The premise is this: Matt “infiltrates” (Degree of difficulty, judges? 1.5 out of 100) John Hagee’s mega-church in Texas, finally culminating in a membership retreat weekend. His stated purpose was to find out what kind of religion was driving George Bush’s foreign policy (read: Israel) and domestic policies, as well. Along the way he makes some scathing observations— some of which are very true, and some of which he misses.

It’s a longish article, but it is fascinating to hear a completely unchurched person describe a branch of evangelicalism. As with many people who have done the same, he confuses all evangelicals with John Hagee’s brand of theology, and that is where you will become most frustrated. (Warning: it also has some rougher language.)

I would insert some great quotes, but I know some of you have read it, and you may actually want to post them.

Check out the Nano Bible.

Tag lines:

You can now take comfort in having the Bible with you at all times!

and

The whole bible in a tiny crystal to keep close to your heart!

Available in: KJV, The Latin Vulgate, and the Septuagint.

Here it is, feel free to jump in!

(Greg Wilbur recently posted the following quotation on his blog. If you have opportunity, visit his site, you will find it most enjoyable and full of sound content.)

“People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be. There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres. Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; ‘eternal values,’ ‘immortality’ and ‘masterpiece’ were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other’s eyes and yet deny the existence of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster’s whim and the purest ideal. Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts. Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.”

Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film director who passed away in 2007. From: Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman, Simon and Schuster, 1960, Introduction.

This is full of many possible points of discussion. Here are some possible ‘jumping off’ points:

1) The idea of a long-term, artisan/master builder cathedral construction is so foreign to our 21st century American mind. We want results and we want them now. One reason for that is so that way we can go on to the next project, and the next, etc. until we realize that our projects have become consumable commodities.
2) Performers/celebrities have drained (generally) any notion of or attempt at transcendent beauty that otherwise be associated with an artistic endeavor.
3) The segment beginning “The smallest wound…” and ending with “…deny the existence of each other…” is so spot-on as to be immune to any commentary from me. 4) When did art separate itself from worship? Is this what has led to much of the art which has caused difficulty for Christians in the last 100 years or so?
5) Is it beneficial (for either party) for the church to employ/utilize the skill of people regardless of their belief system? That is to say is it good to have a policy by which we (either as individuals or a body) only support other Christians, even if their work is inferior? 6) Nowadays, we would tend to eye the non believer who wanted to help build our cathedral (to stay with that analogy) with much skepticism. While that is understandable on a human level, is there any precept from the Bible about such things?

Feel free to run with any of these, or suggest your own unique ideas spawned from Bergman’s quote.

Harrison Ford, of Indiana Jones, Jack Ryan, and Han Solo fame, has had his chest waxed to protest deforestation. You can read the whole sorry thing here. Get this:

In an effort to showcase the pain involved in deforestation, Harrison willingly subject himself to the painful process of stripping his chest of all its follicles. Having worked with CI for 15 years, it was Harrison’s hope that his trip to the salon might just shock people into thinking “green.”

What did Forrest Gump say? Stupid is as stupid does.

Following is a post that Dana put on her blog which you should feel free to visit anytime.

From Dana:

I’ve tried for about 10 minutes to give this post a nice, tidy beginning point. A point to spring off of so that everything following it made sense. It’s not happening because it has not been neat and tidy kind of week.

Dear friends of ours are going through unspeakable pain right now. Another friend had to put her Dad in the hospital and is waiting to hear what’s going on. We had to put Lily, Gracen’s silky terrier, to sleep yesterday.

I’ve seen emotions in my child that I haven’t seen in a long time. She has been extremely sad, of course, and is already missing Lily. Throwing sticks and rocks in the backyard was anger release for a while. She wondered “why couldn’t Lily just get better.” Through all of this, I had no idea how to really help her. I have no idea how to really help my friends either.

