Category: Christianity

My new son?

Things are progressing nicely with my friend Michel. In his latest missive he has adopted me as a surrogate father. He writes:

Dearest Daddy,

Word alone cannot tell how happy I am to hear that you are born again christian and I am proud to call you daddy. According to your mail, I was born and brought out from a christian family and my late father was one the founders of Catholic Charismatic Renewal Ministry Cocody and it was due to how good my late father are to his people that made his business partners to poisoned him to death.

A Catholic Charismatic? Shock horror. We are doctrinally incompatible. However will we overcome this barrier – we are as two star crossed lovers destined ne’er to meet due to our bitter family feud… if there’s one thing I learned from Shakespeare in highschool (and through having his entire library of works on my iPhone – how cool is that) it’s that insurmountable odds can be overcome, but they often end in death. The next passage gave rise to new hope.

Please be rest assured that the money is my inheritance from my late father because my late father made his money in my country cote d’Ivoire as an exporter / import of Cocoa / caffee and it was out of wickedness and jealousyness his business associates poisoned him to death, I become an orphan, helpless at this age. Please I want you to know that I contact you to help me because I beleive you are capable to assist me live the type of live my late parents earlier planned for me and I want you to know that I never contact you to help me in other to put you in any kind of troubles

His father was a coffee trader. We are joined forever by the fellowship of the bean. I may try to purchase his family’s coffee interests with my generous 15% share of the deal. Which is currently valued at $7.5 million.

He signed out in a manner which was no doubt designed to establish his spiritual bona fides.

Thanks and god bless you for your kind and sincere promises to help me. May our almighty god in heaven reward you and your family aboundantly for the help you are rendering to an orphan like me.

He possibly wasn’t expecting my response:

Thank you for your email – I am glad to hear your father was a believer – that surely makes his passing an easier burden for you to bear.

I hope that you too are a believer – it pays to be right with our maker, especially if there are dangerous people trying to kill you!

I do notice that you haven’t answered my question about baptism. My friends, who are much better with technology, are advising me that you may be trying to commit an act of fraud against me. I tell them that that is not true. I have not given them any information about our transaction. I have simply told them that I will not be available during this week as I seek to conclude our business. I trust you – I believe that you are in all honesty a God fearing man who knows that to act dishonestly will lead to God’s fiery judgment.

My children have made me slightly concerned – what sort of father would I be were I not to listen to my friends – I hope to soon count you as a friend too.

Could you, my son, do three things to verify that you are indeed who you say you are – could you provide a picture of yourself holding a card bearing the words “John 3:16”. Which I think will be an appropriate proof that you are who you say you are – both as a person, and as a Christian.

Could you also tell me what you believe about baptism. This is more important to me than you will understand at your age. When you get to an age like mine you will understand that some issues become important and defining.

And can you tell me what your favourite part of the Bible is – this will, indeed, help to develop the trust between us.

Any photo will of course be shared here.

Humble pie co

I subscribed to an atheist blog recently – just to see how the other side thinks. It’s called “the friendly atheist” and if this guy and his commenters are the “friendly” side of atheism I’m not looking forward to the unfriendly side. They’re generally sneeringly intolerant and arrogant – probably just what they say about most “Christians” (I put that in inverted commas because I’m talking about anybody who calls themselves a Christian)…

But this post is all about “questions which stump atheists” – the answer, from about 70 comments is “not much, we know everything”… and “Christians are dumb”… my favourite bit is where one commenter suggests his fellows eat some humble pie.

So, atheists (and I know at least two of you read), do you ever have doubts? I’m humble enough to admit that I don’t and can’t know everything. Are you?

How to evangelise

The Christian world’s preeminent blogger – Tim Challies – has a post featuring a great terrible guide to evangelism from the 50s. Here’s a clip – the post has heaps more…

CD Burners

When I was trawling through old posts to pick my favourites for that last post – I came across this site that I linked to a while back – it’s the “God Hates Fags” music blacklist. I can’t pick a favourite part of the text on the site to quote – so I’ll include it verbatim (that’s a little play on my title too).

One of the most dangerous ways Homosexuality invades family life is through popular music.  Parents, please keep careful watch over your children’s listening habits.  Especially in this age of Internet mp3 piracy.

