There are some doubts about the origins of this cartoon (found at Scotteriology) – said to have been produced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses to explain their faith. The sword and fireballs are my favourite He-Man-esque scenes.
This serves alongside the South Park Mormon episode, and this other video, as a bit of a primer on the difference between these Cultic offshoots from Christianity and the rest of the flock.
Some people should learn to keep their mouths shut. A few years back Danny Naliah had much of Australian Christendom on his side when he spoke out against Islam and fell foul of Australia’s religious vilification laws… free speech is important. But it seems he has a desire to walk around as a test case. Here’s his idiot filled statement about the Queensland floods.
“Around 8pm on Friday night the 7th of January we had a strong prompting by the Holy Spirit to repent on behalf of Australia. As we started doing so, I was reminded that every time America went against Israel, there was disaster in the land and this has been documented over the years.
Then at once I was reminded of Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel in Israel on 14th December 2010. It is very interesting that Kevin Rudd is from QLD. Is God trying to get our attention? Yes, I believe so.
Also the Lord said to us, “ I will humble Australia and bring her down on her knees. As she has taken pride in my blessing, and man has taken the glory and not given it to Me”.”
Idiot.
Apparently the floods are God’s punishment of K-Rudd for speaking against Israel. This is the same guy who said the bushfires were God punishing Victoria.
I wonder what he’s going to do if New South Wales goes under. And you’ve got to wonder what these people did wrong (using his thinking).
Here’s what Jesus said about people in natural disasters (from Luke 13) as quoted last time Naliah opened his stupid mouth…
““1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.””
Don’t be one of those classless Christians who meets people’s grief with talk of judgment. I’ve seen murmurings like that from friends on Facebook. And I don’t like it. Sure. Judgment is part of the broken world we live in. Be one of those Christians who meets grief with love, and the promise of hope in Jesus.
That is all.
On our college mission in 2010 we had the opportunity to sit through a presentation by Straight Talk Australia’s Jim and Faye Lyons. Perhaps Australia’s most seasoned abstinence campaigners.
I thought the presentation could have done with a smattering of “forgiveness” and “grace” alongside the “unwanted pregnancy” and “gonorrhea” – but it certainly scared me. And I guess if it can scare a married 26 year old it can scare a 16 year old. Right?
The presentation was interesting. It involved a video of one of America’s biggest abstinence campaigners – Pam Stenzel – doing her thing on an Australian tour in 1998. The video is dated, jaded, and Pam is wearing an off putting combo of high pants with a big belt buckle that draws altogether too much attention to her chest area.
This is one of the many videos of Pam at work on YouTube.
Anyway. I wouldn’t necessarily endorse the product. But I thought Ben Law’s take on the program in an essay for the Monthly (from a couple of years ago) was pretty interesting. Ben is a gay essayist of some talent, and growing repute. He was my creative non-fiction lecturer at uni, and I saw him perform some stand up as part of JJJ’s Raw Comedy competition (I was cheering on some of my friends). He’s a funny guy, and remarkable even handed in his treatment of the program for one so diametrically opposed to all it’s seeking to achieve – though Pam’s outfit was too much for him:
“The Lyons invited Pam Stenzel to Queensland in 1998, and made a DVD of the resulting school tour. The Price Tag of Sex is the core of Jim and Faye’s presentation at Inglewood. Stenzel, despite looking a little dated (she is wearing high-waisted jeans that rise above her navel), is aggressively charming. She speaks with that irresistible American mix of authority and mocking disbelief. Throughout the DVD, there are clear-cut rules she shoots out. “Absolutely no genital contact of any kind – none!”; “Keep your pants on – simple!”; “If you are not married, don’t do it. If you are married – go for it!””
It’s worth reading to get a feel for what outsiders think of the stuff you might put on in your churches and schools without much thought. His analysis resonates with my experience of the program too. And his concerns are my concerns – though we approach the issue from vastly different perspectives.