There have been glimmers, those bits that God gives when you just really don’t know which way to look let alone what you are looking for. And I am thankful that Gracen has seen those glimmers too. She has seen a glimpse of God’s people taking care of each other.

As we prepared to visit our friends to offer condolences, my first thought was to find somewhere for Gracen to go. Surely, she didn’t need to go. “I love them too” was her response. She is part of this covenant family, felt pain, and wanted to be there. She saw honest, raw emotions and saw mercy and love being poured out. She learned.

When we realized that Lily would have to go to the vet yesterday, Gracen didn’t want to go. She had a haven, friends who welcomed her into their day without question and loved her. On my way home from the vet’s office, I made a call to the church. It seemed natural to let our covenant family know what was going on.

Throughout the evening, there were phone calls, ecards, visits all just letting Gracen know that they loved her and were thinking of her. Despite their own pain and busyness, a group of believers took time to let a little girl know that they were thinking of her, praying for her, hurting with her. She learned.

Before she went to bed, she brought her Bible to us asking for help finding a verse that Pastor Tim had shared with her, Psalm 36:6:

“Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgements are like the great deep: Man and beast you save, O Lord.”

She marked it. She was comforted and she learned from God through His people.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…;And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The condescension is utterly mind-boggling. And it hasn’t taken HRC long to respond. Here’s a recent ad of hers from Pennsylvania:

Now, the politics of this are pretty obvious: Obama’s image as the candidate of Hope and Unity is getting a little tarnished. Hillary is trying to take advantage to save her candidacy (though her attempts to portray herself as a bible-toting sportsman ring a bit hollow). I suspect that Obama has just handed HRC a LARGE victory in PA and IN, and maybe NC too. This will also surely make the superdelegates think twice about his ability to carry states like PA, OH, and MI, which the Dem nominee MUST carry to win.

However, all that said, what’s most interesting to me about this is the worldview that BHO has with regard to Christianity. Every reference I have ever heard him make to what drew him to his church are all vaguely political. Almost invariably, they center around the social outreach programs (what we’d call mercy ministries) that the church had. I have yet to hear him mention his own salvation, or, much less, the name of Jesus.

So, it seems that Obama thinks that big city churches that engage in social projects are OK, but people in small towns who “cling” to their religion are just doing so out of bitterness at being out of work. Got that? No, I don’t either. There’s an obvious double standard, and I suspect that the real truth of it lies in how much a church centers on sin, redemption, and Christ. Those that actually mention those things (like in those small PA towns) can’t actually be drawing people to hear that stuff. They MUST have other motives. The must just be all exercised about their bank balance being too low (these small town folks don’t have Ivy League law degrees after all - else why on earth would they be in a small town?). It’s their poverty that makes them need Jesus. Urban churches with educated congregations don’t go in for all that stuff because they’re more sophisticated. They occupy themselves with nobler pursuits - like social outreach.

(For clarity’s sake, I’m NOT slamming social outreach. But, it’s not the reason for church.)

I think that Obama has a typical elitist attitude toward Christianity: it’s OK, so long as it knows its place and stays in it. And that place can’t intrude on anyone’s personal choices for living their life, or, worse, on public policy. But that’s not real Christianity. Christianity is knowing your sin and how Christ redeemed you from it without you even deserving it in the least. How can that knowledge stay contained? As I’ve written before, real Christianity is going to take over the whole person, and not be kept in a nice compartmentalized box where it merely runs a food bank or a clothes closet. A robust Christianity is going to assert itself beyond that, into the political, into the personal, into education and childrearing, into everything. For believing people, that’s a wonderful truth. For the unbeliever, it’s frightening.

That’s how I see it, anyway. But maybe I’m just bitter about being in this small town…….

Why, you might ask, did that catch my attention? As unpleasant as the song was to listen to, the lyrics totally described how I have lived much of my life. I’ve tried to clean up many things that I’ve messed up. I’ve started my life over again…and again…and again. And I’ve made up my mind, many times, that I aint (fill in the blank) no more. And I’ve failed miserably each time. Each time I have thought if I pray more, read more, memorize more, become more disciplined or more accountable I will finally be able to succeed. I bet you can guess the result.

