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blog

blog, Christianity

More proof of false Christian persecution

As I outlined in my last blog post concerned Robert Griffin III and Christian persecution, it is a false narrative.  The myth of Christian persecution was again proved as Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah caught and intercepted Tom Brady‘s pass on Monday Night Football.

In celebration of Abdullah’s play, he went down to pray. Abdullah, a Muslim, was penalized and his team incurred a 15-yard penalty on the next kick off.

In response, this tweet was posted on Twitter:

If anything pro-Christian favoritism could be argued here. Fortunately, the NFL responded that Abdullah should have not been penalized. The decision for the penalty during the game was:

The prayer drew a 15-yard penalty flag for unsportsmanlike conduct, for “going to the ground” while celebrating after a score. There are exceptions made for religious prayer in the rule…

At the least we have learned two things:

  1. The media look for any angle to make a story run
  2. It’s easy to selectively prove (falsely) that Christian persecution exists.

Beware of the danger of the single story.

trolling

Limiting blog trolls

troll

After blogging for over 5 years, I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty harsh comments. I’ve found there are two types of negative blog commentator: productive criticism and blog trolls.

Blog trolls, like their mythical archetypes, lurk in the dark waiting for an unsuspecting blog author or other commentator. Blog trolls wait to unleash their irrational, ranting, and ugly comments on anyone who gets in their ideological way.  I used to have a pretty liberal policy with comments on my blogs. I’d let about anything go in the name of free speech. However, I quickly learned that the blog trolls were keeping other people from commenting.

The Washington Post highlights the problem of blog troll (or their cousin the “news troll”) in an article explaining the rise and problem of the blog troll:

Continue Reading…

blog, Christianity

Duck Dynasty, free speech, and persecution

phil-robertson

By now you have heard about controversy involving ‘Duck Dynasty’ A&E  star Phil Robertson. Robertson, recently spoke to GQ about his personal beliefs:

Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there… Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men… It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical…

In addition, Robertson made controversial comments on race. Phil Robertson was recently suspended by A&E because of his statements. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal responded to the controversy by saying,

I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.

Sarah Palin responded on her Facebook page with the message:

Free Speech is an endangered species….Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.

Continue Reading…

Culture, Thanksgiving

Thanksgivingization

It seems every year retailers are pushing holiday seasons earlier and earlier. I walked through the home improvement giant, Lowe’s the day after Halloween and saw Christmas decorations, holiday goodies, and Christmas lights already on sale. Was that too early or is it just me?

This year, maybe my anecdotal evidence is backed up with fact. The Associate Press published an article entitled, “All Day Shopping Frenzy on Thanksgiving?”. The article reports on how retailers are trending to open  stories on Thanksgiving instead of the day after:

It’s a break with tradition. Black Friday, which typically is the year’s biggest shopping day, for a decade has been considered the official start to the busy holiday buying season… Meanwhile, Thanksgiving and Christmas remained the only two days a year that stores were closed.

Now Thanksgiving is slowly becoming just another shopping day. Over the past few years, major retailers, including Target and Toys R Us, slowly have pushed opening times into Thanksgiving night to one-up each other and compete for holiday dollars.

This year, more than a dozen major retailers are opening on Thanksgiving, including a handful like Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Staples that are doing it for the first time… Indeed, retailers say they’re just doing what shoppers want… That’s an important opportunity for chains, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the last two months of the year.

Based on this evidence, retailers are pushing up holidays to sell goods. More and more, our holidays (both religious and non-religious) are turning into opportunities for retailers to draw in consumers to buy and well, consume. Thanksgiving is now no different. What remained as the last holiday were retailers did not make their employees work, has now turned Thanksgiving into another shopping mecca.

This is what I call Thanksgivingization:  Continue Reading…

blog, social media

I’m moderating #chsocm tonight

I’m moderating #chsocm on Twitter tonight @ 9:00 p.m. If you are a church-ie social media type, just join in on Twitter with the search and hashtag #chsocm. It’s pretty easy to join in. Just keep #chsocm in your search on Twitter and follow the conversation.

My topic tonight will be centered around handling crisis within the church using social media. 

A lot of you are wondering, “What the heck is #chsom?” It’s Church socialmedia. #ChSocM (ch-sock-em) is a weekly Twitter-based chat about using social media to build church and faith. Welcoming, informative, ecumenical. Tuesdays, 9PM, ET. Commentary, interviews, transcripts, and fun stuff on the blog.

My good Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest friend Meredith Gould started the Twitter chat topic/community about 2 years ago. Since then, it has grown into a weekly meet up for lay people, pastors, seminarians, and social media church geeks (that includes me).

Don’t be a non-participate observer! Join in! (I loath the word “Lurker” or “lurking” for social media listening. It’s too creep-stalker-ish. See you tonight on #chsocm!

social media

Social media atonement and confession?

Would you ever tweet, blog, or Facebook your sins? Is social media the place for confession and atonement?