Xtranormal is a text-to-video editor that I used a while ago to make a video of my pet Nigerian Scammer.
Here it has been put to a different use – showing just how dumb a batch of Calvinist pick up lines might sound in real life. Just in case you’re working your way through the process of Christian pick up artistry.
The video comes via 22 Words.
I posted something about Christian Wrestling somewhere before (the “Christian Wrestling” tag below will take you there). There’s a documentary about the industry coming out, a little too late to capture the zeitgeist inspired by Mickey O’Rourke’s The Wrestler.
Wrestling For Jesus Trailer from Nathan Clarke on Vimeo.
Interesting. And slightly oddway. You can follow the story of Wrestling For Jesus: The Tale of T-Money here.
I guess God wrestled. In Genesis. So it must be ok. And it was pretty “fake” too – so far as the outcome being scripted and the in ring storytelling being the most significant part.
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
This is doing the rounds of the blogosphere, but is too good not to post:
Benny Hinn and the Force.
Almost as funny as Benny Hinn and the song “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”…
Steve at Communicate Jesus dug this up. Tagxedo. It makes shaped tag clouds. Beautiful.
Here is a dove shaped cloud from the sermon I preached on the Beatitudes for my “trials for license” in Townsville.
There are plenty of services for pet care post rapture that you can google. But what do we do about people? Well. For posterity’s sake – this guy recorded a survival guide for the dirt/paper eaters who want to survive post rapture.
Every time you sing this song/prayer an atheist loses his wings. And his Dawkins library.
I missed my end of year wrap up yesterday because I was reading a book. Sorry. But here are some facts, figures and highlights from the year that was.
Stats
In 2009, 31,705 Absolute Unique Visitors made 48,733 Visits, making 82,916 Pageviews
In 2010, 31,869 Absolute Unique Visitors made 52,965 Visits, making 83,668 Pageviews.
At the time of writing I have 78 Facebook fans (become a fan – I’m now sharing links to stuff I don’t blog, or that is in my queue, to Facebook fans ahead of time), and 22 Google Connections.
So small increases across the board – but more importantly. No decreases. Hooray.
In 2009 I posted 1,106 posts here on St. Eutychus. In 2010 I managed 1,434. A 29% increase. And some people said being a college student would slow down my blogging. As it was – I used college as an opportunity to create more content.
My favourite college related series and posts from the year.
1. Some language resources (some for Mac, some for typing on a Mac)
2. Reflections on the “Disciplines of a Godly theological student”
3. My guide to First Year Greek
4. The things I love about College
5. The things I’d change about College
6. My Wisdom Literature Essay (part two, three, four, five, six) – my favourite essay of the year.
7. Pre-exam prep: New Testament 101, New Testament 102, Old Testament 101, Old Testament 102, Church History 101, Hebrew 102
8. Greece and Turkey Report(s).
9. Liveblogging Ben Witherington.
10. Liveblogging Gary Millar (one, two, three, four, five)
My favourite useful posts from this year
1. How to write a Media Release to promote your church event
2. How to talk to Atheists about Christianity
3. Awareness Raising is Overrated, (and the prequel – The Facebook Booby Trap, and the sequel about Movember, and a follow up about Social Media)
4. How to not raise bitter ministry children
5. Social Media Strategies for Churches (and a follow up on Venn Theology)
6. How not to be very good at Facebook
7. My election posts – Julia Gillard’s atheism, my Christian values election scorecard, why I won’t vote for Family First, wrap up.
8. Coffee and ministry.
9. Five cheap ways to exegete your suburb.
10. My Five Steps to Better Coffee series
Many of these are the type of thing I hope to post at Venn Theology this year (2011).