I am very slowly starting to learn that my ugliness is much more messed up than I have ever realized. And hand in hand with that reality is, because of God’s grace, I can’t clean it up. I really do need the gospel. Apart from Christ’s work I am a cynical, frustrated, hardened failure.

For instance, remember her comment earlier this year that for the first time in her life, she’s now proud of America? I suppose that the fall of the Berlin Wall had no effect on her.

Then she whined about the financial stress that folks like her have to live under these days, noting that she and Barack were in debt with student loans - until he wrote two best-selling books - and how now they have to spend $10,000 per year on after-school and summer activities for their kids.

She’s pooh-poohed those who [shudder] work in corporate America:

“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

Like going into corporate law (a la yours truly) is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil. Oh, but, nevermind the corporate boards that she sits on making fat directors’ fees. And the $300K plus salary she makes working for a hospital. Those don’t count.

And it’s not just what she’s saying now. She’s got a paper trail. From a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune:

What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first. … And, for women, me is fourth, and that’s not healthy. (Emphasis mine.)

That’s bound to reel in LOTS of male votes.

But here’s her most recent pronouncement, on the subject of economics:

If we don’t wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership…for how we want this country to work, then we won’t get universal health care,” she said. “The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

Wow. Does everybody get that? The solution to education and healthcare is - SOCIALISM!! We’ll take from those who have too much of that “pie” and give to those who don’t have enough. And guess who will do this? The government - you know, because their track record of spending money efficiently is just SO GREAT.

This is wonderfully clarifying. John McCain is no Reagan when it comes to being a free-market supply-sider, but he’s Adam Smith compared to this nonsense. Ed Morrisey does a fantastic analysis of the vast increases we’ve seen in government expenditures on healthcare, education, and veterans services with almost zero increase in quality to show for it.

What bothers me most, though, is the completely static understanding she displays (remember this woman has a law degree from Harvard) of economics. The metaphor is a pie. Pies don’t grow or shrink - the only question is how they get divided. And, naturally, they need someone to do that dividing - the government.

I reject all of this. If anything should be obvious to even the most casual observer of the American economy, it’s that it is always changing - mostly growing, sometimes contracting. As the economy grows, and more folks earn more income, they pay more income taxes. Thus, revenue to the treasury always increases. The inconvenient truth is that the folks in the federal government are spending faster than the rate of increase, and with little to show for it. So, she’s either ignorant or dishonest.

McCain’s ad folks should be following her around with a camera every day.

Before starting, I want to make two points. First, I’m limiting my comments to how this issue plays out in the US, with all our First Amendment baggage in tow. Second, and as always, these are nothing more than my views. That and $1 will buy you a coke. Obviously, I think they’re correct, or I wouldn’t hold them. However, being the believer in depravity that I am, I don’t believe that they’re infallible.

There seem to be two popular schools of thought on how religion and politics should mix, and I don’t subscribe to either. The first group could fairly be characterized as the religious right. They seem to believe that the problem with our government and our politics is that we’ve divorced them from Christianity. This group seems to hold to the theory that the US is an inherently Christian nation, and that Christian concepts should play a role in politics and government.

The second group could fairly be characterized as secularists – maybe call them the irreligious left. They want no recognition of religion in public life, and believe that there should be a strict separation of church and state (a concept, I might add, that is extra-constitutional – go read the first amendment and see if that’s what’s mandated.) The secularists, since they tend not to be people of any particular faith themselves, believe that religion tends to be a generator of discord, and that it is best banished from public life and restricted to private activities.

Now, if you go look at data from the last presidential election, the best predicter of voting behavior was the frequency of attendance at church. Given that fact, it should not be surprising that Democrats are considered the secularist party and the Republicans the party of the religious right. Thus, a casual observer, seeing my unabashed GOP cheerleading, might assume me to be religious righter; that, however, would be way off the mark.

