Good Friday: How The World's Biggest Hate Crime Leads To Hope

Drew Tatusko on Good Friday:

the triumphal entry turned into a blood-thirsty mob

Good Friday is evil. There is nothing "good" about it. After all what do Christians say in their confessions about the crucifixion? This is what Protestants all over will say on Esater Sunday about the crucifixion as a confession of faith:

(Jesus) suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.

There is a strange fascination with many Christians that looks at the cross as a gift. It is the punishment of sin that we don't have to endure because God decided to do it to his Son. For that we are to be thankful. Thankful? For a God who kills off his only son? We are to be thankful for a God who commits human sacrifice after stopping Abraham from killing Isaac?

....

Jesus came as a human being who sacrificed his human will fully in order to observe the will of God. When the two wills have been so intertwined this becomes the true son of God. His true divinity is his true humanity. One would think that this would be a good death on the cross. Of one who fought the good fight to reveal the Kingdom of God as a hero. But it's not. As Brandon Mouser says today:

He’s hanging on a cross and asks God, why he’s doing this to him. Why, in this hour when it would be tops to have the one person he should be able to count on to be there and offer comfort, why has God left him?

And God responds with a most deafening silence.

Crickets.

This is not a good death. It's an horrific death. The only people to blame are people; the same people who welcomed him as an ironic king demand his death and torture under Roman law. And it gets worse. Even with Jesus, the only one who had fully conformed to the will of God, hanging in torture on a cross as a result of his obedience, God still despises the sacrifice. It is the logical result of sin.

Good Friday is not good. Good Friday is the day when the holy becomes grotesque.

We now have to sit in somber mediation for the evils that we do that continue try to kill off God and place humankind above who God is.

Jesus is dead. God is dead.

If we cannot love Jesus dead, we cannot love him when he rises on Sunday.

To put this cart before the horse is perhaps the greatest blasphemy in the history of the Christian church.

Read the whole post: Here.

Wed. Nights Are Back At FBC Wilmington

Wed. Nights actually started back 2 weeks ago---but we officially started back last week. 2 weeks ago, we had a seminar on world religions aided by Campbell Divinity School. More on that in a later post---but anyways, this session I am reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. Our Minister of Administration and Senior Adults, Daryl Trexler is leading the group study. Here is our reading schedule for the session:



During tonight's discussion the question of how many Christian Adherents there are in the world so here are the findings from a 2005 study:

1.Christianity: 2.1 billion

2.Islam: 1.5 billion

3.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion

4.Hinduism: 900 million

5.Chinese traditional religion: 394 million

6.Buddhism: 376 million

7.primal-indigenous: 300 million

8.African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million

9.Sikhism: 23 million

10.Juche: 19 million

11.Spiritism: 15 million

12.Judaism: 14 million

13.Baha'i: 7 million

14.Jainism: 4.2 million

15.Shinto: 4 million

16.Cao Dai: 4 million

17.Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million

18.Tenrikyo: 2 million

19.Neo-Paganism: 1 million

20.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand

21.Rastafarianism: 600 thousand

22.Scientology: 500 thousand

Finally the main theme of tonight's discussion was what it means to do church, so I'll end this post with a thought from my friend Drew Tatusko:

go where god is, not where you believe god ought to be.
Sep 23rd, 2009 by Drew Tatusko. Print This Post

The church, no matter what community you find, packages God into something that can be controlled for human use and whim. This sort of package is not all evil or disreputable – all of the time. God has been a source of divine legitimation for human power that people have used to kill and torture people under the despotic rule of fear and oppression. Still, the social packaging of God that is the church can be a source of grace for people which is also true. Regardless, as H.R. Niebuhr argued in 1929, the church is a human social creation that ought to be given life by God. All religious and church structures conceal and distort the presence of God even as they work to be so many media to reveal the reality of God.

However, as Jesus said, the presence of God is simply in a community which does not have to be formed by doctrine, polity, law, and God forbid property. God is not just in the Tabernacle, God is everywhere.

