Category: Christianity

Backward Masking Unmasked – Part Two – How to spot rebellion (and not be rebellious)

Of all the bands Aranza doesn’t like – the Eagles are on top of the pile. They get a whole chapter. Here’s why you should be worried (if you’re an Eagles fan).

Hotel California

The only line in parenthesis is “(such a lovely face)” – on the inside cover of the album there’s a photo with a face in the window. If you squint he looks like the black pope (the Satanic pope) Anton Zandor LeVay. “Is this an accident? Hardly”… the lyrics also say “we haven’t had that spirit since 1969” – the year the Satanic Bible was published… and the spirit in the song was wine, which is of course the “Holy Spirit”… convinced? No. Well, if you play the song backwards you apparently hear “yes, Satan organised his own religion” – if you squint with your ears…

The Seven signs of Rebellion

  1. Rebels never do all of what they’re told to do.
  2. They’re never completely honest with themselves or others.
  3. They are blameshifters, always placing the blame on others and not themselves.
  4. They will give up wrongs but not their rights. As with Saul they will giev up the bad and keep what they feel is good.
  5. They are always questioning the authority of others, “who are you to tell me what is right or wrong?” As with Saul who denied Samuel’s accusation.
  6. They are very prideful, thinking highly about themselves, Saul was like that.
  7. They are very stubborn with the “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude, instead of being hmble and examining the facts to see if they be true.

The Six Steps of Rebellion

Jacob Aranza isn’t a man who offers problems without solutions. When he spoke in Texas, on what was to be a one week engagement, he ended up staying for three weeks and holding record burnings. He wants you not to be a rebellious youth. Here are the six steps of rebellion. If you find yourself identifying with the list above already, or spotting any of this list in your life – you need help.

  1. Disobedience
  2. Self-Deceit (not honest with yourself)
  3. Stubbornness
  4. Looking for idols
  5. Witchcraft and the occult
  6. Death

“If you see any of these steps in your life, or in the lives of those around you it’s not too late to stop the pattern. You don’t have to live the life of a rock and roll rebel.”

Here’s how to assess your favourite (secular) rock group.

1. Do they glorify God?
2. Are they building God’s Kingdom, or destroying it?
3. Can you see Jesus is Lord in their lives?
4. Are they serving themselves or the living God?

He says “unfortunately Christian artists are suffering financially because Christians are supporting non-Christian artists… There are no good reasons why Christian young people can not hear good quality music about the Rock that never rolls… Jesus.”

And now, some stuff about your bands…

Black Sabbath

With a name like Black Sabbath you could only expect them to be what they are. They were introduced to the British press by a party featuring the mock sword sacrifice of a semi-nude girl. They were known to hold masses before some of their concerts. Their first album, Black Sabbath pictured a witch on the front.

A few days ago I was watching Black Sabbath in concert on television. In the middle of the concert the lead singer of the band began to make a satanic salute. It is made by extending the little finger and index finger. He yelled to the crowd and in response they also made the sign. Then he looked at the sign he was making with his hand and said “some people think they know what this means, but we know what this really means. It means long live rock and roll.”


Judas Priest

This English group’s promotional material says that their new album Sin After Sin is selling sin, or has sin for sale.

“Judas Priest, a new group from the industrial heartland of England is selling sin on their new album. Their new album is called Sin After Sin, but don’t worry you will still be saved,” the promotional piece says.

Of course the message of the album is that a person can live the way he wants and still get by with it, still be saved.

John Denver

The album Rocky Mountain High talks of a born-again experience by a man born in his 27th year. In a Newsweek interview, Denver said, “As a self-appointed Messiah, I view music as far more than just entertainment.”
He sees it as a tool to promote the gospel of a new secular religion. The leaders of this religion claim to control the universe and “claim to be gods” (Newsweek, December 20, 1976).
In another song he says, “Apollo is the major deity of the sun, light, music and art” (Symbols, Signs and Their meanings, A. Whittich, 1960, p. 190).
People magazine interviewd Denver and revealed that he has tried Rofling, Aikido, EST, Pyramid Power and other mystical religions, yet still feels fragmented (People, December 8, 1980, p/ 65).

May 5, 2010

How to talk to atheists about Christianity

So today I presented the thing about how to talk to atheists I mentioned a while back. Here are my notes. You’ll probably recognise them if you’ve been reading for a while. This was a great way to justify all the hours I’ve spent in seemingly fruitless debate in the last 18 months.

