We’d be better off ignoring Jones

There’s a big difference between killing human beings (which radical Muslims and Christian Scott Roeder have done) and burning a book (which Terry Jones did). We should all condemn those who commit violence in the name of their beliefs. When Muslims do it, we hope Muslim leaders speak out. When Christians do it, we hope Christian leaders will speak out.

But Jones didn’t commit or condone violence. He burned a book.

So should he be condemned by the Christian community (or any of us, for that matter)?

Let’s be honest here: No one Christian represents Christianity.

Please click over to the full post and leave your comments there.

Gandalf rose from the dead to save you

Category: Religion • Weirdness
Posted on: April 7, 2011 8:13 AM, by PZ Myers

There is a church in Romsey, Australia which is getting lots of attention because they offer a "Sci-Fi and Fantasy Friendly Church Service," where people dress up as fantasy characters and wave light-sabers around while quoting Buffy and Bilbo. It's a weird story, because every church service offered everywhere is fantasy friendly, so what's the big deal? Obi-Wan and Gandalf are both Jesus-figures, anyway.

Predictably, though, some stuffed shirts are outraged, which just fills me with more appreciation of irony. Says the Baptist minister who hears voices in his head and promises escape to an imaginary paradise after death,

"I don't have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn't the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress," Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell said.

"It is the time where real people with real lives need to hear the real God speak his word, the Bible.

Another of the men wearing a dress speaks up:

Catholic priest Gerald O'Collins said: "There should be no need to dress it up.

"There is a magical story there already - We just have to start selling ourselves properly."

At least he's honest—yes, religion is all about selling magic. The Romsey church is embarrassingly blatant about it, which is nothing new — but their real crime is making the silliness obvious by inviting comparison with openly fictional stories.

The ONLY way that faith is about "magic" is with the denial of the historical events recorded in Scripture. It is very amusing to me that there are so many athiests who are so emboldened in denying that the Bible contains historical records even when the eye-witness record many instances when, faced with the evidence, people still did not believe.

No, PZ, Gandalf did not rise from the dead to save us. He is a fictional character who we know was created by a human author. Even atheistic biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman acknowledge that the Bible is a historical account.

The honest, aggressive, loud [jerks] like Mark Driscoll who probably push more people away from Christianity than they bring in…

Or the hipstery, sweet, Jesus-loves-everybody folks like Rob Bell who don’t “correctly” follow Christian theology, who are apolitical, and who are not anti-gay/anti-abortion… but may draw more people into the faith in the process.

Unlike the similar schism in our own movement between the “angry atheists” and the “accommodationists,” I don’t think you can say “We need both kinds” in this case.

The two types of Christians here have very different objectives — Driscoll wants to save souls for the afterlife and he thinks he knows how to do it because the Bible gives him the directions. Bell leads the charge to “be more like Jesus” because that makes for a better world for all of us; saving people almost seems incidental after that.

You can’t have it both ways. These are two different interpretations of how to live according to the Bible. They’re not both right, and only one (if any) will win out. There will be a schism in the Protestant world before those sides come together.

Once again the atheist insight is facinating. This quote from Friendly Athiest makes solid points that have been lurking in conversations about the Christian church for years.

He is right that Bell's attempt is to make the message of the Bible more palatible, and not only that, but to turn its teaching to focus on us instead of God. Bell wants to make this world a better place, and if people learn to love God in the pricess it "almost seems incidental."

What is the church for? Are we not sharing the message of salvation?

Will Driscoll "push more people away from Christianity"? Doesn't look that way from the thousands that attend Mars Hill each week. But if he does push people away, they are the people who care more about this world than they do about their need for a savior.

After we collect enough of these to buy cabinets with, we plan to use even more to cover the floor in our kitchen!

