Some people can’t get enough of Christian music (or bands that are publicly Christian). Here’s a song highlighting the problem with the Christian music industry.
Category: Christianity
Hell’s bells
My friend Mike is a minister in Rockhampton. He made the local news today for being generally awesome. You can read the story here.
Hell, the pizza chain, created a stir in Brisbane this week which led to a story in the Rockhampton paper, which Mike commented on online, this comment led to an interview, and a great story. Featuring this little gospel presentation that simultaneously showed that Christians are a bit normal.
This is a great example of how churches should be using the media. I thought I had written a post on that before, but I can’t find it. So I’ll write it today.
Ordained eight years ago, Reverend O’Connor said he did not find Hell Pizza offensive, irreligious or blasphemous.
“I find it amusing and would probably use it for sermon illustration,” he said.
“Christianity is not about rules and regulations, it’s about having a relationship with Jesus.”
Reverend O’Connor said St Andrews was a growing church with a number of young adults among the congregation.
“It’s important to interact with cultures that surround us, not standing back and labelling everything as evil.
“I’m just a normal bloke who likes having a beer, watching the footy and who loves Jesus,” he said.
“Hell is a real place, but it’s unhelpful for Christians to be jumping up and down about a pizza shop. We’re on about Jesus, not about being anti-everything,” he said.
In praise of hot wives
Dear person who writes their online profiles mindful that your wife reads it,
We get it. You love your wife. You think she’s hot. That’s why you got married.
The rest of us may be inclined to disagree. We may believe that our own wife is hotter.
The fact that you need to reassure yourself that your wife is hot is great. But it comes across as, umm, a bit overstated.
Regards,
Nathan.
You might be wondering why I’m posting this. Well, I was trawling the archives of the Stuff Christian Culture Likes and came across this post. It’s one of my favourites.
Here’s Stephy’s take:
Fortunately, Christian hotness standards are not quite the same as conventional (secular) hotness standards. Value is supposed to be placed on the person rather than on appearance. Even so, hotness is still a valuable commodity even in Christian culture. The public declaration of a spouse’s hotness is a lovely gesture, but can become disquieting when expressed so frequently and fervently. It can begin to sound as if they are trying to convince themselves of something. Could thou protest too much?
My absolute favourite part though, and the part that makes this utterly postworthy, is if you do a bit of a phrase search on Twitter (I can’t guarantee that the results you get will be the same and/or safe for work/your holiness) you get a bunch of people talking about their hot wives. And a startling percentage are Christians. From my quick profile check of the people at this link I would say that close to 80% of the people using the phrase on Twitter either define themselves as Christians in their little description or tweet regularly about the Bible.
How odd.
For the record, I think my wife is hot – but seriously – I don’t need to tell you that.
Warranted Belief
Mikey keeps posting quotes from this philosopher guy Al Plantinga (wiki). It turns out the book he’s quoting from – Warranted Christian Belief – is available in its entirety online. And free.
Might be worth a read if, like me, you keep getting in over your head in philosophical arguments with atheists. It’ll save you reaching out for the succor offered by a quick Google. And it’ll give you an intelligent “scholar” to quote…
Here’s a (long) quote on historical criticism – particularly on why it’s hard to argue with people who presuppose that the miraculous accounts in the Bible are mythical because they are miraculous, and why this shouldn’t be convincing:
The Troeltschian scripture scholar accepts Troeltsch’s principles for historical research, under an interpretation according to which they rule out the occurrence of miracles and the divine inspiration of the Bible (along with the corollary that the latter enjoys the sort of unity accruing to a book that has one principal author). But then it is not at all surprising that the Troeltschian tends to come up with conclusions wildly at variance with those accepted by the traditional Christian. As Gilkey says, “Suddenly a vast panoply of divine deeds and events recorded in scripture are no longer regarded as having actually happened.” Now if (instead of tendentious claims about our inability to do otherwise) the Troeltschian offered some good reasons to think that, in fact, these Troeltschian principles are true, then traditional Christians would have to pay attention; then they might be obliged to take the skeptical claims of historical critics seriously. Troeltschians, however, apparently don’t offer any such good reasons. They simply declare that nowadays we can’t think in any other way, or (following Harvey) that it is immoral to believe in, for example, Christ’s resurrection on other than historical grounds.
Neither of these is remotely persuasive as a reason for modifying traditional Christian belief in the light of Troeltschian results. As for the first, of course, the traditional Christian knows that it is quite false: she herself and many of her friends nowadays (and hundreds of millions of others) do think in precisely that proscribed way. And as far as the implicit claims for the superiority of these Troeltschian ways of thinking go, she won’t be impressed by them unless some decent arguments of one sort or another are forthcoming, or some other good reason for adopting that opinion is presented. The mere claim that this is what many contemporary experts think will not and should not intimidate her.
Pat Robertson is an idiot who needs to read the Bible
It takes a natural disaster to bring out the best and worst in Christianity. Pat Robertson is one of those insidious televangelists who will jump on any bandwagon in order to promote his gospel – not the gospel – his gospel.
