theology

blog

Pregnancy from rape is not God’s intent

By now you have heard of Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Republican Senate candidate who said in a debate:

“I just struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize: Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

The backlash from these comments have been swift and harsh. Mourdock was quick to distance himself from his comments. He stated that his comments were used to politically advantage his opponent. The problem with this whole story is not necessarily about abortion, but about rape. Did Mourdock mean that rape is intended to happen or that life is intended to happen?

At a dinner for GOP leaders Mourdock said: Continue Reading…

blog

Election Day Communion

Now that the Presidential debates are over, millions of people will be heading to the polls. One of the key voting blocks will have an opportunity to make their vote a spiritual act.

Election Day Communion, a movement started by several pastors, is encouraging congregations and Christians to head to the communion table after heading to the polls. Evangelicals, a targeted demographic by Republicans, are often noted for their conservative stance on political issues. Now, all Christians will have the opportunity to unite around The Table instead of being divisive. Insuring that Election Day Communion does not get partisan, the movement does not endorse a candidate or party.

The movement’s website describes how Election Day Communion started:

worship

A Theology for Announcements in Worship

A church member greeted me after a church service in my usual location, the back exit. I embraced her and wished her a blessed week. She had strange look on her face and said, “You know, I really don’t like announcements at the end of worship. It really takes away the momentum of service and deflates it. I don’t know how to solve that. But then again, that’s your job!” She laughed.

She was right.The obligatory church announcement time was situated in an awkward place in the worship service.

In some churches, multiple people make a multitude of announcements and service drags on. If inserted in the beginning of worship, a number of people don’t hear the announcements because they are still walking into worship. If placed at the end of worship, announcements can take the wind out of a great service. Announcements are odd to have at the end of worship, but it is often the only place the majority of the congregation can hear of something important.

Do announcements belong in worship anyway? Continue Reading…

The Blind Side

Christian publisher boots ‘The Blind Side’

Let me tell you a great story: A husband and wife adopt an impoverish teen who grows up to become a college football player and goes on to the NFL. Except, if you walk into a store of one of the largest Christian publishers, you will not be able buy the movie.

“The Blind Side“, a movie based on a book by the same name, stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw and apparently is deemed too dangerous with its PG-13 rating (because of a racial slur and a few minor curse words) by LifeWay Christian Resources, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

A Southern Baptist pastor successfully fought to have the movie dropped from LifeWay. Rodney Baker, pastor of Hopeful Baptist Church in Lake City, submitted a resolution to the SBC Resolution Committee. According to the Associated Baptist Press, Baker was able to push for a similar resolution to pass in the Florida Baptist Convention.

I asked Ed Stezter, President of LifeWay Research, for a response: Continue Reading…

Jesus

Newsweek’s hipster Jesus article all hype

How do sell copies of a dying medium? Put a hipster looking Jesus on the cover. It’s kind of interesting… the whole, “What if God was a dude?” routine. Hipster, yeah, it has been done before and we get it. Not really surprising.

What is more shocking is that Newsweek thinks Jesus is an Anglo-Saxon looking dude who doesn’t like buttons but snaps on his shirt. The Atlantic thinks he looks more like an Urban Outfitters Jesus. Give the cover a look and you decide which one it is:

The cover article is by Andrew Sullivan and he writes of the decline of Christianity. It takes him about 500 words to get to the point: Christianity is in crisis. I’m not troubled by the inaccurate depiction of Jesus or that Sullivan tells us what we already know about Christianity, but that he makes a bold statement without follow through. The article accurately describes the crisis but without remedy. Sullivan goes into great detail about how Thomas Jefferson and his edited ‘Bible’ sought to make faith palatable and how that’s supposed to correlate to solving the crisis.