Nouwen struggled with his sexuality.^[2] "Although his homosexuality was known by those close to him, he never publicly claimed a homosexual identity."^[3] Although he never directly addressed the matter of his sexuality in the writings he published during his lifetime, he acknowledged the struggle both in his private journals and in discussions with friends,^[4] both of which were extensively referenced by Michael Ford in the biography Wounded Prophet, which was published after Nouwen's death. Ford suggests that Nouwen only became fully comfortable with his sexual orientation in the last few years of his life, and that Nouwen's depression was caused in part by the conflict between his priestly vows of celibacy and the sense of loneliness and longing for intimacy that he experienced. Ford conjectured, "This took an enormous emotional, spiritual and physical toll on his life and may have contributed to his early death."^[2] There is no evidence that Nouwen ever broke his vow of celibacy.^[2][3]

I do want to emphasize that I do NOT consider homosexuality to be worse than any of the zillion sins I commit every day. In fact, it is tribute to the infinite grace and mercy of God that the sanctuary roof stays up each day that I walk into the room. In any case, we are not on some kind of crusade to single out those who may be dealing with this issue. Although I want the liberty to be honest with the Bible and to address this topic from time to time, I have no intention of so stressing it that the many homosexual guests and visitors who are not interested in changing will feel put off or unwelcome (or at least no more put off or unwelcome than the many materialists who are not yet interested in changing). On the other hand, I want to say enough so that those who are trying to surrender this part of their lives to Christ will be encouraged, and also so that the rest will not be misled by a culture that increasingly is allowing only one side of the discussion to be heard.

HT Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality by Wesley Hill

You know how some Christians insist that their god-belief is the only thing keeping them from running wild and committing all sorts of atrocious crimes? We tend to dismiss this claim, almost as if we have more confidence in the basic goodness of these Christians than they themselves do. What if at least some of them are being honest in their negative self-assessment?

Let's hope that this blogger is just a bit off in his perspective. But it may be that this is an impression that people have given when talking about their faith, especially if they converted under a hellbound scare tactic.

What makes us moral? Is it fear of judgment? Biblical Christianity (which I like to call Reformed Theology) teaches that we have an assurance in the blood of Jesus Christ that would completely remove our fear of hell and judgment and live in the security of knowing that Christ has done all the work for us.

Perhaps we need to be seeking out these Christians and preach the gospel to them!

Is It OK for Christians to Censor the Bible?

Posted by Hemant Mehta in General on January 26th, 2011 | 19 Comments

When Christian author Rachel Held Evans heard about the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn controversy, she was upset because she loves the book so much. How dare people change the book by revising parts they don’t like?!

And what about the House Republicans’ desire to read the Constitution aloud… but only after omitting that whole Three-Fifths Compromise? How dare people change the Constitution by getting rid of the parts that don’t sit well with the public?

That’s when she realized she had been doing the same thing with the Bible:

I was putting together the liturgy for The Mission and decided I wanted to include Psalm 9 in our reading.

…

Verses 4-6 didn’t sound very Christlike to me, so I whipped out that most venerated weapon in the Bible-reader’s arsenal — the ellipses — and with the precision of an expert, surgically removed them. Our liturgy was tidy and consistent and comfortable again. No one would even notice those three little dots.

It took about 17 seconds for the irony of the situation to settle in.

It raises a lot of questions:

Why is it ok for Christians to effectively ignore books like Leviticus in their Bible studies?

Why don’t pastors ever seem to talk about the rape and murder in the Old Testament?

Why is it ok for Christians to clip out Bible verses they don’t think represent their faith well when preparing a reading?

It’s not like they “sanitize” the Bible for children and then give them the real, full version as adults — the adults ignore the embarrassing parts, too.

If you’re going to be a Christian, you can’t pretend like those verses aren’t there.

Believe me when I say that the "Friendly Athiest" really is friendly (I have met him in person), but many of his commenters are not. But if you feel so bold, click through to his blog, identify yourself as a Christian, and share that there ARE Christians out here who believe the Bible is the Word of God and treat it with that dignity, reverence, and respect.

Don't knock it until you've tried it!

Recent purchase of an ipod Touch has been quickly followed by the $0.99 app. Not sure if it is "addictive" per sae, but you have to talk to my wife on that one.

Interesting... I wonder if our baby has been yawning at my jokes already at minus 3 months old!

Glad someone finally noticed!