Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 by JEL
Wow, lots of Baptist news lately. Today, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in his blog that yoga is:
“at odds with Christian understanding. Christians are not called to empty the mind or to see the human body as a means of connecting to and coming to know the divine. Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God — an external Word that comes to us by divine revelation — not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables.”
Sounds to me like Mr. Mohler never took a yoga class. While I haven’t taken one myself in a couple of years, I did “religiously” for 8 years and still incorporate yoga poses in my stretching routines. What do I get out of it? A “looser” back, more flexible hips and hamstrings, relaxation, a clear mind, and a feeling that I’m about an inch taller. I’m not sure why any religion would have a problem with any of those things.
“Yoga is an exercise, health and wellness system. It’s so old that it belongs to humanity. It’s not based on a religion.” – Nicole Soteropoulos, yoga intructor in Louisville, KY
Amen to that.
Tags: Albert Mohler, Christianity, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Yoga
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Monday, September 20th, 2010 by JEL
David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, wrote a very compelling piece last week. The Terry Jones Koran-burning saga was the impetus, but he touches on a number of topics that hit home:
“I remember the first time it became crystal clear to me that there is no such thing as Christianity, but only competing Christianities. It was when I was working on my doctoral dissertation on Christians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. During that time I attended a most remarkable conference in New York on hidden children of the Holocaust. This gathering brought together the now-grown adults who had hidden from the Nazis to survive. Some of these children were saved by Christian families.
The most memorable speaker for me was a hidden child, and now a sociologist, named Nechama Tec. A Polish Jew, she survived the war hiding with Christians. She was asked after her address whether it was Christianity that motivated her rescuers. Her unforgettable response went like this: ‘It wasn’t just any kind of Christianity that would motivate a rescuer. Only a certain kind of Christianity would lead someone to risk their lives for us.’
A certain kind of Christianity — the phrase stayed with me. It is enormously helpful. From hard experience, young Nechama Tec learned the difference between versions of Christianity that teach hatred of the religious/ethnic other and versions that teach sacrificial and inclusive love. Her very survival depended on being able to tell the difference between these competing Christianities and the people who embodied them.”
Read the whole thing. His closing paragraph about competing versions of Islam seems right on to me.
Tags: Christianity, competing Christianities, David Gushee, Terry Jones
Posted in In The News, The Bible | No Comments »
Friday, September 17th, 2010 by JEL
The New Statesman published a list of the Top 11 most controversial figures in Christianity. If you’re like me, I recognized about 9 out of the 11. In ALL cases, however, clicking the link to see what acts earned them mention was incredibly educational. Give it a go:
- Martin Luther – The original protestant
- Henry VIII – The Tudor megalomaniac
- Pope Urban II – Eleventh century Dr. Death
- Guy Fawkes – Britain’s number one conspirator
- Joan of Arc – The bad-girl of French Catholicism
- Thomas Cranmer – The craftsmen of royal supremacy
- Pope Urban VIII – Inquisitor extraordinaire
- Thomas More – Enemy of the State
- Pope Pius XII – Hitler’s Pope
- Pope Pius IX – The Anti-semite
- Jerry Falwell – The televangelist
Tags: Christianity, Guy Fawkes, Henry VIII, Jerry Falwell, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, New Statesman, Pope Pius IX, Pope Pius XII, Pope Urban II, Pope Urban VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas More
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 by JEL
The mere mention of heavy metal music to many Christians conjures up thoughts and images of the devil, waggling tongues, face paint, tight pants, ear-splitting screams, and crazy-bad hair.
But not to all Christians. The Reverend Rachel Mann of the Church of England thinks Christians could learn a lot about life from head-bangers.
“…as both priest and metal musician and fan, it strikes me that the Church, especially at this agonized time, has a serious gospel lesson to learn from this darkest and heaviest music. The music’s willingness to deal with nihilistic and, on occasion, extremely unpleasant subjects seems to offer its fans a space to accept others in a way that shames many Christians. Metal’s refusal to repress the bleak and violent truths of human nature liberates its fans to be more relaxed and fun people.”
You can read the whole article here.
Tags: Christianity, heavy metal music, Rev Rachel Mann
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Monday, August 23rd, 2010 by JEL
Sorry for the eerie silence last week on the blog. A much needed vacation pulled my fingers away from the keyboard. In between the biking, the roasting in the sun, and frolicking in the waves, I did happen to see this poll showing that only one in three Americans can correctly identify President Obama’s religion. One in five believe he is a Muslim. Which gets the big red X on your test paper.
Here are some snippets from Obama’s 2008 interview with Dan Gilgoff, then of Beliefnet:
“Let me just sort of be as clear as possible in terms of what that the background is.