The article really does not contribute anything to discussion of how to concretely connect Christianity to post-moderns or to enact reform. Sullivan writes, Continue Reading…

clergy

The cult of Christian celebrity

I must admit, as a pastor it is very easy to raise up followers of your ministry. That might not sound bad, but it is. Your purpose as a pastoral leader to raise up disciples of Christ. There are a lot of pastors out there that just make mini-disciples of themselves. Pastors who make people pledge their authority to a leader fail to see how hurtful it is, such is the case if you join Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church.

As we have seen the rise of mega-churches, we have also seen the rise of mega-egos. Churches who center a cult of celebrity around their pastors often feature the pastor’s image alongside the church. If a church presents itself as, “Pastor Joe Smith and Christ Community Church” (not intended to be a real church) then, Houston, we have a problem.

Case in point, Bishop Eddie Long, who recently was tainted by a sex scandal, was recently crowned “King” with a kingdom as a Torah scroll was wrapped around Long. Worshipers bowed before him.

Check out the video: Continue Reading…

NFL

Who does God want to win the Super Bowl?

I remember watching the pregame coverage of Super Bowl XXXII in 1998 and being shocked when a reporter asked Green Bay Packers’ defensive end and ordained minister Reggie White if he thought God wanted him to win the Super Bowl. White shot back, “Well, I’m praying to win.” The reporter replied, “Do you think the Broncos are praying to win too?” “I’m sure they are,” White said. Then the reporter asked this bombshell: “If you are praying that Green Bay wins, and the Broncos are praying to win, then who does God want to win?”

With this year’s big game set for Sunday, it seems that God and football have been the hot topic lately. Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow has been criticized for appearing in an ad to be aired during the game paid for by Focus on the Family that promotes the Christian organization’s pro-life stance. Tebow is also known for biblical references to “John 3:16″ and “Phil 4:13″ on the eye black strips he uses to cut glare.” Tony Dungy, a Super Bowl champion coach and author of The New York Times best-seller, “Uncommon,” has attributed his success to Jesus Christ.

According to the NFL, 87 percent of its players come from some sort of “Protestant background.” Every team in the league offers its members Bible study groups, chapel or worship services. Athletes in Action, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, provides chaplains for numerous NFL teams. Tom Krattenmaker, in his book “Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers,” makes the case that public displays of faith are not spontaneous, but rather part of a large Christian presence in the professional ranks.

Book Review, Book Reviews, introverts in the church

Introverts in the Church

Giveaway: Win a copy of “Introverts in the Church” by subscribing to alanrudnick.org, follow @alanrud on Twitter, comment on this post, or “Like” the Facebook page. The winner will be selected @ 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 7, 2012.

In college, I was able to spend time with two international public speakers, pastors, and authors. These two people were electric in front of people. Able to be funny, compelling, and keep a crowd’s attention. As I spent one-on-one time with these speakers, I realized that they were withdrawn and seemingly non-social. Was there something wrong with me?

If you are public speaker or a church person it must mean you are an extrovert! Singing, talking, eating, serving and doing all those “churchy” things in public. Enter, Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam S. McHugh.

McHugh dispels the myth that only extroverts can thrive and lead in the church. He traces the Great Awakening as an important moment for extroverts coming to the forefront of church lift. Outdoor preachers like George Whitfield set the standard for grandstanding preaching. Since half the American population is an introvert it would only seem logical that there would be many books on introverted people in the church, but there are not.

There is a great deal of psychology in the book. McHugh doesn’t shoot from his hip (that wouldn’t be very introverted, would it). He supplies a ton of data and cultural studies on American’s habits and church culture. The author is quick to present a more complex nature to introverts than just shyness:

front, new, sub1, Unvirtuous Abbey

A Bunch of (un)virtuous Monks

Church and religion doesn’t have to be stuffy and boring. Several monks prove that. Enter the Unvirtuous Abbey. A bunch of monks give us everything regrettable about Christianity, culture, people, and Facebook but make us laugh at it… in a good way. The Unvirtuous Abbey ministers to people from their Facebook and Twitter page with funny and some serious tweets and updates. Some proclaim them virtuous and others unvirtuous. I took some time to sit down with these humorous monks to see what makes them tick. You be the judge:

You monks have some very funny and very serious prayers on Twitter and Facebook. Where do you receive inspiration?