Perhaps our faith has been distracted by our religious institutions and we fight so hard to maintain those institutions, that we forget how frail, tentative, and distorting they are to the very presence of God. The medium of the church itself has to be transformed from the inside out if it is to transform the hearts and minds to do the basic things that Jesus commanded: love God, love neighbor, heal the sick. When we fail to do these basic things and instead begin to love the institutions that are nothing but media to accomplish this task, we may as well craft a golden calf since this is exactly the function the church then serves.

Why is your church worth saving if God is indeed everywhere? What profit do we gain to preserve the media of human invention if that media is no longer a source of revelation people are currently receiving through other means? This is no longer a question of people being "spiritual but not religious." Rather it is the offspring of those "spiritual" baby boomers who are asking: I want to be religious, but it is hard to find the God that has been revealed to me in the churches where my parents worshiped when they were children.

For this and other reasons, I often find God in my backyard, in a conversation with my wife, in the giggle of my sons, the cool fall breeze, a note from someone expressing care for me or someone I love, my dog running through the snow, the smile of an elderly person who is lonely most of her life, gratitude for healing in sickness and in death, and a song. I find God in these places more often than in a pew. After seminary, I had to leave church for a while to find God again. I continue to ask where I see God. The clarity I receive in return is this: Go where God is, not where you believe God ought to be.

In Defense Of Drew Tatusko's Position On Scripture Continued

Continuing from my last post: TheoPoetic Musings: Scripture And Liberty Of Conscience: In Defense Of Drew Tatusko's Position On Scripture

Here is the Greek Text of John 14. The keywords I would like to highlight are commandments, words and Comforter. In Greek these words are respectively: ἐντολὰς which deals with a prescriptive injunction of religious law, ῥήματα which is distinct from the Logos(Christ) and literally means "Divine Utterances"---but does not refer to the bible and finally, παράκλητον who is the Guide that God sent to lead us to all Truths.

Thirdly, in all things Christ has authority as per:

ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 28:18 Greek NT: Westcott/Hort with Diacritics
καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ [τῆς] γῆς.

Notice how there is no mention of βύβλος (the bible) nor ῥήματα (the Divine Utterances) in this verse but as it plainly states:

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (RSV)

Therefore we can conclude that any authority the scripture has is imbued to it through Christ via the Holy Spirit.

Next here are some Baptist views of scripture:

Baptist Faith And Message 1963---I. THE SCRIPTURES

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of Gods revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

Ex 24:4; De 4:1-2; 17:19; Jos 8:34
Psa 19:7-10; 119:11, 89, 105, 140
Isa 34:16; 40:8; Jer 15:16; 36:1-32
Mat 5:17-18; 22:29; Lu 21:33; 24:44-46
Joh 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Ac 2:16; 17:11
Rom 15:4; 16:25-26; 2Ti 3:15-17
Heb 1:1-2; 4:12; 1Pe 1:25; 2Pe 1:19-21

Roger Williams said:

"Christ is King alone over conscience is the sum of all true preaching."

A BRIEF

CONFESSION

OR

DECLARATION

OF

FAITH



XXIV. That it is the will, and mind of God (in these Gospel times) that all men should have the free liberty of their own Consciences in matters of Religion, or Worship, without the least oppression, or persecution, as simply upon that account; and that for any in Authority otherwise to act, we confidently believe is expresslly contrary to the mind of Christ, who requires that whatsoever men would that others should do unto them, they should even so do unto others, Mat. 7. 12. and that the Tares, and the Wheat should grow together in the field, (which is the world) until the harvest (which is the end of the world,) Mat. 13. 29, 30, 38, 39.

Finally, Drew is right in this:

However, a key to the problem is a misinterpretation of one passage that has been misused for all forms of biblical inerrancy and/or infallibilism.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Because scripture has its source in God means that it has a special use for the functions that Paul names here. This in no way is meant to be interpreted as plenary verbal inspiration as Muslims understand to be the source of authority for the Qu'ran. Although Silva appeals to "the literal Greek" in his post, what he fails to understand is that the Greek text of the New Testament is an amalgamation of fragments that scholars worked very hard to assemble in what they believed was the most accurate rendering of what was likely the original source.