Things not to say

  1. Don’t present as an expert on scientific thought – unless you are.
  2. Don’t use words that carry baggage. Good in the Bible is a theological category, not a moral category. Don’t conflate them.
  3. Don’t say atheists are incapable of being good without God, or suggest they’re naturally immoral. Be prepared to ask how they make moral decisions – but don’t assert that they’re unable to – remember common grace.
  4. Don’t go down the “look at all the evil atheists” path unless you want to go down the “explain the Crusades” path.
  5. Don’t say “those people aren’t real Christians” unless you’re familiar with the “no true Scotsman” fallacy and you’re prepared to demonstrate how they are not in fact Christians (and can speak with authority about their state before God).
  6. Don’t suggest that Christian principles should form the backbone of law because the majority of people identify as Christians. Invert this thinking, and put yourself in the minority – we can’t expect everybody to live as though they have the Holy Spirit, nor should we be expecting the state to govern as though we’re a Christian nation.
  7. Don’t quote Bible verses out of context.
  8. Don’t say “there are no atheists in the foxholes”, “atheism is a faith”, or “you only don’t believe to justify your immorality” – these are all clichéd and the atheists think they’ve been “debunked” . Avoid Pascal’s wager too (as valid as it may be).
  9. Try to avoid generalisations – all atheists don’t think the same. There is no atheist “bible” or code they have to sign up to.

Here’s a list of things they say not to say (or do)…

This is not necessarily a list of things not to do, just a list of things atheists have said that they find annoying (from commenters on a site called the Friendly Atheist):

  • Bait-and-switch: Where they become your “friend,” but really, they just want to convert you
  • Not speaking out against other Christians who do really crazy things
  • Assume that everyone who isn’t a Christian is “lost” or needs “saving”
  • Giving credit to god for every good thing that happens, and accepting every bad thing as part of his “plan”.
  • Sneaking their beliefs into supposedly neutral conversations; using neutral platforms to espouse their religion (like facebook, et al.)
  • Automatically “assume” that everyone shares their beliefs
  • “You’re an atheist because you want to do immoral things. You know god exists really.”
  • Assuming that everyone who doesn’t believe is ignorant of the Bible, or of popular interpretations of the Bible.
  • Asserting that Christianity is not a religion because religions aren’t real or using some other silly criteria
  • Cherry picking the bible.
  • Not admitting that their god is immoral.
  • I’m also bugged by the ones who apparently care more about the soul of the person than the person.
  • When they acknowledge that “religion is bad” but then claim that True Christianity is not a “religion” is very annoying as well
  • Attempting to force their views on you, either by preaching or by codifying their belief system into law.
  • Latching on to your problems in order to try to convert you.
  • Affirming that people who didn’t believe in god in life are now in hell, even the relatives or loved ones of the person they’re talking to “My grandmother was an atheist, is she in hell?” “Yes”. This is beyond enraging, and it makes it even worse when the person saying it refuses to acknowledge how callous and cruel their words are, and how there’s nothing “loving” about them.
  • Quoting bible verses at you in lieu of actual debate or discussion, as though you accept their inerrance as much as they do.
  • They fail to see that the separation of church and state protects their freedom to worship as they choose. They naively assume that a mixture of religion and government would be a benign version of their particular sub set of their religion, instead of the insane tyranny in Europe that the founding fathers vividly remembered.

Things to say

  1. Stick with Jesus – most atheists accept that he lived and taught good stuff (some don’t) – keeping the question grounded in the historical reality of the resurrection – or that claim – is much better than talking about whether the resurrection is scientifically plausible. Atheists want physical evidence – Jesus is the point at which physical evidence was historically provided (see his interaction with Thomas in John 20). That’s the nexus of atheistic thought and gospel proclamation.

    When Mark Driscoll, in a column in a Washington Paper, was asked what the best case for Christianity was for skeptics this was his answer:

    Christianity is not first and foremost about a sacred place to pilgrimage to, a philosophical system to ponder, a moral code to live, a religious tradition to honor, or an impersonal god to experience. Rather, Christianity is about a person who claimed to be the only God and said he would prove his unprecedented claim by living without sin, dying for sinners, and conquering death through resurrection.

