Since my last post, it has come to my attention that the mass-email I spoke of was a hoax that had been circulating for a number of years. As I supected, even the most anti-Christendom activists couldn't come up with any kind of legal reasoning to pass or even formulate a bill such as this. Just thought you should know.
May 16, 2006
May 15, 2006
Spam
I got one of those forwarded mass emails today that talks about some horrible decision being made by some part of the US Government and how I should sign my name on the petition against passing the bill and forward it to ... blah blah blah. This particular one was about some lady (no name given) that passed a bill to take "public prayer" out of schools and now she's passing a bill (with a signed petition of some rediculously big number) to ban the word "God" from the airwaves.
I'm not particularly sure why it was sent to me, other than the fact that I call myself a Christian, or at least, a Jesus-follower. But the email had that sense of urgency to it, like the world was ending because of it. Like they were surprised or something.
Personally, I've got no problem with passing this bill. While I'm amused that somebody thinks that they can pass a bill that's so obviously in conflict with our bill of rights, I'm also not particularly surprised by it either. We're told to expect persecution, not to worry about it or be surprised when non-believers strike out against us.
And like I said, I think I support this one. Lots of advantages to it, actually. First, it's a wake-up call to the Christians who think that somebody else is going to do evangelism/mission for them - it's your job to influence the people you know, not Billy Graham's. Second, it gets a lot of "Christian" voices off of the airwaves that really piss me off - Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn, to name a couple. Maybe even Rush Limbaugh, if we're lucky.
Third, if the word "God" is banned from the airwaves (and like I said, you can't do this, it's just not possible), but if it were, then guess what? Nobody could take God's title in vain on the airwaves! You'd think that this alone would convince the Christian Right to go for it, but I guess they're not really thinking of the legalistic implications (for once).
I think the most compelling reason to pass that bill, though, is the second one: getting the bad evangelists off of the air, getting rid of so-called "Christian" radio. I have a lot of reasons for this, and if you're in Christian radio and are reading this, I appologize in advance for offending you.
1) The word "Christian" is a noun, not an adjective. A "Christian" CD did not make a personal decision to follow Jesus ... you know, "my CD was baptized the other day, along with my saxophone and comforter. Half my things are Christian now!" A Christian is a follower of Christ, of Jesus, of "the Way" [John 14:5-6, Acts 19:23]; a Christian is a person.
2) Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn and their kind are often the worst examples of Christians. Though there are some obvious exceptions (like Billy Graham) who genuinely care about the people they're attempting to reach, the majority of (BOCTAOE) televangelists promote self-centered Christendom, "your best life now!" and "you can be healed tonight!" and the like, something I don't recall Jesus ever mentioning. And they're annoying.
3) Mission/evangelism or whatever you want to call it is best done one-on-one, or maybe, maybe in small groups (not the kind that most churches call "small groups," just non-large groups of people gathering together). Most people these days aren't much into televangelists, who, in reality, just "preach to the choir." In our postmodern/post-Christian/post-Christendom world, nobody cares what you think unless several criteria are met: a) you practice what you preach (personal integrity/authenticity), b)what you preach is relevant to a person's life (personal relevance), and c) the message is spoken in a way that person will understand (cultural relevance/individual language).
I'm not particularly sure why it was sent to me, other than the fact that I call myself a Christian, or at least, a Jesus-follower. But the email had that sense of urgency to it, like the world was ending because of it. Like they were surprised or something.
Personally, I've got no problem with passing this bill. While I'm amused that somebody thinks that they can pass a bill that's so obviously in conflict with our bill of rights, I'm also not particularly surprised by it either. We're told to expect persecution, not to worry about it or be surprised when non-believers strike out against us.
And like I said, I think I support this one. Lots of advantages to it, actually. First, it's a wake-up call to the Christians who think that somebody else is going to do evangelism/mission for them - it's your job to influence the people you know, not Billy Graham's. Second, it gets a lot of "Christian" voices off of the airwaves that really piss me off - Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn, to name a couple. Maybe even Rush Limbaugh, if we're lucky.