However, even if you go to the Greek text, which one? Modern translations come from critical editions that have been edited and assembled by groups of biblical scholars based on manuscripts and fragments scattered all over the world. It is inspired because it is animated in the same way that the Spirit of God animates the human spirit to discern the unfolding of God's revelation. This is the same Spirit that hovers over the void in Genesis. Moreover, did Paul intend his letter to Timothy to be placed on the same level as the Torah, Nev'im, and Kethuvim? To claim this is highly doubtful. Scripture is useful to be sure, but to claim that Paul was ascribing the same authority to his own letters as he ascribed to those Scriptures of the Old Testament is a judgment that Christians make.

The problem is that even if we uphold that the text is "verbally inspired" and assume we have in front of us exactly what God "said" still places the burden of the person interpreting to understand what the text was supposed to mean in the context in which it was written. Further, the translations are interpretations and reading itself is an act of interpretation. Along the path from constructing the Greek text from and into so many critical editions and manuscripts there are interpretive decisions that the reader of the English text is assuming were made correctly. This is why a literal reading or "literalism" is nothing more than a hollow ideology that is less about understanding the Bible than in ascribing authority to one's self. And this is precisely why authority cannot come from just the text, but the risen Christ who reveals the unfolding grace and love of God in the church and in the world.

While Silva claims that I have "enough formal education to confuse" myself, his own reading of his mythic infallible text relies on the work of hundreds and hundreds of biblical scholars before him who brought the text to us in the state we receive it. But I am sure he will not now say that his text is an amalgamation of other more educated and perhaps more confused scholars than myself. Which makes this claim equally as odd, and equally as misinformed as his clear desire to distort the text that lies in front of him for reasons I shall not judge.

The biblical literalist in their zeal for the false doctrine of inerrancy is yet to answer which is the best text and how we would know. Most literalists continue to remain ignorant of the canonization process of the scriptures as well in their blind slavery to the dead letter of the text of scripture like their ancestors the Pharisees were rather than the Spirit of the text as Christ and Paul call us to.

Romans 7:5-6 (New International Version)
5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

See also: TheoPoetic Musings: Luther, The Biblical/Textual Critic, TheoPoetic Musings: Literal and Figurative Language in the Bible And Bibliolatry, TheoPoetic Musings: Sola Scriptura Or Prima Scriptura: Not Solo Scriptura, TheoPoetic Musings: John Dominic Crossan On Bible Literalism, TheoPoetic Musings: Historical criticism today: a word to evangelicals, TheoPoetic Musings: The Absurdity Of Biblical Inerrancy and TheoPoetic Musings: Biblical Criticism Continued.

Scripture And Liberty Of Conscience: In Defense Of Drew Tatusko's Position On Scripture

"For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else's conscience?" (1 Cor. 10:29, NRSV).

Recently Drew Tatusko tweeted this statement:

@dtatusko: our authority comes not from scripture alone, but from the risen christ.

In which Ken Silva---Fundamentalist Calvinist apologist--- took offense to and responded promptly with this post:

OUTLAW PREACHERS ARE WRONG CONCERNING SOLA SCRIPTURA
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Sep 18, 2009 in AM Missives

Today Andrew (Drew) Tatusko Tweets:

@dtatusko: our authority comes not from scripture alone, but from the risen christ. #outlawpreachers #badpresbyterian (Online source)

You may recall that Apprising Ministries introduced you to Tatusko, who has just enough formal education to confuse himself, in Jay Bakker, Radical Love, And Homosexuality when he made the following stupid statement:

trying to pick a fight with ken silva: http://bit.ly/16pSkB (Online source)

Well, Tatusko’s Tweet has the largely Biblically illiterate group who’ve crowned themselves outlaw preachers now sprouting up around head Outlaw gay affirming “pastor” Jay Bakker, all in a tizzy.

They’ve been ReTweeting it as if there’s some divide between Jesus—the Living Word of God—and the text of Holy Scripture—the written Word of God. And this is because all false prophets and teachers must first attempt to circumvent the Bible in order to advance their myths.

(Read full text: Here).