I disagree with the notion that this nation is a “Christian nation” to the extent that that means that it has always been populated by faithful Christians and has thus been rewarded by God for that faithfulness with prosperity. I disagree with that view of history and with that view of God. Many of the founders were not Christians, but rather deists. Their writings refer frequently to a “creator” or “providence”, but rarely to a savior, and almost never to Christ by name. Even if I’m wrong on the history, I cannot accept the premise that this country’s prosperity has anything to do with the relative religiosity of its citizenry or government. If prosperity is an indicator of Christian faithfulness, then what about the ancient Romans, or the Babylonians? Prosperous beyond any measure for their day, but utterly pagan.

So I disagree with the premise of the religious right. I disagree more with the secularists, because I find their arguments to be illogical. To say that all religious influence must be expunged from public life is as ridiculous as it is impossible. Christianity influences the whole person, including his worldview, and I’m sure any other religion would make the same claim. How can that be expunged if a person of faith is to hold public office or participate in politics? I suspect that the advocates of this position truly prefer to be free from certain policies and positions that are opposed or supported by religion (abortion being a good example) and seek to win by banishing the religious adherent from the debate altogether. Furthermore, for better or worse, most people in this country subscribe to a religion, and the vast majority of those are Christian. Isn’t it unreasonable to say that the government or politics can’t reflect that?

So where does that leave me? As I said above, true Christianity informs one’s outlook on everything because it works a transformation in one’s heart and mind. It certainly influences my thinking on issues such as abortion. It informs my views on the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children, which makes me disinclined to support sex ed in the schools, or the providing of birth control without the parents’ consent. Christianity causes me to believe that the government should use its military power to defend the country.

My Christian outlook even leads me to believe in free-market capitalism, because I believe in total depravity. Markets need predictability to function, and if folks are free to make choices, they will choose what is in their interests, which is pretty doggone predictable. The converse of this is why socialism doesn’t work – it relies on the assumption that people will act for the good of the group as a whole and not themselves individually. I think that some elements of the church – the Roman Catholic church in particular – gets confused about this and urges more socialistic policies because they believe that since Christians are to put others before themselves that capitalism is wrong. To me, this both ignores the abysmal results that socialism, when historically attempted, has always produced, and the totally depraved nature of man (even Christians), which explains those historical failures.

Now, differing views of Christianity can produce different politics. Certainly so can other religions. So, my view is to get aligned politically with the party that reflects who you are and is going to be most likely to work to enact policies in which you believe. For me, that’s the GOP. For other Christians, it may be the Democrats or the libertarians, or whatever. Because God gave us all the ability to reason, I only expect Christians to be able to intelligently explain why their Christian views lead to their affiliation. (I once had a Christian friend argue to me that her faith supported her pro-choice views. I heartily disagreed, but she argued logically, and I cannot question her Christianity.) Party affiliation is not, to me, a litmus test for faith. Rather, the views that faith informs should dictate the party affiliation.

As always, I look forward to anyone’s comments on these issues.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949546475561399959

I found myself with a different type of reaction. I was definitely disturbed by the images and memories, but I think one could produce the very same type of video using selected passages from the Bible highlighted with videos of “our” religious fanatics. I am definitely not an apologist for Islam, but I do believe that the vast majority of Muslims practice their religion and attend their mosques for similar reasons that you and I attend our various churches. As I watched the Islamic fanatics doing what they did and preaching what they preached in the video, my mind replayed images of Warren Jeffs, David Koresh, Jim Jones, various white supremacist groups, Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, abortion clinic killers and various “con artist” televangelists…all doing their deeds in the name of God or Jesus, and all with scripture-a-plenty to justify it. I do believe the Bible to be the word of God, and I do believe the Qur’an to be simply a misguided book…but as a darn good pastor I know says, “context is everything.” If I have a particular agenda that I am passionate enough about, I think I could take parts of the Yellow Pages out of context to further my agenda.