There are multiple levels of Gay Music.  Some bands are what we like to call Gateway Bands.  They lure children in with Pop Grooves and Salacious Melodies leaving them wanting more.  They’ll move on to more dangerous bands and the next thing you know you’ve got a homosexual for a child.
We’ve taken the time to highlight the bands that are particularly Gay.  Please take the time and dissect your child’s CD / iTunes catalog. If you find 3 or more of these bands in their collection it is time to take action.
We Strongly recommend that you burn the CDs.  Make sure your child is watching.  Make sure they can feel the heat. It is crucial that the image remains emblazoned in their young minds. They need to know that if they continue to listen to these bands they may Burn eternally as well.

I’m thrilled to see the Jonas Brothers in the list – but there are many bands there that are in my CD collection or iTunes library. Definitely more than 3.

Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s a parody…

Calvin and bobs

It’s Calvin’s 500th birthday this year. Not the comic character – the predestination guy (for all you Arminians out there).

To celebrate this milestone our church is putting on a Calvin Conference – at which I am presenting something as yet undetermined about his interactions with government. Exciting times. To get me in the mood I’m thinking I may purchase one of these John Calvin Bobble Heads.

Offensive offensive

Yesterday while I was thinking about Guerrilla Evangelism, it occurred to me that road safety ads could be easily edited to be ads about not leaving a decision about Christianity to the last minute. Death bed confessions only work for people who know they’re on their death bed.

This ad is slightly disturbing… so only watch it if you want to fully appreciate my argument.

Would you have a problem with an “offensive” ad like this – ie one designed to shock – being used to promote Jesus? I know a uni group copped some flack a few years back for dressing up as death and running around harvesting people with sickles.

I suspect imminent mortality is one of the only things that atheists find confronting.

Guerrilla Evangelism

I’ve been toying with the idea of how Christians can use emerging technologies and the public sphere to conduct “guerrilla evangelism” (not to be confused with gorilla evangelism).

I know gospel proclamation occurs best in the context of an actual person to person relationship – but that doesn’t discount the idea of keeping Christianity in the public eye.

Here are five ideas I think are perhaps worth considering if you’ve got some time on your hands:

  1. Calling talkback radio – there are myriad talkback topics that lend themselves to Christian content – if I had a job that allowed me to call radio stations during the day, I would. 
  2. Writing letters to the editor – but not the angry “religious right” type, or the terrible capitalising on current events type – more the classy Christian commentary where appropriate… this already happens to a degree in Sydney – but not enough elsewhere. Those are the low hanging fruit though… here are some evangelism 2.0 ideas…
  3. Find contentious Wikipedia entries and edit them as often as possible to present orthodox evangelical views on particular hotbed issues – or even the basics. Given that Wikipedia is both the primary source of information for most people and user generated it lends itself to this sort of concerted effort… 
  4. Comment on popular blogs – and major media outlets – but again, not in the “flame an atheist” or condemn people to hell kind of way that has been made popular by theological ingrates.
  5. Share/bookmark/vote for good Christian articles – this one’s for the technologically literate – Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and Google Reader shared items are all popular sources of information for people – they tend to have a thoroughly atheist bent. Particularly Digg. I’ve seen one Driscoll article make it into the “What’s hot on Google Reader” feed – and not many turning up on the main page for Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon – or any of the other services that are out there. 
  6. Putting evangelistic comments in your status on Twitter and Facebook is a bit cliched – but at least in some cases it satisfies the relational criteria of evangelism. 

Any other ideas?

Calendar with stigmata attached

It’s 2009 AD – that’s Anno Domini – the year of our Lord. You probably know this, others may need constant reminding – which is why you should install this calendar in your office cubicle. It’ll no doubt be a great tool for office evangelism – or for ruling right angles/architectural drawings.

I’ve run out of atheism headings

It seems to me that any time Christians (or theists) are critical of the nasty side of atheism we get shouted down as hypocrites. How can we pick on Dawkins, for how can we caricature them all on account of his vitriol when we had George W Bush as the public face of Christianity justifying unpopular wars with terribly out of context Bible passages? Or indeed or the televangelists et al who are a public bastardisation of the Christian message.