Third, if the word "God" is banned from the airwaves (and like I said, you can't do this, it's just not possible), but if it were, then guess what? Nobody could take God's title in vain on the airwaves! You'd think that this alone would convince the Christian Right to go for it, but I guess they're not really thinking of the legalistic implications (for once).
I think the most compelling reason to pass that bill, though, is the second one: getting the bad evangelists off of the air, getting rid of so-called "Christian" radio. I have a lot of reasons for this, and if you're in Christian radio and are reading this, I appologize in advance for offending you.
1) The word "Christian" is a noun, not an adjective. A "Christian" CD did not make a personal decision to follow Jesus ... you know, "my CD was baptized the other day, along with my saxophone and comforter. Half my things are Christian now!" A Christian is a follower of Christ, of Jesus, of "the Way" [John 14:5-6, Acts 19:23]; a Christian is a person.
2) Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn and their kind are often the worst examples of Christians. Though there are some obvious exceptions (like Billy Graham) who genuinely care about the people they're attempting to reach, the majority of (BOCTAOE) televangelists promote self-centered Christendom, "your best life now!" and "you can be healed tonight!" and the like, something I don't recall Jesus ever mentioning. And they're annoying.
3) Mission/evangelism or whatever you want to call it is best done one-on-one, or maybe, maybe in small groups (not the kind that most churches call "small groups," just non-large groups of people gathering together). Most people these days aren't much into televangelists, who, in reality, just "preach to the choir." In our postmodern/post-Christian/post-Christendom world, nobody cares what you think unless several criteria are met: a) you practice what you preach (personal integrity/authenticity), b)what you preach is relevant to a person's life (personal relevance), and c) the message is spoken in a way that person will understand (cultural relevance/individual language).
The best way to be a missionary is to be an example: helping the poor, being generous, not being judgemental, being encouraging, listening to others, and generally, living like Jesus did - it's basically an introduction to Jesus. Then maybe you'll get some credibility, and then maybe if the time is right, you can tell them about Jesus.
4) Televangelists ask for money all the time. Enough said.
5) We'd stop getting mass emails about it (though perhaps we'd start getting mass emails appealing the senate or the president or somebody else in power to pass a bill cancelling out the one that said we can't say "God" on the airwaves).
6) Christianity - as a religion or as a faith or however you define it - works best when it's being persecuted. When people realize that it involves sacrifice because they can SEE people who've had to pay a price, we stop seeing lukewarm converts.
If I'm wrong, then please, by all means leave me comments about it. If I'm right, by all means, leave me comments about it. I'd especially like to hear from those of you that may not consider yourselves "Christians;" what do you think of Christians?
May 12, 2006
Interview
In a recent interview, Brian McLaren said something about the DaVinci Code which I thought was phenomenal. I won't put the whole interview here, but here's my favorite quote:
Question: Many Christians are also reading this book and it’s rocking their preconceived notions - or lack of preconceived notions - about Christ’s life and the early years of the church. So many people don’t know how we got the canon, for example. Should this book be a clarion call to the church to say, “Hey, we need to have a body of believers who are much more literate in church history.” Is that something the church needs to be thinking about more strategically?
McLaren: Yes! You’re exactly right. One of the problems is that the average Christian in the average church who listens to the average Christian broadcasting has such an oversimplified understanding of both the Bible and of church history - it would be deeply disturbing for them to really learn about church history. I think the disturbing would do them good. But a lot of times education is disturbing for people. And so if The Da Vinci Code causes people to ask questions and Christians have to dig deeper, that’s a great thing, a great opportunity for growth. And it does show a weakness in the church giving either no understanding of church history or a very stilted, one-sided, sugarcoated version.
On the other hand, it’s important for me to say I don’t think anyone can learn good church history from Brown. There’s been a lot of debunking of what he calls facts. But again, the guy’s writing fiction so nobody should be surprised about that. The sad thing is there’s an awful lot of us who claim to be telling objective truth and we actually have our own propaganda and our own versions of history as well.
Let me mention one other thing about Brown’s book that I think is appealing to people. The church goes through a pendulum swing at times from overemphasizing the deity of Christ to overemphasizing the humanity of Christ. So a book like Brown’s that overemphasizes the humanity of Christ can be a mirror to us saying that we might be underemphasizing the humanity of Christ.
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