  2. Acknowledge that in many cases they have many points that some of us sometimes forget – it is likely that you’re a Christian because your parents are – but that says nothing about the truth or otherwise of Christianity. Science is a good way to understand the world around us – in fact it’s a good way to understand how God does things. Christians have done terrible, unloving things to people – including each other – because of their faith…
  3. Acknowledge that many atheists have actually thought through the question of faith, or come from a position of faith, to reach their own conclusion. There is still some social stigma attached to being an atheist, it’s not a position you default into.
  4. Explain your rationale for believing what you believe, positively – atheist propaganda suggests that atheism is the point at which all thinking, questioning people inevitably arrive at. Tell your story, show your workings, acknowledge your doubts.
  5. Acknowledge that there are important areas where atheists and Christians can agree – separation of church and state is big for them, freedom of speech, most religious and spiritual beliefs are silly (we reject all divine claims but one), relativism is dumb – we can’t all be right.

Things to do…

  1. Read the material – be familiar with the arguments Dawkins, Dennet, Harris, and Hitchens are equipping a generation of atheists with. Read atheist blogs. PZ Myers and the Friendly Atheist are a good sounding board for atheistic thought.
  2. Familiarise yourself with logic and argument – know what a straw man argument is, recognise ad hominem, know what the “no true Scotsman” fallacy is, understand circular reasoning (eg the Bible is true because it says it is true) and why atheists see it as a problem…
  3. Read the Christian responses to these writers. Know the critiques. Especially John Lennox, Alistair McGrath (EDIT: 2015, and most especially David Bentley Hart).
  4. Ask honest questions. They can be honest questions with an agenda – but be convinced that evangelism is God’s work and just try to ask questions about why they think what they think. What are their assumptions about the world?
  5. Treat one another with respect. You don’t fundamentally have to agree with somebody to love them. People are more likely to listen to what you have to say if you don’t resort to name calling.
  6. Realise that at some point you actually have to fundamentally disagree. Sometimes what you say will be offensive to them. The atonement is offensive, God’s judgment is offensive, our claim to be in a relationship with the creator of the universe is offensive. If you want atheists to like what you have to say – and still be atheists – you pretty much have to get rid of the gospel. They love “liberal” Christianity – many like Spong and his ilk, and those who are doing their best to liberate Christianity, particularly from ‘oppressive’ views of sexuality.

May 4, 2010

They have iconography now…

The Flying Spaghetti Monster does make for some impressive stain glass art. But who wants to worship a god you feel like stabbing with a fork and devouring?

So with iconography and prophets the broad church of atheism is well on its way to being an official religion. All they need now are some unholydays.

May 4, 2010

Backwards Masking Unmasked: A book review (in multiple parts)

I’m a sucker for cheap books. Especially cheap Christian books. Especially dodgy cheap Christian books at a library fire sale because nobody has ever borrowed them… I’m building quite a collection. With the intention of inflicting them on you dear reader blogging my way through all of them.

First cab off the rank is Jacob Aranza’s “Backward Masking Unmasked” published in 1984. The book features an opening letter from a Senator of Louisiana. Senator Bill Keith describes the sinister nature of Rock’n’Roll as one of the “burning issues of our time” – in hindsight I think it’s fair to say that Keith was not a modern day prophet.

Jacob Aranza is described in his cover blurb as being one of the outstanding young ministers of America. And someone who was involved deeply in the drug/rock culture of Houston, Texas at the age of nine. He was obviously uniquely placed to provide insight into the evils of such bands as AC/DC, the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Blondie, John Denver, Bette Midler, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, and Eric Clapton.

The book only briefly covers the cover issue. Backwards Masking. It features spurious quotes from lobby groups, a weird blend of quotes from disparate psychologists seemingly cherry picked to build a case, and a bunch of conspiracy theory like links between various bands and a particular Satanist. If anybody has seen John Safran’s Music Jamboree it’s a bit like watching him build a case against something – only Aranza is serious. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Safran had read this book – it also accuses the Beatles of adopting backmasking techniques in order to further their own conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney is dead (which featured on the show).

In future posts in this series I’ll be sharing some insights into the bands you shouldn’t be listening to. But let me close with a passage from the introduction.

