerance should consider the punishment dished out on anybody who wants to leave the fold.
In Christianity we call communities that shun or excommunicate those who leave cults. It’s one of the criterion a cult must meet.
According to Islamic rules – as stated in the Hadith of Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57, which is authoritative for all Muslims:
“Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to ‘Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn ‘Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it, saying, ‘Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire).’ I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.’”
A Christian convert in Saudi Arabia, a young girl, wrote this poem (and posted it online) shortly before her family killed her for apostasy. Here’s an excerpt:
There are tears on my cheek, and Oh! the heart is sad
To those who become Christians, how you are so cruel!
And the Messiah says, “Blessed are the Persecuted”
And we for the sake of Christ all things bearWhat is it to you that we are infidels?
You do not enter our graves, as if with us buriedEnough – your swords do not concern me, not evil nor disgrace
Your threats do not trouble me, and we are not afraid
And by God, I am unto death a Christian—Verily
I cry for what passed by, of a sad life
Talk about courage under fire.
There are three things this episode prompts me to think.
This is a more serious tone than I like to put here – but this story is just overwhelmingly sad. And this sort of insight into martyrdom is rare. This lady’s entire poem is well worth a read. Do it.
This post will no doubt see me excommunicated by the Southern Baptists. Oh well. I’ll drink to that. From my awesome bible flask.
I’m trying to decided whether using google as an analogy for God is appropriate or not. There are certain similarities that would help make God more accessible to geeks.
First I considered the possibility of using an open source analogy… it all started when I was trying to explain that it’s not inconsistent for an omnipotent God to change his system of doing things…
“The logic is perfectly consistent. The OT is a precursor to the NT – and certain things from the Old system are replaced in the new. It’s like a software upgrade that makes that piece of technology so much more awesome. In fact – the OT is like a proprietary software system that only works for the original company that won the contract,and in the NT it’s open source. Available for all. For free. Actually, it’s more like shareware because you don’t get to hack the code to bits and make it do whatever you want…”
Here are five ways God is like Google…
Yeah, so it’s not perfect. But help me refine it in the comments.