So it doesn’t surprise me to see him trying to capitalise on a terrible tragedy (the horrific earthquake in Haiti).
Here’s what Jesus says about this sort of situation in Luke (12 and 13)…
54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? 58 As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. 59 I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.[c]”
Luke 13
1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or 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? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Can’t find your Bible – now you have an excuse
Finding time to read the Bible just for reading the Bible’s sake can be tough. Especially with so much good stuff on TV. But if you’ve ever wanted an excuse not to read the Bible… I’ve got your back. Get one of these camouflage outdoor Bibles. Throw out all your others. Then leave it sitting somewhere in the great outdoors – and you’ll never find it again.
The blurb:
We carry the most popular camouflage Bibles on the market today. Ever been on a tree stand, or a mountain top or stream and wished you had you Bible along for meditation? Makes a perfect gift for the Christian Outdoorsman.
Need proof that this is an essential item to add to your Bear Grylls (who really is just that travel writer from Black Books) inspired adventures. Here’s video of someone reading one in the Amazon (the world famous rainforest not the online bookstore).
The Outdoor Bible in the Amazon from Bardin & Marsee on Vimeo.
If you haven’t clicked the link – you should – it’s to a site called “The Christian Outdoorsman“. It sells quality “Jesus Junk” for the nature lover/hunter.
You can even get this shirt that uses a proof text about Deers panting for water to somehow justify hunting…
Alternatively, if you do want to read the Bible – get it on your iPhone. Nobody in their right mind loses an iPhone.
Circular Reasoning and the Bible
This is an amazing infographic depicting the 63,000 cross references within the 66 books of the Bible.
It’s available in much bigger formats at the source. I found it at Andrew’s blog.
The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc – the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.
One of the lines from atheists that annoys me is that Christians only believe the Bible is true because it says it’s true (circular reasoning).
I have two things to say to that.
One: If the Bible said it wasn’t true that would be reason not to believe it.
Two: The “Bible” as we know it was only bundled together in around 363 AD. The “circular reasoning” should instead be treated as cross referencing and corroboration from multiple sources. Not one self referencing source.
That is all.
Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed
For the next three Sundays at Willows Presbyterian the “kids spot” is going to be filled with my favourite stories from the Bible.
I’m kicking it off with Ehud and the Moabites. Ehud is cool because he’s disabled (left handed) and a ninja. I’m going to use Brick Testament pictures.
In the Bible there’s a book called Judges.
It’s about some people God uses to save his people from their enemies.
They’re not special people – most of them are normal people, just like us.
In fact – some of them weren’t even normal – one of them was left handed – are any of you left handed?
His name was Ehud. Being left handed wasn’t much fun. He was different to the other soldiers in Israel’s army.
When Ehud was a young man Israel was being treated very, very badly by a very, very, very fat king called Eglon. Eglon demanded that the Israelites pay him lots of money so that he wouldn’t do nasty things to them.
Ehud and the Israelites didn’t want to serve this king – they wanted God as their king – so Ehud came up with a plan.
He made a short sword and put it on his right thigh under his cloak – because in those days guards didn’t expect to see many left handed people they only really looked on the right.
He marched in to see fat king Eglon with the payment from the Israelites…
…and he told him that he had a secret for his ears only.
The bad King Eglon sent his people out of the room.
And Ehud took out the sword – and buried it in his tummy.
King Eglon was so fat that the sword disappeared.
And Ehud snuck away. Like a ninja.
The guards thought the king was in the toilet – so they didn’t disturb him.
Ehud got back to the Israelites and they attacked the fat dead king Eglon’s army and killed them all. They were free from the bad king Eglon and free to serve God – their king.
Ehud had saved God’s people – even though he was left handed.
The Jesus bit
We are a bit like Israel – we need God’s “judge” to save us from a bad king that’s ruling our lives. We are being ruled by our sin. We want to push God to the side and treat sin as the fat ugly king of our lives.
We need to get rid of this fat ugly king just like Ehud did. And you know what – we have a ninja savior too. Jesus is a bit like a ninja. He dealt with sin in a sneaky way. People were expecting a strong and powerful saviour who would come and kill sin.
Do you know how Jesus got rid of our sin?
This was something a ninja would do. It was sneaky – because people weren’t expecting it. And it was effective.
We need to stab sin in the heart. In fact, the Bible says that if we want to follow God we should cut the sinful parts out. It doesn’t mean
with a sword.
We need our own saviour to cut that sin out – we need Jesus.
Oops, I did it again…
Yesterday’s quest to comment on 100 different blogs had an unexpected side effect. I became embroiled in a “discussion” on a post on the Friendly Atheist. One where a contributor suggested that the heinous acts God allegedly commits in the Old Testament should be rewritten as a Mafia drama.
Here are some of the things the “friendly” atheists at that site had to say about me during the discussion…
“The man’s an ass. A potentially dangerous ass who seems to admire Hitler.”
“Your view is just asinine.”
“I was gonna feed the troll but thought the better of it, especially since he’s shown his psychopathic nature. Besides there were some beautiful arguments put forth here that he ducks instead of addressing so I don’t see much point. Instead, he’s rather like Linus clinging to his blanket but not as benignly.”