“If you don’t think this music is affecting the values of young people then listen to a few letters that were written in response to the subject of backwards masking being used satanically by rock groups. These letters were taken out of Hit Parader magazine. Hit Parader is a very popular rock magazine read by young people between the ages of 8 to 18:

“In a recent Hit Parader, a coupe of your readers wrote about rock bands and Satanism. Big fricken deal! The listened to Stairway to Heaven backwards, I’ve heard it too. But I still listen faithfully to Led Zeppelin.” – Gary Walker, Washington.

“All these Satan/Rock comparisons are driving me up a wall. I’m a good Catholic, but I also love rock.” Stan Lapinski, Florida.

“The people who say that rock and roll music and the various groups are devil worshippers are ignorant, and don’t know what rock music is all about. It’s just music! It relieves people from all the everyday problems. If anything it helps people.” – Steve Crocker, Florida

You can plainly see that backward masking and the forward messages of rock have taken tremendous toll already by the responses of these young people. The statement they are making is clear, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.””

This introductory chapter concludes: “So hold on to your earphones, here we go!”

If you have a favourite 80s band you think might be satanic let me know in the comments and I’ll include them in subsequent posts.

May 4, 2010

Cool stuff that you notice after doing a bit of Hebrew

Melchizedek (Genesis 14) is a cool king of Salem (Jerusalem) who blesses Abraham. His name, in Hebrew, means either “king of righteousness” or “righteousness is my king”.

Adoni-zedek (Joshua 10), is also the king of Jerusalem, who summons an army of other kings to fight Israel. His name, in Hebrew, means “lord of righteousness” or “righteousness is my lord”…

Bit of a contrast there…

April 29, 2010

I’m a Millennial

Did you know? And if you’re born after Gen X then you are too.

Some demographer has decided to make things very confusing for Christians. By using the label “Millennial” to describe people in Gen Y. I guess that makes all you Gen Xers pre-Millennials, and people who choose to bag out age based demographics must be pan-Millennials.

This article was the source of my confusion: Pastor Mark Driscoll: Millennials are Honest on Faith

I thought it was somewhat misleading.

April 28, 2010

Some reflections on violence in the Old Testament

I’m writing an essay at the moment on the following: Violence, Joshua, and the Christian. Quite apart from the fact that literary criticism of the Old Testament means we have no real sense of who wrote Joshua or when it was written, the question of what role the violence plays in the narrative is vexing. Did the Israelites actually carry out God mandated genocide of those in Canaan? And if they did, is that really a problem?

I’m going with no, and no.

Is God ordering genocide a problem?

Tackling the second question first – I have no problem with God carrying out judgment on his creation. The earth is his, and everything in it. If we all deserve death, and God is infinite, then who are we to quibble about the timing and manner of the inevitable and deserved end we face. Because death is the punishment for sin we’re all essentially facing genocide at that point.

The Canaanites were by all accounts particularly wicked people whose practices were frowned on by those in the nations around them (let alone God) their practices included incest, bestiality, child sacrifice and a fairly murderous militant culture. Presence in the promised land – for the Israelites – depended on them acting rightly, but their entrance into the land was due to the occupants acting wickedly.

Other people have a major problem with this notion – one scholar goes so far as to suggest that commands to kill the Canaanites came from Satan and the Israelites were too theologically illiterate to be able to tell the difference. Richard Dawkins calls the God of the Old Testament the nastiest character in fiction. Another school of thought thinks the violent rhetoric was just a tool to help Israel establish some (rather late – in the time of King Josiah) national identity. Which brings us to the second question.

Did the Israelites carry out genocide on the Canaanites?

No. They didn’t. They certainly killed some Canaanites as they moved into the promised land – but these would appear to be those Canaanites who stayed to pit their might against the people of God. Rahab’s little dialogue with the Jewish spies suggests the Canaanites knew full well what was coming. They had plenty of time to leave (forty years of wilderness wandering for the Jews). And God’s promises of possession for Israel were almost always coupled with a promise to “drive the people out” with only those who remained destined for destruction. This was not genocide – it was the destruction of a national identity. An identity that was synonymous with evil and loathed by the surrounding nations. We also see plenty of Canaanites appearing throughout the Old Testament after they’re meant to be wiped out. Clearly no genocide actually occured.

So what do we make of the commands for genocide then?

