Friday, January 28, 2005

The evangelicals are screwed!

You are not going to believe this! Well, you probably will, but it will make you wish something bad.

James Dobson has gone ahead and labled SpongeBob as not only having an oddly square private region (which he did not say directly, but is rather true), but SB is a pro-homosexual advocate!




Man, those Dobson's just ain't going to be friends with me.

So, Dobson has called out SB's participation in a video which he says is going to promote homosexaulity. I know whenever I see a sponge wearing pants it makes me gay as a $3 bill. What a swearword joke. What's next? Dora is into beastiality!! Look at her relationship with that monkey wearing boots!!

This is why the general public hates Christians. We allow this guy to be the leader and he does stupid stuff like this. It is no surprise that the term "Christian" may be beyond recovery, as is suggested by McLaren.

So click on the title link and go down and watch the video...it's an absolute joke...Dobson picks out SB from all of the characters that have children's shows...simply b/c SB is easiest to pick on b/c he is known to adults.

It appears Dobson's real concern is in being known by adults, not saving the children from the evil homosexual spnge.

Hoser.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Countertop Theology

LJ, Heather and I have got four fish. They live on our kitchen counter (in an aquarium, duh) and we take care of them. We're even members of PetCo customer program now.

The reality is that we are revisiting what a Christian's interaction with creation says about God. How we treat living things has to say something about God. It is a major part of reorienting our faith to get out of an industrial age in our religion.

So we care for some fish, and it helps us to become the people that God originally created us to be. Working out our salvation with some goldfish. Taking a quiet time, where all I do is watch the fish and interact with them for a while.

emerging.

The postmodern novel will have no climax

It's just true. Look around and see what is happening in popular media and the way it is being reacted to. In the past, people wanted a story to take them somewhere uncomfortable, and then resolve it. Today, and in the future, people want to go somewhere and that's it.

What else is there?

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Children, HIDE YOUR BLOGS!

Best compliment I ever got was from my current Senior Pastor.

After interviewing (auditioning?) for the youth ministry position (part?) out here in Oregon he called and told my wife that we "are....very...real."

We thought that was great, because that is the image that we really want to project. Moreover, it is who we really want to be. One of my big struggles is to balance that realness with love. I see lots of people who claim to be "real" but they're really just jerks.

Jerks in sheeps clothing, sounds like the Bible.

The way that the millenial generation (now showing in a youth group near you) uses the interent as a virtual confessional. It seems to be the modern equivalent to the Catholic confessional booth. Where you couldn't really see the priest, though you knew who he was. The priest was like a guide for your confession to God. Everyone has seen the movies, maybe some have actually been to confess, you know what I am talking about.

Recently, I was asked if the leaders in our church read my blog, or if I keep it a secret from them. I hope they read my blog. I doubt they even know what a blog is. But the bigger question exists still, "Do I get a rush out of confessing what might be read?" Even more so, is that a prevailing reason why this wired-confessional is working the way that it is?

Perhaps that is the way God designed human beings. It is supposed to feel good to confess our sins, not only to God, but to one another, to true friends. To be willing to admit why we hate ourselves and what we suck at, but can't seem to overcome, no matter how hard we pray. Maybe God was thinking we could help each other.

Nevertheless, the virtual confessional continues and I am amazed by it. Kids who want to allow people into their hearts, but are afraid that heart will get stomped on. Afriad because their heart has treadmarks on it already. Pre-stomped by friends, teachers, parents, pastors, themselves. If this is even a bit true, then it is no surprise that blogging is turning into a virtual millenial confessional. It is no surprise that kids hide their blogs from their parents/authority figures.

So what to do about it?

Friday, January 07, 2005

Post Industrial Christianity

Today I pray that I will be able to outlive industrial, market-driven Christianity. Pastors have attempted to become professionals and have given away what makes them distinct in the process. I digress...

>>>The United Church of Canada's pastors are seeking to join the Canadian Auto Workers Union. For protection from their congregations.

>>>Pastors read business management books as the key to becoming better pastors. I don't like this very much at all. It reminds me too much of a quote from the book "Dining with the Devil" by Os Guinness (which I have not read, have only read this quote),


Whenever I met a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man, Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager. ---comment of a Japanese businessman


>>>In an industrial society, value is measured by production. Western Christianity needs to be reoriented and corrected to see that production is not success in our mission.

>>>I think many leaders in modern western Christianity read the Great Commission to say to go into all the world and make lots of disciples. They have inserted the word lots. Of course, I hope that all would come to follow Jesus in the rythyms of God's grace and experience the best life possible, but we have added the word lots and created a culture, influenced by the modern, western industrial revolution, that values production.

Can I read a book by a youth pastor who has an average suze youth group? Good luck. The only one I have ever heard of is Tony Jones (and he is an excellent writer), and even he got ripped for writing prescriptive material when his youth group was just average size.

The world of western Christianity values larger churches and larger ministries more than smaller ones. We think the church in S. Korea with 75,000 members is a great thing. And we have no biblical reason for thinking this way.

If God thought this way,

There would have been more animals in the ark.
Earth wouldn't be so freaking tiny in comparison to the universe.
Jesus would have been taller.
Jesus would have had more than 3 people who cared about him at his execution.
Judas would have been fired/laid off/let go a whole lot earlier.
The number of people who became Xns at Pentecost (3,000) wouldn't relate so dang exactly to the story of the Levites when Aaron built the golden calf for the Israelites.

If God thought this way, he would actually want to know how many people you witnessed to before you died. Is that biblical? NO. NONONONONONONONONONONONONO. NO.

That's just industrial Christianity.


Addenum: I must be feeling good. I shaved all up and am ranting profusly. Must be that freezing cold Canadain air.

Postmodernism and the Death of Honor

This links you to a guy that I don't even know. He plays guitar for someone I do know. He is on myspace.com.

Here's the issue. He is claiming that he is a believer and follower of Christ, and a minister througth music, yet he objetifies women and degrades them by putting up pix that are "unmotherly" (OH YES! I made that word up!)

Here's the issues: I don't even know who this guy is, and I probably don't even think he is a bad guy. He is simply a perfect example of a personal (read:extra-biblical) version of Honor in a postmodern context. I actually wonder most, what exactly is going on inside his thoughts. He blogs on love and poetry, but, really, that kind of stuff is usually 99% crap.

I hope he is in process, I really do, but, the theology on his page is rather choiceful (another word I made up) and creates a religion that is a version of Christianity, but seems to be a choose your own adventure version of the Christian religion.

Again, I have no beef with whoever this is, I simply found his myspace.com and thought it was a perfect example of postmodernity and theology causing a trainwreck.

Addenum: Don't even bother commenting anything similar to "it's about a relationship, not a religion." That's 99% crap also. Christianity is a freaking religion. A relationship is what you have with a person, not a gathering of enabling criteria to live life to the fullest (that's Christianity).

Monday, January 03, 2005

2005 - the year of laugh my guts out

Drop your food. Pick up your mouse.

Two very funny lines today!

1. Over at B & E....
In which real world do you have to be home at 9? In the I'm on crack world?


2. And over at liquidthinnking, via someone else,

Dear Jon,

Remember: Whenever we say "Christmas," Christ always comes first. And whenever we say "X-mas," X comes first. Not many people know that Jesus Christ's real name is "Jesus Little." He changed His name to "Jesus X" to show that He was His own person and didn't need the white man's slave name... He was His own man. Which explains the meaning behind X-mas. It's just short for "X-Man's." Because the X-Men had superpowers... just like Jesus.

Jim



Very funny at 1:45 est.