You know, I was raised basically by my mother, who came from a Christian background – small- town, white, Midwesterner. But, she was not particularly religious. My father, who I did not know – I spent a month of my life in his presence, otherwise he was a stranger to me – was raised in a household where his father had converted to Islam. But my father, for all practical purposes, was agnostic.
My mother remarried an Indonesian and we moved to Indonesia. But for two years I went to a Catholic school in Indonesia, and then for two years went to a secular school in Indonesia. The majority of children there were Muslim. But it wasn’t a religious school.
So almost all the facts that have been presented in the scurrilous emails are wrong. And I’ve been a member of my church now for almost 20 years and have never been a person of the Muslim faith.”
He could have stopped there, but to his credit, Obama continued:
“…I absolutely believe that having lived in a country that was majority Muslim for a time and having distant relatives in Africa who are Muslim, that I’m less likely to demonize the Muslim faith and more likely to understand that they are ordinary folks who are trying to figure out how to live their lives and raise their kids and prosper just like anybody else. And I do think that that cultural understanding is something that could be extremely valuable.”
Sounds pretty rational and reasonable to me. I wish we had What He Said in Bunch of Grapes this past week. We just might have made a sale.
Tags: Christianity, Obama, Obama's religion
Posted in In The News | No Comments »
Monday, April 26th, 2010 by JEL
Most people think Christianity is about 2,000 years old and that it began with the birth of Jesus. Diarmaid MacCulloch begs to differ. In his new book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, MacCulloch talks about the origins of the Church and how they set the stage for the appearance of Christ.
Yesterday, NPR ran an interview with MacCulloch that I found fascinating. It’s a wide-ranging discussion covering why some countries embrace Christianity and some don’t, why the Virgin Mary is more important to Catholics than to Protestants, and more.
I encourage you to click the link and give a listen. Hearing MacCulloch speak, I immediately thought of Robert Langdon in Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. See if you get the same impression.
Tags: Christianity, Diarmaid MacCulloch
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 by JEL
Christianity has been having a tough time of late. Child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church (deemed “petty gossip” by a Vatican spokesman), Hutaree militias plotting to kill police officers, the list goes on. The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman has devised a decidedly tongue-in-cheek strategy to restore Christianity’s image:
- Ally itself with Apple.
- Check into a sex-addiction clinic.
- Embark on a tour of the national media to tell everyone that Christianity is now going into hiding.
- Hold press conferences at major group events to prove one’s humility, thereby ensuring that all attention is taken away from the other, competing religions.
- Marry Jennifer Aniston or Cheryl Cole.
Please note the “Irreverant” categorization of this post. We all need a little satire once in a while. Read the whole thing here.
Tags: Catholic Church, Christianity, Hadley Freeman, Hutaree
Posted in Irreverant | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 by JEL
We created What He Said for many reasons. One, because the Bible is a hard book to read. We thought that designing the words of Christ in a new, easy-on-the-eye layout would help people get to the essential Christian lessons of love and peace and tolerance much easier than all the Bibles in their homes that never get pulled off the shelf and really read. And two, because we saw (and see) so many examples of self-proclaimed Christians acting in ways completely contrary to their professed faith. Maybe if they had an easy guide to the teachings of Christ they might reconsider some of their beliefs. And put the guns aside.
This article/editorial discusses “false witnesses” in the ever-growing movement of hate groups:
“It always seemed to me that there was a whole lot more to being a Christian than just believing in Jesus, that too many call themselves that without really knowing what it means and, in far too many cases, to justify behavior that is the antitheses of true Christianity.”
In discussing the arrest of the Michigan couple planning to kill law-enforcement officers, Dan Thomasson continues:
“The problem is that these people aren’t alone. Disaffected, ignorant followers of the philosophy of violence are popping up everywhere. They’re being helped by the Internet and the easy access to weapons. The high rate of unemployment has left otherwise normal citizens disaffected and vulnerable to the likes of those who hide behind religious masks and crazy schemes. Be careful. They aren’t Christians.”
Tags: Christianity, hate groups, What He Said
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010 by JEL
The Wichita Eagle periodically publishes questions from readers that the Rev. Billy Graham then answers. Some of the questions are more interesting/thought-provoking than others. Like this one:
DEAR REV. GRAHAM: If Christianity is true, then why are most of the so-called “Christians” I know hypocrites? I’d rather be a complete unbeliever (which I am) than someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn’t act like it. At least I try to be a good person, and they don’t. —J.H.
You can read Rev. Graham’s answer here.
Tags: Billy Graham, Christianity
Posted in Four Gospels, Words of Christ | No Comments »
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