What I’m sure of is that we can dismiss the idea that these commands were somehow Satanic misdirection. Ordering the punishment of death for sin is completely consistent with God’s character in the New Testament. If we’re going to go with the notion of one God in both books – not a bipolar happy God/angry God then we need to read these passages in the light of Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 – we all sin, and thus we all deserve death. The Canaanites were no exception.

There is some merit in seeing the book of Joshua as some sort of identity building missive for the nation of Israel – an answer to the question of why they are God’s people living in a land God promised. At that point the theory that the language of violent conquest was a common sociological phenom is useful, but I don’t think it’s the primary purpose, because that essentially removes the need for some form of historical conquest, and doesn’t actually explain Israel’s presence in the land.

Questions about the historicity of a complete and total conquest – and people do ask those questions – are a bit silly, because Joshua demonstrates, in the narrative, that the conquest was neither complete or total. But it also shows Israel occupying the promised land – alongside those they were meant to wipe out.

The question I keep asking when I come back to passages like this is what theological purpose does it serve? I think this is my rubric for assessing every passage in the Bible, it comes before the question of “what historical fact does this teach”… and so, when I read Gary Millar’s commentary on Deuteronomy (Now Choose Life) I resonate more with his treatment of the issue than with the sociological view (Sociological readers of the Bible seem to have an incredibly low view of God’s sovereignty or ability to intervene – interpreting theological writings by looking for natural causes seems dumb to me. They almost always dismisses any miraculous intervention from God in establishing any identity – Israel’s identity, in their view, stems from their own self identity rather than from identity through God’s election). Millar even goes so far as to suggest some rabbinic hyperbole. Which is one of my favourite expresssions… here is his commentary on the instructions in Deuteronomy to wipe out the Canaanites (so that the Israelites may stay true to God. If they fail the author clearly says the Canaanites will lead the Israelites astray).

“This is theological preaching, urging Israel on to wholehearted obedience. In this context we should expect some hyperbole, at least.”

He argues that the Hebrew word הרמ (I can’t figure out how to do a final מ on my keyboard) – or herem – is a pointer to the theological nature of this destruction. Israel is to wipe out the idolatrous practices of the Canaanites, and their identity, rather than the people themselves.

Millar says:

“The intensification of the command to disposses the nations to destruction is not primarily about warfare at all. It is a theological conviction, arising from recognition that the Canaanites will be a snare in the land; their influence must be purged from the land if Israel is to survive.”

Deuteronomy 7 itself points to this sort of interpretation. Verse 1 says God will drive the nations out ahead of Israel, verse 2 that he will deliver them and the Israelites “completely destroy them” (that’s that Hebrew word), and verses 3-5 are instructions for what to do with the survivors (ie don’t marry them or worship their Gods). Why are there instructions for dealing with the survivors if they are to be completely wiped out?

Millar again:

“Throughout this chapter, it is clear that the Mosaic Preaching is concerned to bring the Israelites to the conviction that shattering the structures of Canaanite society is a theological necessity. This is expressed not in terms of driving out or dispossessing the Canaanites, but of destroying them.”

Regarding further instructions about the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 20 Millar acknowledges that the “leave no survivors” command is “startlingly literal” – but again suggests that the instructions are not simply about military victory but the annihilation of a way of life.

In the case of the Canaanites it seems the adage of “hate the sin, love the sinner” can’t really be carried out – because the two can’t be separated.

April 27, 2010

Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook

I thoroughly enjoy Mark Driscoll’s ministry. I once flew 1600km to Brisbane to see him (when I lived in Townsville). I’ve downloaded plenty of sermons, and I subscribe to both his blog and the Resurgence blog that duplicates his posts. For a while the phrase “Mark Driscoll Fanboy” has returned my site in the first page of results on Google. In short, I am well qualified to make this assessment.

Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook. For everybody. John Piper may have ruined Twitter with his unabashed holiness – Mark Driscoll has ruined Facebook with his unabashed all round awesomeness – there isn’t an area of life that Mark Driscoll isn’t better than you at, nor one that he is not qualified to give you advice in. He is, of course, the model preacher, husband, father and man. Here are some of his status updates – each prompting an almost frenzied response from his legion of fans.

The Preacher

Mark Driscoll prepares his sermons in less than two hours while watching TV.

The Husband

The Father

His children are more perfect (in every way) than yours.


The Man

He goes to hardware stores. Like real men do…

He’s funnier than you. Even in puerile ways.