Thoughts?

If Al Gore is right, how is this possible? The Beeb article blames La Nina, but that doesn’t seem very persuasive to me. After all, if we’re warming the plant so with our rapacious appetite for all things CO2-generating that we’re melting the ice caps and killing the polar bears, then how can the Pacific Ocean possibly cool down - even cool down enough to cool the planet?

Moreover, there have been nothing but increases in the worldwide production of CO2 for the last 10 years. Yet, no warming? One might be tempted to think that one had nothing to do with the other.

The Beeb assures us with the pontifications of many climate change luminaries that this is merely an aberrant year (or decade - whatever), and that soon we’ll have a really, really hot year. Wow - who could possibly foresee that?

Looking at this from my perspective as a Christian who believes that God is sovereign over his creation, this is all a bunch of hooey. Who will thwart the will of God? If God intends for an ice age to come over the earth (as it has in the past - before anthropogenic C02 production, mind you), all the greenhouse gases in the universe won’t stop it. Moreover, the arrogance of man to think that he (a) understands the intricate workings of all the forces (literally ranging from outer space to the depths of the oceans) that affect climate and (b) can change that climate is mind-boggling.

The article is here.

Two quotes:

The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.

“There is no intent. They didn’t want their child to die. They thought what they were doing was the right thing,” he said. “They believed up to the time she stopped breathing she was going to get better. They just thought it was a spiritual attack. They believed if they prayed enough she would get through it.”

In a similar case: When I was young there was a family in our church that refused to buy life insurance, as they felt it was not properly trusting God to do so. The story does not have a happy ending. The dad died prematurely in an accident.

What do you think?

Click your way there, here.

An interesting excerpt:

As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. “Namely: It’s acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with ‘Shalom’ written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with ‘Usury’ written inside the same symbol would be an outrage.”

And another:

The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.

All of the basic philisophical questions come up.

At one point, Stein is impressed with Sproul’s breadth of knowledge. (at approx. 26:30, if you want to skip to that part)

Recently, I posted a short article about Anglican vicar Rev. Harrison who recently released a new book, Must Know Stories, in which he re-tells the major stories of the bible, while spicing up already dysfunctional characters with even more dysfunction and fantastic embellishments. His work reflects the PoMo notion that truth only communicates principle, and mythical approximation can just-as-well communicate the “point” of the bible.

Now, it’s easy for me to make my point when somebody starts making our historical stories even more graphic and clearly perverts the original. But let’s go the other way. What if someone embellishes the truth, changes the characters, removes the graphic parts, and adds age-appropriate parallels? The product would be cute, cuddly, family-friendly, and, yet, very much fictional. Would you have a problem with that? If you don’t, you have an overwhelming evangelical consensus at your back. American Christians (across various denominations) love their Veggie Tales.
Truth in blogging journalism: we have a row of VT DVDs in our movie collection—and I am not exactly sprinting to throw them out. Guilty of ownership, your honor. My point is not to stop watching the VT, or even destroy our current collection.

My point: Even “cuteness” should be held to a high standard. Simply being cute doesn’t give us greater latitude with the truth. Cuteness should be accurate. Our critical filters should be activated when we watch wholesome-looking cartoon characters, just as much as when we watch every art film de jour.
My wife let me know of a good approach to viewing the VT videos. She would have her kindergarten class watch the VT episode, read the real Bible story, and then discuss its similarities and differences. She said they did a fantastic job of dissecting them. It would seem that this approach would equip our kids to be critical thinkers, without dismissing the merits of any form of media.

Now, the VT episodes are shown on Saturday morning with all the other cartoons. They have had to edit out all references to the Bible, resulting in a sweet, moral lesson detached from the historical and overall redemptive story of our “Sacred History”. And if that’s the case, VT is just Aesop reincarnated.