Is this a log v speck issue? Should we be trying to clear up the Christian brand (ie what the public think Christianity is) before we go charging at the bastion of angry atheism – namely Richard Dawkins and co.

Probably. Those loony fringes of Christianity are much better at garnering publicity than the mainstream evangelical orthodoxy. Like the woman in the US who kidnapped her kid because he has cancer and the State wanted to force him to undergo life saving medical treatment.

So long as that’s the public understanding of “Christianity” pushed by the media we’re going to have troubles criticising atheism because the public understanding of atheism is angry intellectual criticism of religious belief.

I actually started writing this post because there’s been a pretty angry response to that article in the LA Times the other day – and I wanted to talk about how angry atheists are, and how Dawkins seems to epitomise atheism, rather than being at its fringe.

That is all. For now.

Cross promotions

Wil Anderson just made this bold claim on the Gruen Transfer:

“The McDonalds Golden Arches are now more recognisable than the Christian Cross.”

True or false?

It kind of fails to take into account the historical brand recognition and needs to be more specifically defined.

A little bit of googling suggests that this was either a piece of corporate indoctrination fostered by McDonalds that has now become fact – or that there is an obscure survey that I can’t find from the late 90s conducted in Australia…

Your thoughts?

Quiet enough

I did have some serious reflections from men’s camp on the weekend that I thought were worth formulating into some sort of post – but it’s probably a bigger deal than just a “men’s camp reflection”. A while back I wrote about praying in church – I promised at that stage that I’d have a go at more “sacred cows”… and when it comes to Evangelical Christianity I don’t think there’s anything more sacred than the Quiet Time. And I don’t know why.

There are reasons. Good reasons, at least I think they are. So here we go.

  1.  Quiet Times feel too much like “self development” to me – they’re, by their very nature – self focused. They don’t, in and of themselves, serve others. They primarily serve the doer. I understand the argument that disciplined time spent in God’s word and in prayer will help you love and serve others more – I just think that given the choice – I would always choose to spend my quiet time with someone else – either a fellow Christian for encouragement, or a non-Christian proclaiming Christ – what good reason is there to spend time by yourself?
  2. I’m naturally an extrovert – I find other people stimulating, I learn through engaging in conversation, I do my best thinking while talking. I don’t think I’m unique. So for me, and this is where men’s camp comes in, wandering off into tranquil open spaces does nothing for me. I sit there resenting the fact that I can’t chew over the material with somebody, and if I’ve got a notepad I make angry notes about the fact that I don’t think this “self reflection” time is spiritually valuable.  
  3. The Biblical model of Christian life is communal. It’s relational. That’s the model of ministry demonstrated by Jesus, and then by the Apostles and the leaders of the early church. Why is our focus on the individual? I’d say that’s cultural rather than Biblical – and is a child of a self-focused personal development philosophy. I might be wrong. But I’ll need some convincing. 
  4. While knowing the Bible and prayer are important – doing both is not consistent with any Biblical passages I can find – even when Jesus wanted to escape the crowds for some “solitude” he took his disciples with him in most cases. Not, I acknowledge, in the Garden of Gethsemane – but even then he had his closest friends nearby. Can anybody point me to anything that encourages disciplined “personal devotion”? I haven’t found anything yet that suggests my theory is flawed. But again, I’m open to discussion on this point.
  5. I can see a place for solitude as “rest” from other people. But again, I would see this as an allowable exception rather than the general rule. 

What do you think?

The indefensible


When I first saw this I thought it was a piece of bad atheist satire on the way Christians use the Bible to justify killing people. Turns out I was wrong. Thanks Mr Rumsfeld. There are heaps more – and the SMH is reporting it, which doesn’t make it “fact” but makes it much more believable than I first thought…

That’s right people. We’ve been wrong all these years. The armour of God is a tank.

No wonder Christians get picked on…

LA Times on Atheism

I’m getting a bit bored with the whole atheism thing. While I haven’t engaged in any emailed debates for a couple of days the last 200 email saga is still playing itself out in my head. It just makes me angry. So angry that rather than beating my head against the desk I will share this recent opinion piece from the LA Times with you

The problem with atheists — and what makes them such excruciating snoozes — is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God’s existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God’s omniscience with free will or God’s goodness with human suffering.