And you’ve got to wonder how often his status updates – that go to more than 50,000 fans – are “targeted”…

If you can’t read any of the text in those images click through to them on Picasa – these are all recent status updates from Pastor Mark’s fanpage.

Are you feeling inadequate?

April 25, 2010

Biblical gangsters

We’re working through 2 Samuel at church at the moment, during Bible Study on Wednesday I was struck by the thought that the book reads like a gangster novel (I’ve read quite a few, I consider myself an expert). There’s a touch of Arthurian legend about David and his champion (Joab) and Saul and his (Abner).

Someone ought to use the narrative structure of Samuel 2 to write a mafia drama. In chapter 2 there’s this cool scene where Saul’s Capo (Mafia for captain) Abner decides that Ish-Bosheth will take over running Saul’s family.

Then Saul’s family meets David’s family for a bit of a discussion (2:12-13), family enforcers Abner and Joab decide to let the up and comers earn their bones – and twelve of the men knife each other (2:14).

Then Abner whacks Joab’s brother (2:13). But David’s family gets more powerful, and people stop paying tribute to Saul’s gang (3:1). Before long, Abner falls out with his Godfather and wants to switch families after an argument about some broad (3:6-21). Joab doesn’t like this, so tricks him, and sends him to sleep with the fishes. His Don (David) doesn’t like this (3:22-38).

Ish-Bosheth goes to the (metaphorical) mattresses, but two of his capos betray him, killing him on his (literal) mattress. David whacks them (4:1-12).

And the rest of the book plays out a bit like the Godfather, David, like Michael Corleone, comes to power, has to deal with the betrayal of a family member, the jostling for power of his “family”, while taking over the kingdom of his predecessor.

Who says the Old Testament can’t be fun…

April 24, 2010

The eyes have it

Eye contact is the preacher’s Holy Grail. Especially if you listen to people who are anti full text. I’m not so sure. Eye contact is good, especially for new people, but I think the longer I’m sitting under faithful preaching the less I care if the preacher is meeting my gaze regularly. Eye contact is how we accommodate fussy listeners. It’s pandering. I’d say almost 30% of the feedback I’ve received for preaching is on delivery, and that’s evenly split between pacing (which is very important) and eye contact (which is not).

Non verbal communication theoretically accounts for 80% or more of our spoken communication, this is (if I remember correctly) mostly to do with tone, followed by movement and expression (what you lose from communication from in person dialogue to a phone call is less than what you lose from a phone call to reading text). Eye contact is a small part of the picture – but it is by no means the most important part. It’s fools gold.

In journalism we’re taught that eye contact is intimidating. And anybody who has ever spent a conversation talking to someone who stares intently into their eyes knows that it can be both creepy and off putting. Newsreaders are trained to blink, while journalists will almost always ask the subject they interview to not look down the barrel of the camera.

In public speaking (and particularly rhetoric) making direct eye contact is a sign of confidence in one’s self, and one’s message. I think we’ve taken this model of communication and applied it to the pulpit. If someone looks down we assume they’re not confident, as a preacher my confidence is in the Bible and my preparation, not in my ability to deliver something dynamic and persuasive.

When I’m listening to a sermon the only time I really want to make eye contact with a preacher is if they’re a first timer and I want to give them a reassuring nod, or if they’ve nailed me with an application and I want to look nonchalant. Otherwise I’ll be staring down at my Bible or blankly into space, or writing notes. Good listeners aren’t really looking at the preacher (in my experience).

In the best sermons I’ve heard I’ve hardly looked up at all – I’ve been so busy trying to write down all the bits and pieces I want to take home. The most entertaining sermons I’ve heard have been from people with no notes and lots of eye contact – but I can’t say I remember a whole lot of what they said.

I reckon eye contact is the bastion of people with either mediocre content or limited preparation. Everything is more listenable with eye contact – but not necessarily better. And I think we should be putting more effort into getting people to write the way they talk so they speak naturally and at an understandable pace.

From now on if somebody tells me I didn’t look up enough I’m going to tell them they weren’t looking down enough. I want people I’m preaching to to be following along in the passage and taking notes. Not staring me down pretending that I haven’t just mentioned their favourite sin.

Why do we think eye contact is important? Its place in the preaching armoury seems assumed rather than demonstrated.