What’s become evident is how many people have been hurt by religion/church. We wondered, “What if there were unapologetic monks who actually stood up to religious bullies? And what if we threw in a bit of ‘snark’ just to make it fun and interesting?”

Humour has incredible power. Religion has the capacity to be hurtful, and many people have used it was a weapon. It’s fun mashing up cultural references with Jesus. Of course Jesus didn’t have a magic sword, but it’s interesting to put him in that scenario:

Jesus held aloft his magic sword and said, “By the power of Grayskull!” And they spake unto one another, saying, “He has the power.”

The truth is, he does.

Your prayers mention WiFi, beer, fanny packs, Harry Potter, tattoos, and Joel Osteen. Is this what makes the monks “unvirtuous”?
Continue Reading…

Brad Pitt

Why You Should Listen to Brad Pitt on Christianity

In a recent Q & A for his upcoming film, The Tree of Life, Brad Pitt said:

“I grew up with Christianity, and I remember questioning greatly some things that didn’t work for me, [and] some things did…I grew up being told that God’s gonna take care of everything and it doesn’t always work out that way, and when it doesn’t work out that way, then it’s God’s will. I got my issues man, don’t even get me started…I got my issues… Many people find religion to be something inspiring. . . . I myself find it very stifling as an individual.”

Clearly, this preaching/teaching that Brad Pitt received was way off base. If his perception of Christianity is about “God’s gonna take care of everything” then his church, parents, and pastor failed him. Has anyone listened to his issues? Or, have people just preach “at” him?

Is this why Christianity is failing people? Is the wrong message being communicated? Does no one want to listen? No one wants to listen to other people’s struggles?

If Brad Pitt has issues with this type of Christianity, then I do too.

Advent

Christmas: Peace In the Midst of Chaos

Melissa was enjoying dinner with her husband and their three children at a restaurant recently—until the waiter disappeared for 20 minutes. Her husband, Tim, began muttering. Melissa braced herself. “Uh-oh, here it comes,” she remembers thinking.

“EXCUSE ME!” he screamed across the room to another waiter, then stormed off to complain to the manager. When the original server finally returned to the table, her husband yelled, “Where the hell have you been for the last 45 minutes?” and continued berating him until the man walked away.

Chaos ensued.

People at other tables stared. Melissa put her head down and a hand over her eyes. In the car on the way home, she told her husband, “You know I hate it when you do that. It ruins the dinner.”[1]

Who has not experience such an event? When you are enjoying a nice dinner and something sets someone off? All of sudden you go from peace to chaos in a matter of seconds.

Dealing with chaos during the holiday season is almost a fact of life. The family is trying to enjoy a nice dinner and Aunt Bettie complains about her divorce. Uncle Bill is angry about his job. Grandma is yelling about how her neighbors are stealing her trash! Grandma, come on who is stealing your trash?

I’m sure scenes like this play out in your family sometimes. Chaos in the midst of a well indented peaceful family dinner. What is it about families that bring out the best and worst in us? All of us have some sort of dysfunction in our families. All of us must have an embarrassing family scene we remember?

religion

Atheists Know More about Religion

In a recent Pew Religious study, atheists scored highest on a survey asking basic questions regarding religion. Even more surprising is the fact that some answered questions incorrectly when it came to facts about their own faith. The New York Times reports that on average respondents answered half of the questions incorrectly.

Atheists and agnostics scored the highest out of all respondents. Jews and Mormons scored the highest out of all religious groups. White Protestant Christians scored in the middle range.

How could Atheists out score all other religious groups in this simple religious test? It had to be the questions. The questions were too hard, right? Well, there were some basic questions like, “Where was Jesus born?” “Whose writings inspired the Protestant Reformation?” “Which Biblical figure led the exodus from Egypt?” The respondents answered in multiple choice form.

What conclusion can we reach about this study? Atheists know more about religion?

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