“Nathan your arguments have been nothing but equivocating, never answering the questions you were asked, and when you do (and attempt to explain something) you shovel out contradictions one after another.”
“As I said Nathan is hopeless. lol, this only makes me laugh now. sigh.”
Reading back through the thread there were plenty of things that I said that I probably wouldn’t in hindsight. The stuff about Hitler was dumb. And I probably strayed off message a little too much.
I find atheists who get in a huff about how a God they don’t believe in did evil things to be one of the oddest inconsistencies. They’re so passionate about the actions of a being they don’t believe exists. If they’re right, and God is a delusion, then shouldn’t the people who committed the actions be the ones they’re angry at?
I wonder if atheists would take their position on the actions of the deluded (or those thinking they are doing God’s bidding) to the natural conclusion and move to remove the defence of insanity from all criminal proceedings.
Wholesome fun
Would your youth group go to the beach if it wasn’t for issues of purity? Perhaps you should purchase a swag of wholesomewear swim suits for the ladies…
Because encouraging the wearing of board shorts and a sun shirt is just too much hassle.
My Top Five "Christian" YouTube Videos from 2009
I’ve posted heaps of videos this year – and a lot of them had “Christian” connotations or content. I put “Christian” in inverted comments because at times they were more about cultural Christianity than about Christ.
Here are five that have had some sort of profound impact on my life this year…How to come up with a ministry job title
Mark Driscoll just wants to be a pastor. No. Wait. A preaching pastor. His executive pastor can do the other stuff…
Ministry titles are dumb. The title “pastor” is pretty dumb too. It’s a role not a title. Mikey ranted about this the other day. I agree.
But back to Driscoll – who is sick of people not wanting to be a pastor. So he put together this little tool for selecting a hip and relevant title so that you can “shepherd” your merry band of “Christ followers”…
The Txt Commandments
I have a real problem with the way SMS language has garbled English. But the generation below me – iGen – or whatever they’re called – are content to conduct any written communication in that form. So I’m glad I found this list of the “text commandments”…
It’s pretty brilliant.
1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
2. dnt wrshp pix/idols
3. no omg’s
4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5. pos ok – ur m&d r cool
6. dnt kill ppl
7. :-X only w/ m8
8. dnt steal
9. dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf’s m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.
M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.
ttyl, JHWH.
ps. wwjd?
Religiofying video games
While Cracked is encouraging readers to “rationalise” games, the “Opposable Thumbs” blog is exploring the question of religious video games. There aren’t many – and none of them are good.
It’s odd really. There are Christian subsets of just about every other form of culture or entertainment. But the “Christian” video game landscape is a barren wasteland with the odd “Left Behind” game or a couple of terrible ports of popular games. I remember standing in Koorong one day as a kid playing the Noah’s Ark 3D game – a nasty rework of Wolfenstein where Noah ran around armed with a slingshot putting animals to sleep so he could bundle them onto the ark. Badness.
The Christian market is untapped – and we’ve seen (from the music industry) that we pay over the odds for bad quality just so that we can avoid engaging with the world around us.
Part of the problem, so far at least, is that the poor theology of Christians wanting to make games leads to bad games. Here’s a description of one from that article:
John E. Nelson’s Tribulation Knights seeks to put gamers in a stealth/adventure-based post-Apocalypse setting. Following a series of natural and economic disasters, a corrupt politician’s administration takes control of the globe and manages to convert most of the remaining population into a mindlessly-loyal legion. Some citizens, however, do not convert and find themselves without any rights in the new world society; accordingly, a group called the Knights rises up to protect these rebel citizens from the Gestapo-like Enforcers and gather enemy intel, all while staying hidden and avoiding armed conflict. “I wanted to create a game that had both an entertaining adventure but also hold true to the commandment of ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill.'” Nelson explained to Ars. “It was important to do so, and it is not easy. You can defend yourself by stunning Enforcers, or thugs for a very brief time. The goal is the mission, and to avoid direct contact with the enemy as much as possible.”
Thou shalt not kill? What about a game based on Judges. That would be awesome. Assassins Creed: The Ehud Edition. Here’s a potential blurb.
Ehud the left handed rallies support from his fledgling Israelite nation to pay a visit to the fat and oppressive king – Eglon. Ehud fights off animals and marauders on the way to deliver his tribute to the king. He straps his short sword to his leg in order to deliver a message from God to all those who oppose Israel – and he must find a way to hide the body of an obese monarch before evading the clutches of his pursuers.
Yeah. I’d play that. Or what about Mega Church Tycoon – decide what staging and lighting to install in your multipurpose auditorium in order to lure the heathens from your chosen demographic.
Or “The Sins” your chance to sanctify a neighbourhood of sinful sims through the power of hospitality.
There is a Christian version of Guitar Hero out there somewhere – but what about HymnStar – the chance to belt out your favourite hymns, songs of praise, and Christian power ballads – you could have a special “Christmas Carols” edition slated for a December release.
Join me in producing these and we’ll be rich.