April 21, 2010

How to name your megachurch

If you’ve been putting together your business plan… ministry strategy… vision statement… prayer letter in preparation for planting your megachurch, but you’re still stuck on finding a catchy name… then here’s a list of 129 to choose from. Coupled with this guide to picking a ministry job title, and this list of ten tips for planting a megachurch you should have no troubles getting from 0 to 10,000 in six weeks.

The list of titles comes from Mount Gambier Presbyterian Church’s Gary Ware – who needs a punchier name for his church… I think “Mustard Seed Presbyterian” – because they have the faith to move a mountain.

April 21, 2010

Search Engine Optimisation for churches

ChurchCrunch is a good resource for church marketing. It’s from a network of blogs that track down resources and applications for using technology better in ministry.

They’ve got a great post about Search Engine Optimisation that you should check out, if you have any involvement in making decisions about your church website.

Here are the “ten myths” – read the original post for more details.

  1. The better your content, the better your ranking.
  2. Church Domain names with dashes are good for rankings.
  3. Clicking on your search engine results is somehow magical.
  4. You should have huge keyword density on your homepage.
  5. Your homepage is more important than your subpages.
  6. You should pay to be listed on site indexes.
  7. Don’t have a search box.
  8. Leaving old pages up is good.
  9. Search Engine Optimisation is a flick you switch and then ignore.
  10. Social Media helps

Some good advice here – my advice, mostly, is that anyone selling “SEO expertise” is probably a charlatan. And if it sounds dodgy (like hide links in white text in your design that search engines can read but other people can’t) – then Google is probably working pretty hard to stamp the practice out.

April 21, 2010

Freudian Slip

Dick Lucas is a famous evangelical preacher. One can only assume he is too pure to understand exactly what he says here.If that clip doesn’t work you can find it here.

I think this next guy wanted to talk about Lot pitching tents…

April 21, 2010

Christopher Hitchens is not great

I’m writing an essay on violence in the Old Testament tonight. I’m interacting a little with the way violence has been interpreted by the “new atheists” – this review of Hitchen’s God is Not Great is fantastic fodder for anybody confronted with one of his raving disciples… it addresses his erroneous treatment of the Bible from Genesis to Jesus – and I reckon it’s just as good as Eagleton’s famous review of Dawkins.

Eagleton is famously a Marxist Catholic (and possibly agnostic), while William Hamblin, who wrote this review, is a Mormon professor of Ancient History. But you know, the enemy of me enemy and all that…

Here are some good bits… it’s quite a long article.

On the Bible

Remarkably, Hitchens is overtly disdainful of the careful reading of ancient texts in their original languages. He bemoans the supposed fact that “all religions have staunchly resisted any attempt to translate their sacred texts into languages ‘understood of the people’ ” (p. 125, emphasis added). This is a stunningly erroneous claim, betraying almost no understanding of the history of religion. In reality, the translation of religious texts has been a major cultural phenomenon in ancient and medieval times and has steadily increased through the present. The Bible, of course, is the most translated book in the history of the world. According to the United Bible Societies, it has been translated into 2,167 languages, with another 320 in process. And this is by no means merely a modern phenomenon. The Bible was also the most widely translated book in the ancient world. It was translated into Greek (the Septuagint, second century BC), Aramaic (Targum, by the first century BC), Old Latin (second century AD), Syriac (Peshitta, third century AD), Coptic (Egyptian, fourth century AD), Gothic (Old German, fourth century AD), Latin (Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, late fourth century AD), Armenian (early fifth century AD), Ethiopic (fifth century AD), Georgian (fifth century AD), Old Nubian (by the eighth century AD), Old Slavonic (ninth century AD), and Arabic (Saadia Gaon’s version, early tenth century AD). Thus, far from “staunchly resist[ing] any attempt to translate their sacred texts” (p. 125), Christians have consistently made tremendous efforts to translate their sacred books.

On the law

It is not just the early Iron Age science of the Bible that Hitchens finds offensive. The morality of the Bible, which many feel is foundational to Western civilization, is to Hitchens pure barbarism. But when we read Hitchens’s claim concerning “the pitiless teachings of the god of Moses, who never mentions human solidarity and compassion at all” (p. 100), we are left to wonder if Hitchens has read the Bible he despises with any degree of earnestness whatsoever. The Hebrew Bible speaks frequently of God’s compassion and his enduring “loving-kindness” or “steadfast love.” When Christ taught, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), he was, in fact, quoting the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus 19:18; see Zechariah 7:8). Furthermore, the law insists that Israelites must have compassion for foreigners as well for their own kinsmen (Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 10:19). The prophet Hosea likewise taught that God preferred “steadfast love” over “sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). The teaching of Hosea 6:6 is commonplace throughout the Hebrew Bible, representing a standard component of Jewish temple theology.