And subsequently Drew fired back with this post:

ken silva's reading problem
Sep 19th, 2009 by Drew Tatusko. Print This Post

Ken Silva has blessed us with another opportunity to learn what not to do. I use him for teaching moments and this is a good one. Ken Silva decided it was in his best interest to challenge a statement which I tweeted:

@dtatusko: our authority comes not from scripture alone, but from the risen christ.

Now anyone reading this who disagrees is not left with many options. Either authority is based on only scripture as if there is no living Christ to guide us, or it is a combination of the two. Quite simple. Not for Silva who needs to read into things while offering the presumption that he's got it all together for us. So this is what Silva reads from this:

Now, I have no way to know why someone like Drew Tatusko wants to work to make people think Sola Scriptura is somehow in opposition to Jesus; however, I can judge that his reasoning is fatally fallacious spiritually

.

What? A conditional statement as I made which is "not alone…but also" is not a statement of opposition where the subject and the predicate are mutually exclusive. He further confuses this by saying the following which appears to agree with the tweet I posted which got him upset:

the Risen Christ—the Lord God Almighty Who’s placed His authority and His Word above all things

The emphasis on "and" is mine to illustrate the reading problem. So either Silva is being fantastically dishonest or he has a problem with reading into a text in a process called eisegesis. What we ought to do with scripture is a process of exegesis which is extracting the best possible meaning of a text as it was conveyed at the time of its writing. I am not going to judge which of these two options we are seeing here, but it appears a combination of the two is in play. Silva is clearly building yet another strawman. For what reason I have no idea.

However, a key to the problem is a misinterpretation of one passage that has been misused for all forms of biblical inerrancy and/or infallibilism.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Because scripture has its source in God means that it has a special use for the functions that Paul names here. This in no way is meant to be interpreted as plenary verbal inspiration as Muslims understand to be the source of authority for the Qu'ran. Although Silva appeals to "the literal Greek" in his post, what he fails to understand is that the Greek text of the New Testament is an amalgamation of fragments that scholars worked very hard to assemble in what they believed was the most accurate rendering of what was likely the original source.

(Read on: Here).

And here is Ken Silva's response to that: DREW TATUSKO DEMONSTRATES CONFUSION FOR US. So anyways, here are some thoughts pertaining to this argument:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all, the Word Of God is not the bible, but Jesus Himself as per:

This false idea of the bible being the Word Of God is based on a faulty reading of the English translation of John 1:1-Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος. (en arche en ho logos kai ho logos en pros ton theon kai theos en ho logos.) Had the author or authors of John meant what bibliolaters want this verse to mean he or they would have written: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ βύβλος, καὶ ὁ βύβλος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ βύβλος. (...biblos): in the beginning was the bible, and the bible was with God and the bible was God or similarly...hagiographa (Divine Writings).

Secondly, God never promised us a bible or a canon of scripture as a guide but a Comforter---the Paraclete/Holy Spirit as scripture plainly teaches:

[John 14]
The believers' relation to the glorified Christ

1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.---(NRSV).

I'll continue my thoughts in my next post: TheoPoetic Musings: In Defense Of Drew Tatusko's Position On Scripture Continued

A Smurf-tastic Post

Thanks to the heads up by Drew Tatusko who recently had this as a Facebook status message:

Drew Tatusko i have two daughters who have not smurfed with man; please let me bring them out to you, and smurf them as you like; #thesmurfbible

Here is a post about the Smurf Bible:

Friday, May 06, 2005
The Wycliffe Bible Translation Project: Smurf

We are commanded by Christ to spread the Gospel throughout the world and thankfully, the humble workers of the Wycliffe Bible Translators are hard at work translating the Scriptures into every language on earth.

Most recently, Wycliffe has released its translation of the Bible into the Smurf language. Here is a sample from Luke 6:

20Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are smurfily you who the smurf are smurfily poor, for yours is smurfily the kingdom of God. Smurfilicious!

21Blessed are smurfily you who the smurf hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Smurfy, isn't it? Blessed are smurfily you who the smurf weep now, for you will laugh.