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for Jews, occurred last week. Yom Kippur is the day of repentance for past sins, to seek forgiveness, and to make amends. NPR featured a fascinating twist on this holy day. A synagogue in Miramar, Florida invited congregants to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to share their wrongs. Cantor Debbi Ballard explains how social media can connect her congregation to confession and restoration:

…let’s use the technology and have it enhance our atonement today by tweeting or texting our sins away, and looking at those sins on a big movie screen. And then letting them roll past us so that we can let them go, so that we can live a more powerful life this year. I think that’s what Yom Kippur and atonement is about.

It may seem odd for some to share their “sins” on social media. Who wants to leave their confession in a world that caches and stores your information for the world to see? Ballard explains the value of interactive and communal confession: Continue Reading…

blog

Blogging… I quit

It’s that time of the year where I usually say, “I’m done. I’m done blogging. I quit.” It’s summer and my focus on blogging usually takes a dive. My children are out of school and the lake calls to me to swim. Then, I question if I want to continue to write blogs. I’ve been doing it for over 4 years now.

After 414 blog posts, I ask, “Is it time to end it? To quit?”

It is time to end it, for now…

One thing I learned writing my Judson Press book, “The Work of the Associate Pastor” (My mom thinks it is a great book and you should buy it) is that you cannot blog and write a manuscript at the same time. You just can’t…well, you can but it is really difficult. Blogging requires regular rest and sabbath.

I’m working on my second book this summer. My goal is to have the introduction and two chapters written. What’s the topic? Well, I can’t give everything away. I will tell you that it is on Baptist life. So far, the introduction is written and I keep telling myself that I’m going to have fun writing this book. Writing a book is a labor. If you don’t have fun with writing it becomes an obligation. Obligations are no fun.

So there it is. I quit.

I’m done writing blog posts this summer. Other quest contributors may post on my website, but I’m taking off July and August.

See you in September!

 

blog, social media

I’m moderating #chsocm tonight

I’m moderating #chsocm on Twitter tonight @ 9:00 p.m. If you are a church-ie social media type, just join in on Twitter with the search and hashtag #chsocm.

A lot of you are wondering, “What the heck is #chsom?” It’s Church social media. #ChSocM (ch-sock-em) is a weekly Twitter-based chat about using social media to build church and faith. Welcoming, informative, ecumenical. Tuesdays, 9PM, ET. Commentary, interviews, transcripts, and fun stuff on the blog.

My good Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest friend Meredith Gould started the Twitter chat topic/community about 2 years ago. Since then, it has grown into a weekly meet up for lay people, pastors, seminarians, and social media church geeks (that includes me).

Don’t be a non-participate observer! Join in! (I loath the word “Lurker” or “lurking” for social media listening. It’s too creep-stalker-ish. See you tonight on #chsocm!

sin

Not enough sin on this blog?

Apparently, I don’t write enough about sin.

Amanda Greene over at Wilmington Faith and Values alerted me to a piece that one of her colleagues wrote. Daniel A. Thompson writes about faith and sports and he responded to my post on Robert Griffin III and dying churches. Thompson’s article is here and it’s entitle, “Sin and Sardis: what’s football got to do with it?”

Thompson liked my connection with rookie phenom RG3 but thought it fell short. I found Thompson’s take interesting because he thinks that we don’t talk enough about sin:

I think Mr. Rudnick made a nice parallel between RG3 (Redskins rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III) and the dying church, however, I don’t think he got close to what the problem in the church is today nor the remedy for the dying church…in the Book of Revelation, Jesus speaking through the Apostle John, makes it clear what is expected of the “dead” church at Sardis… To the dead church at Sardis, he instructs with these words in Revelation 3:3: “so remember what you have received and heard (the Gosple); and keep it, and REPENT… I believe Mr. Rudnick got close to some of the problems of a dying church in the words I highlighted… but sadly, he does not address the real problem in most churches today – repentance of sin and focus on the life-long process of sanctification.

The issue of repentance within a dying church is a concept that I really didn’t think too much about. But, it does raise the question, “To what degree does sin play in the role of a dying church?” And, is that a missing conversation on this blog?

What do you think? Read. Respond. Render.

American Baptist Churches, Israel Trip

Peace mission to Israel

Just six days from today, I’ll embark on a peace mission on behalf of American Baptists to travel to Israel. This trip will serve as a good-will delegation to Israelis and Palestinians. In light of the recent conflict and violence, it is more important than ever to find a peaceful solution for this area of the Middle East.

This is no Holy Land Tour.

The delegation consists of the American Baptist Churches General Secretary, Roy Medley, the President of ABC-USA, Ruth Clark, and a handful of lay and clergy leaders within the denomination. We will meet with local leaders in business, media, health care, education, human rights, faith, culture, and politics. The delegation will be guided by a panel of experts who will also help balance and interpret these meetings so that, by the end of the trip, the delegation will grasp the basic issues of the conflict and a variety of perspectives and emotions. We will meet with both Israelis and Palestinians.

So, what is the purpose of this trip?

Continue Reading…

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