On oxen

For Hitchens the principles found in the law of Moses tend to be either transparently obvious (pp. 99–100) or barbarically “demented pronouncements” (p. 106). He objects to all sorts of things in the law, such as the “insanely detailed regulations governing oxes [sic]” (p. 100), which go on for an astonishing five verses (Exodus 21:28–32)! Actually, by ancient standards—for instance, when compared to the fourteen oxen regulations in Hammurabi’s Code—this is notably succinct. Considering that oxen were a major form of transportation in early agrarian Near Eastern societies, it is reasonable to expect some regulations about them; but, even if superfluous, there is nothing “insanely detailed” about it, especially when compared to our modern laws concerning vehicular manslaughter—probably the closest modern analogy. Hitchens really has no substantive point here beyond mere rhetorical bombast.

On weekends

Hitchens’s view of the Sabbath commandment as “a sharp reminder to keep working and only to relax when the absolutist says so” (p. 99) again fails to contextualize the text. In its ancient setting it should be seen as a progressive and humanitarian regulation ensuring that rulers and masters gave their slaves and laborers a day of rest (Exodus 20:10)—a practice that is apparently original to the Israelites—rather than forcing them to work unremittingly. Though it goes unacknowledged, Hitchens owes his weekends and also the concept of a “right” to leisure to the God of Israel—no thanks required. Only by rhetorical sleight of hand can Hitchens try to turn this blessing into an act of supposed tyranny.

On Jesus

Hitchens’s overall disdain for the life of Jesus is reflected in the fact that he can’t be bothered to even get basic biblical chronology straight. “Even the stoutest defenders of the Bible story,” he assures us, “now admit that if Jesus was ever born it wasn’t until at least AD 4” (pp. 59–60). They do? He has obviously been reading different “stout defenders” of the Bible story than I have. The Gospel narratives agree that Jesus was born during the lifetime of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1; Luke 1:5), who died in 4 BC.

Here’s the conclusion:

He consistently misrepresents what the Bible has to say, fails to contextualize biblical narratives in their original historical settings, implies unanimity among biblical scholars on quite controversial positions, and fails to provide any evidence for alternative scholarly positions, or even to acknowledge that such positions exist at all. In reality, biblical studies is a complicated field, with a wide range of subtle nuances and different interpretations; for Hitchens, it is sufficient to dismiss the most extreme, literalistic, and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible to demonstrate not only that the Bible itself is thoroughly flawed, false, and poisonous but that God does not exist.

April 20, 2010

Tips for better church signs

I’m not really a fan of signs outside churches. Mostly because nobody is, and they’re never quite as clever as the person writing them thinks they are. But seriously. If you’re going to have one you need to make it original.

“God answers knee-mail” wasn’t funny fifteen years ago when email was relatively new. A pun on Email? Do you seriously think that posting this outside your church in 2010 is going to inspire a chuckle? Has anybody ever “found themselves in church” as a result of a dud sign? The Holy Spirit works wonders – but do we really want to put obstacles in his way by writing puns that aren’t clever or clear?

You get style points for trying something relevant to current events or technologies. You actually lose points, as in your sign has a negative effect, if it’s hackneyed, unoriginal, or stuck in the previous decade.

And don’t try to be too clever. Obtuse puns don’t work on a public sign. Especially if they can be interpreted two ways. And especially if a plain reading of the sign says something wrong or heretical.

“God is nowhere… read that again” still reads “God is nowhere.” People are driving past these signs at speed – and you’re putting “God is nowhere” on a sign. Dumb.

Those two signs were on the same church – one I drive past regularly – in the last two weeks.

But even worse are those churches that pull verses out of context to provide trite moralisms or ridiculous promises – like Jesus wants you to live your best life now… you can’t explain how that can possibly be the case (Biblically) on a sign.

I have never seen a sign promising suffering. They just inflict it on Christians who have any idea about marketing.

April 20, 2010