22Blessed are smurfily you when smurfs hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Smurfy, isn't it?

23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because smurfy is smurfily your reward in heaven. Smurfy, isn't it? For that is smurfily how their fathers treated the prophets. Smurfilicious!

24"But woe to you who the smurf are smurfily rich, for you have already received your comfort.

25Woe to you who the smurf are smurfily well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who the smurf laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

26Woe to you when all smurfs speak well of you, for that is smurfily how their fathers treated the false prophets.

Papa Smurf hailed the move as "...a great leap forward in the evangelism of all Smurfkind. History will mark this day as a great milestone."

Brainy Smurf, however, criticized some of the Greek translation as misunderstanding Smurf verb tenses.

Purpose Driven Smurf, smiling to reporters at a press conference, responded, "This translation stresses formal equivalence too strongly. I will continue to use The Message paraphrase, although I respect the viewpoints of other Smurfs who will make use of Wycliffe's efforts."

KJV Onlyist Smurf could not be reached for comment.

posted by John @ 8:52 AM

Here's something about those postmodern Smurfs at work:

A Smurf-tastic Satire by William Hrdina

SUMMARY: Postmodern Smurfs running amok. NOW AVAILABLE: “Where the Fnords Linger- A Short Story Collection” By William Hrdina- collects 27 of my most popular stories. To order go to Amazon or www.williamhrdina.com.

A Smurf-tastic Satire
By William Hrdina

Somewhere, deep, deep in an enchanted forest, there was a village. The village was hidden away in a secret grove inhabited by tiny blue creatures, two and a half apples tall. They wore white hats crammed over the top of their little blue heads. They were all male, except one, and they were known most commonly as The Smurfs.
The village was made up of about twenty huts carved out of bright white and red polka-dotted psychedelic mushrooms. One Smurf lived in each hut. Usually all the Smurfs went to bed early. But on this night, no one was at home (Except for agoraphobic Smurf- he never left his hut), all of the Smurfs were gathered around a bonfire they'd built up in the middle of a clearing.
Lying in a comparatively massive heap, enormous compared to the tiny Smurfs, was the unconscious and thoroughly bound figure of Gargamel, the Smurfs sworn enemy. The capture of Gargamel was the fruition of a two month, overly elaborate plan that boiled down to bribing Azreal, Gargamel's long suffering cat, to switch sides for a lifetime's supply of primo Northern Lights Catnip and the opportunity to piss on Gargamel's head in retribution for far too many hits and kicks delivered out of nothing but his master's inability to outsmart a single Smurf- despite several years effort.
"We're going to need more fire." Neocon Smurf demanded of Fundamentalist Christian Smurf. "God demands we burn Gargamel good and crispy."
Fundamentalist Christian Smurf nodded in vehement agreement, "It says so in the Smurf Bible." He stood up straight, put his arms behind his back, and recited, "And lo anyone who smurfs with you, you need to smurf them up good and proper, really smurf their ass and don't take no smurf from them!"
"Praise Smurf Jesus!" Neocon Smurf agreed and rolled his eyes. Neocon Smurf only used religion to manipulate the tiny brain of Fundamentalist Christian Smurf. You could get him to do damn near everything so long as you told him it was what Jesus Smurf wanted him to do.
It wasn't like Jesus Smurf was around to contradict what Neocon Smurf said, he spent all of his time wandering around the woods alone- only returning long enough to hit up Stoner Smurf for a bag of smurf and to grab another hunk off of his psychedelic mushroom hut.
Emo Smurf wandered by, wearing all black and muttering poetry to himself. He saw what was happening with Gargamel and said, "Not that I care, but what are you going to do with him?"
"Burn him! Burn him!" declared Pyromaniac Smurf, his eyes twinkling in the firelight.
Corporate Smurf wandered up to the growing crowd gathering around Gargamel. "What's this I hear about burning? That's perfectly good human meat. We should make Migrant Worker Smurf cut up his body and package it and then I can sell it and keep all the money! That would be a sound business solution."
"I hate sound business solutions." Proclaimed Grouchy Smurf, kicking the ground.
Hypochondriac Smurf tried to get the attention of anyone willing to listen.