My favourite coffee posts this year
1. Seven Deadly Coffee Sins
2. From Cherry to the Cup – a look at processing and roasting coffee: part one, two, three, four, five
3. Brisbane cafe reviews: Dandelion and Driftwood, Cup, BlackStar
4. The sin of Instant Coffee.
5. Coffee and Ministry
6. A coffee gift guide.
7. Science says “don’t freeze your coffee”
8. How to make Greek Coffee.
9. A beautiful guide to coffee drinks
10. My “Five Steps to Better Coffee” Series
My favourite frivolity
But it wasn’t all serious. Here are some of my favourite posts/series from this year.
1. Ten steps to planting a mega church (with a follow-up “how to name your megachurch“)
2. 23 Bacon products that will take your breath away.
3. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook.
4. The Devil Wants you Fat (series – that I probably should finish now I have a scanner).
5. Backwards Masking Unmasked (The Jacob Aranza Series)
6. Mad Skillz Week
7. Liveblogging Chuck Norris’ Invasion USA (part 2, part 3, part 4, Robyn’s report).
8. The Make Me A Mexican Challenge
9. About “Hot Wives”
10. About Church Slogans (a bad example).
11. A Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (part one b, part two, part three)
12. The definitive and authoritative guide to the six basic plot lines
13. A look at “Objective Ministries” crazy Christian conspiracy to take over the moon
14. Reverse engineering the perfect chip
15. The Art of Improvised weaponry
16. K-Strass the Yo-Yo guy
Most popular posts in 2010
Here are the most popular posts (mostly because google loves them) by visits this year. A couple of these were written last year and continue to attract a steady stream of traffic.
1. How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast (2009), the 2010 follow up was equally popular
2. Five things that would make atheists seem nicer: this accounted for about a quarter of 2009’s traffic. By itself. Not so much in 2010, but still enough to rank second.
3. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook: This one had a bit of a spike in traffic around publication, but continues to get about 10 hits a day.
4. Ten steps to planting a megachurch: This was one of my favourites, so I’m glad it did well.
5. Chuck Norris Jeans: The little engine that could. Google loves this post.
6. How to get the Facebook Like Button working on WordPress: Certainly my geekiest post of the year.
7. Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed
8. Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online (and why I’ve mostly given up).
9. Let’s not fly Jetstar: a 2009 post about a Jetstar nightmare.
10. Facebook Login Fail: a little post about a funny story about people googling “facebook login” and landing in the wrong place.
Most popular posts from 2010
A slightly different list – because it does away with a couple of “long tail” posts from last year.
1. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook
2. Ten steps to planting a megachurch
3. Chuck Norris Jeans
4. How to get the Facebook Like Button working on WordPress
5. Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed
6. Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online (and why I’ve mostly given up).
7. Facebook Login Fail: a little post about a funny story about people googling “facebook login” and landing in the wrong place.
8. Some Greek and Hebrew Resources
9. How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast How to Make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast: The 2010 follow up was equally popular
10. Typographic Moustaches
Thanks for reading.
Never have the words “we serve a Great God” and “I feel like a pointer dog” been juxtaposed with such poise and dignity.
I’ve posted some Exercise for Jesus videos before. But this one even includes dieting tips.
As a couple of commenters have already pointed out – it turns out my idea was “nothing new” (cf Ecclesiastes). Enter the Pocket Canon series:
Pretty much what I described, only using the KJV. And a bit old (published in 1999). Reasonably priced too – 10 for . $24.95 on Amazon
The good news is, obviously there’s a market for this stuff.
Here’s a glowing review from a blog that’s all about Bible design.
There are instructional videos for all sorts of things on YouTube. This one’s a doozy.
If you can stick it out until about 5 minutes – through two gibberish sessions and two vague interpretations that would make Johnathan Edwards (the psychic, not the theologian) proud… you’ll hear that there’s a movement and things are breaking free. And there are vibrations. Things that don’t belong. He says “the right things will remain” – I can only hope that this movement dies a rapid death.
It’s easy to be one of these training facilitators. You don’t have to write your own stuff. You just let the people on the floor do your job for you.
Urgh.
That’s my one-word tongues response to this video.