What does strike me about the whole debate – and this article brought it home – is that atheists feel like they’re in the minority. In the US they may well be – it’s politically incorrect to be an atheist. But I’m not sure that the “religion” stats from censuses are anything to go by. And I’d suggest that in Australia being an atheist is the normal or default position (assuming that agnostics are just uncommitted atheists because most religions would suggest that if you don’t act like you believe in God, you don’t believe in God) – not the exception to the rule.

“A recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16% of Americans describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, only 1.6% call themselves atheists, with another 2.4% weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists’ failure to win converts to their unbelief, but atheists say the problem is persecution so relentless that it drives tens of millions of God-deniers into a closet of feigned faith, like gays before Stonewall.”

That’s certainly not consistent with my experiences where I would expect the majority of people I deal with to be either atheists, or agnostics.

I’m wondering why the whole debate bothers me so much – and I suspect it really is that somewhat selfishly I’d like to be taken seriously and not treated like an idiot for having “an imaginary friend”…

Atheists seem to assume that the whole idea of God is a ridiculous absurdity, the “flying spaghetti monster” of atheists’ typically lame jokes. They think that lobbing a few Gaza-style rockets accusing God of failing to create a world more to their liking (“If there’s a God, why aren’t I rich?” “If there’s a God, why didn’t he give me two heads so I could sleep with one head while I get some work done with the other?”) will suffice to knock down the entire edifice of belief.

Anti-pastor

I’m a “PK”. For those not familiar with the jargon it means the child of a clergyman. I can’t bring myself to say “Pastors Kid” – because I hate the word “pastor” as a title. I don’t know why. It just grates on me. I hate it. I will, when questioned about my “PK” status insist that the P is for Preacher. 

Is my loathing of “Pastor” unreasonable? I’m sure there’s a Biblical argument for it, but it just sounds a little soft. Wussy. Which I guess in the scheme of things isn’t a bad thing – people in ministry are called to be servant hearted or shepherdly. 

I just don’t like it. 

That is all.

Testing times

Lately I’ve been thinking about how churches should harness the power of PR a little more – particularly regional churches in cities like Townsville – where there’s a strong local media contingent and not so much clamour for media attention. I’ll probably turn that into a post all of its own at some stage – but for now, I have a case study for your consideration…

A group of researchers set out to conduct a series of experiments testing prayer. Their findings created a difficulty for those people who expect science to be capable of testing everything… both Christians, and atheists…

Christians who think science can prove God struggle because the people being prayed for fared worse than the people not being prayed for – and atheists because they’ll often argue that prayer should have a demonstrable psychological placebo effect – which it didn’t.

Christianity Today found a somewhat unpredictable spin to put on events. The study was conducted a few years back, but this article was produced pretty recently. Here’s a description of the study:

“STEP was simple and elegant, conforming to standard research norms and protocols: 1,802 patients, all admitted for coronary artery bypass graft surgery, were divided into three randomized groups. Two of the groups received prayer from committed Christians with experience praying for the sick. But only one group’s members knew they were being prayed for. The result: The group whose members knew they were being prayed for did worse in terms of post-operative complications than those whose members were unsure if they were receiving prayer. The knowledge that they were being prayed for by a special group of intercessors seemed to have a negative effect on their health.”

Here’s the Christianity Today editorial on the results:

The real scandal of the study is not that the prayed-for group did worse, but that the not-prayed-for group received just as much, if not more, of God’s blessings.

It’s an odd interpretation of the results and doesn’t seem to mesh well with the study itself.

Here’s the Harvard Medical School Media Release on the study – and a better description of the methodology… You’ve got to wonder who set these parameters and actually thought they’d work. This doesn’t seem to come close to any Biblical picture of prayer…

“The researchers standardized the start and duration of prayers and provided only the patients’ first name and last initial. Prayers began on the eve or day of surgery and continued daily for 14 days. Everyone prayed for received the same standardized prayer. Providing the names of patients directed prayer-givers away from a desire to pray for everyone participating in the study. Because the study was designed to investigate intercessory prayer, the results cannot be extrapolated to other types of prayer.”

Sadly, the whole report is now going to be used by misguided atheists to bash all Christians over the head as they call for amputees to grow arms.