(Read more: Here).

Oh and for your info the Smurfs are an evil communist plot---just kidding but here you go for laughs: The Smurfs: Communist Allegory with an Undercurrent of Misogyny and Anti-semitism.

Youth And Religion

Here's part of an interesting posting from Drew Tatusko:

teens are functionally illiterate when it comes to religion
Jun 3rd, 2009 by Drew Tatusko.

This can be classified as a major church FAIL. It is not that all teens are functionally illiterate, but most teens indeed are. They have not acquired and thus have not practiced using the tools to articulate their religion. This was a finding Christian Smith reports in the book Soul Searching where data from the National Study of Youth and Religion is presented. The following is worth quoting in full.

We do not believe that teenage inarticulacy about religious matters reflects any general teen incapacity to think and speak well. Many of the youth we interviewed were quite conversant when it came to their views on salient issues in their lives about which they had been educated and had practice discussing, such as the dangers of drug abuse and STD's. Rather, our impression as interviewers was that many teenagers could not articulate matters of faith becuase they have not been effectively educated in and provided opportunities to practice talking about their faith. Indeed, it was our distinct sense that for many of the teens we interviewed, our interview was the first time that any adult had ever asked them what they believed and how it mattered in their life…Religious language is like any other language: to learn how to speak it, one needs first to listen to native speakers using it a lot, and then one needs plenty of practice at speaking it oneself. Many U.S. teenagers, it appears, are not getting a significant amount of such exposure and practice and so are simply not learning the religious language of their faith traditions (p. 133).

....
How would you characterize the religious literacy of your youth, and your adults in church? And then, what are you going to do about it?

I wonder how much of this is related to our technology-driven culture and how much of it is related to churches failing to provide teenagers with the tools to articulate religious viewpoints. I know personally that I didn't know much about Baptist principles until minoring in Religion at Campbell University---even-though, I grew up in a Baptist church and have been in a Baptist church ever-since. I did know a little bit about Baptists before though and how we were different from other denominations. Mostly because my Scout troop was connected with a Presbyterian church---also, one Summer, when I was staying with my grandmother at the beach she enrolled me in a Presbyterian VBS to give me something to do. Also, in my Youth Group at FBC-Laurinburg, we had members who regularly attended a Methodist church. I also saw Pope John Paul II and Catholic services in Europe and I went to the blessing of a friend's family's new pastor’s house in the Anglican tradition, so I've always been aware to some degree of denominational differences. I'm not sure how denominational distinctions play in the National Study of Youth and Religion's findings, but it is true that different denominations as well as churches phrase religious matters differently. I also know that technology is useful for disseminating religious information though there are times when technology gets in the way.

See also: Al Mohler On Text Messaging and Technolatry.

As far as Drew's questions go: "How would you characterize the religious literacy of your youth, and your adults in church? And then, what are you going to do about it?" I'm not sure how best to answer the first question as FBC-Wilmington may be a Baptist church but a large number of our congregation grew up and moved their memberships from non-Baptist churches and since we are a large church with a congregation spread between two different services---we truly have a diverse and ecumenical group with various religious opinions in that respect. Also, our members have a wide range of religious knowledge and aptitudes, because of this fact. Hect, we even have a lot of retired pastors in our congregation. As far as the youth in our church goes, I'd say that they are about the same as our adults---but with all that said it is still hard to tell who is religiously literate or not---because of the sheer size of our church. In regards to the second question, because I am the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina co-advocate for FBC-Wilmington, I try my best to spread information where I can about Baptist religious principles while remaining denominationally neutral and ecumenical and always Christocentric.

More On Rick Warren's Boo Boo

See TheoPoetic Musings: Rick Warren's Boo Boo first.

Here is part of something Drew Tatusko posted:

Rick Warren is doing some good things in the evangelical community. But he is now discrediting himself with this sort of populist bandwagoning that should be saved for politicians. Let us all take heed of Psalm 15:

O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?

Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue,
and do no evil to their friends,
nor take up a reproach against their neighbours;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised,
but who honour those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest,
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

(Read more: here).