Category Archives: Religion

The past is now, vol. 1

The first of a likely brief series of selected highlights from the old mindreader:

04 December (2005)
Sports News: Jesus Inducted Into NHL Hall of Fame, and
I Have Something Important to Tell You, But I’ll Just Write It on the Wall

On Thanksgiving, I was in the Lone Star Steakhouse in Battle Creek. After the meal, I made my way into the bathroom (obviously, the men’s room). And, remarkably, I found humor in the bathroom — and it wasn’t bathroom humor!

On the wall, someone had written a serious message: “Jesus saves.” But a hockey fan, believing that Jesus must be a goalie, had supplemented that message with a simple, direct conclusion:

“And Gretzky scores on the rebound!”

I walked out of the bathroom laughing at the quick wit of that hockey fan.

Though the Gretzky quip was very humorous, it illustrates a major problem with impersonal evangelism. The message of the gospel — summarized as the pithy “Jesus saves” — is worth communicating to everyone around us, but the message loses something important when it is not communicated personally. Not only does it become very dry and detached, lacking the necessary genuine human component (Jesus saves, and I know because He saved me); it also becomes much more open to mockery, as shown in the restaurant bathroom. Anyone else who reads that particular message on the wall is far more likely to be struck by the humor than to be struck by the truth; in that sense, whatever good intentions the original writer may have had were lost in the humor of the second writer.

Of course, in the restaurant, there also was the issue of defacing property. It seems contradictory to proclaim the truth of salvation through Christ through a blatant display of disrespect for others’ property.

My point, I think, is simply this: be careful with impersonal methods of evangelization.

Off-Broadway Baptist

Harvester Christian Church, a large church in the St. Louis area, has a busy drama ministry. However, their website’s drama ministry page is a bit confusing to me:

“The Creative Arts Production Ministry His Mercy produces three full stage productions a year, including a Christmas Eve production. These plays are full length, original, musical productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God in a non-threatening manner. They provide the perfect opportunity to invite friends, family and co-workers to our church for a fun evening, and to begin to plant the seeds for the Lords kingdom. All are welcome!

“The Fall of 2006 we will be presenting the musical ‘You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.’ This show will be done in a dessert theater format.”

I am confused because the first paragraph says their productions are geared to sharing the gospel, while the second says they are presenting “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I am having trouble reconciling those two statements. Specifically, I am not certain how “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” shares the gospel. It is a wonderful production, but I am not sure how it fulfills their goal of “productions geared to sharing the gospel and the Word of God.”

Please, don’t get me wrong: “You’re a Good Man” is a fun musical, and I am not upset that they are willing to use such a production. I just hope they don’t try so hard to repackage it as a gospel presentation that they drain the charm out of the musical. This would be better if it were simply a theatrical presentation, and not a church production. In fact, there ought to be more quality non-church productions by Christians … but that’s another topic altogether. Simply put, this is a good idea with mismatched wrapping.

Besides, were it to be a Biblically accurate production for the church, they would have to change the title. It would not be “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”; it would be “You’re a Fallen Man in need of Jesus, Charlie Brown.”

(Of course, it does not help that in the spring of 2007 they will be presenting a “Christian rewrite” of Pinocchio. I have already expressed my position on Christian rewrites, so I think it’s clear I won’t be going out of my way to see that production.)

I am so confident in my identity that I want to fix it

When I drive to work, I listen to the radio so I can stay awake.  Typically, I listen to WMUZ, an advertiser-supported religious radio station.  I have my issues with several WMUZ advertisers; this time I want to address one commercial I’ve been hearing more recently.  The advertiser?  A cosmetic surgery establishment.

The commercial started positively enough, with a woman saying, “I’m confident in who I am in Christ.”  This is a good and worthy sentiment; the problem was that it was not the end statement, but simply a means to an end.  She then used that confidence to explain that her decision to utilize the services of the surgeon was a “personal decision” between her and God.  After that, she was done with God-related statements; the rest of the commercial was, obviously, centered on the establishment and its excellence.

Perhaps I am a dense man, but I cannot yet understand how confidence in identity in Christ connects to cosmetic surgery.  Does cosmetic surgery for those with no genuine physical problems originate from or demonstrate true confidence in Christ?  I have a hard time believing that concept.

Needless cosmetic surgery seems to be an effort to remake ourselves in our own images — not our God-given images, but the images we’ve created in your head, the images influenced by the societies around us.  Altering ourselves to generate happiness with our physical appearance communicates not “I praise you, God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” but something more like, “God, thanks, but I think You didn’t quite get this right.”  That is not an expression of full confidence; if it expresses anything, it is heavily qualified confidence at best.

If we believe confidence in Christ requires alteration, these changes ought to occur not in our appearance, but in our perceptions and values.

On a different, but related, topic, the beginning of this advertisement highlights another problem: needless commercial invocation of God.  Please, advertisers, do not gratuitously invoke God in spots for bankruptcy attorneys, cosmetic surgeons or malpractice attorneys.

Important note: I do not know the woman who chose to participate in an advertisement for the cosmetic surgeon; this post is not meant to suggest that she is somehow a horrible person.  Her comments in the advertisement simply sparked a lot of thought in my mind.

I do not think that word means what you think it means

On the radio these days, you might hear Jill Phillips singing a Pierce Pettis song called “God Believes in You.”  Pettis has written some beautiful lyrics, but this particular song makes me scratch my head.  I’m not sure what he means when he says God believes in me.

Merriam-Webster‘s definition for “believe“:
intransitive verb
1 a : to have a firm religious faith b : to accept as true, genuine, or real (ideals we believe in) (believes in ghosts)
2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something (believe in exercise)
3 : to hold an opinion : THINK (I believe so)
transitive verb
1 a : to consider to be true or honest (believe the reports) (you wouldn’t believe how long it took) b : to accept the word or evidence of (I believe you) (couldn’t believe my ears)
2 : to hold as an opinion : SUPPOSE (I believe it will rain soon)

God has a firm religious faith in us?  God accepts us as true, genuine or real?  God has a firm conviction as to our goodness, efficacy, or ability?  God holds an opinion on us?  God considers us to be true and honest?  God holds us as an opinion?

None of the above?

I get the feeling Pettis had good intentions when he wrote those lyrics, but I think they communicate the wrong idea.  It sounds like a song that says God is a bit of a cheerleader rather than our sole source of strength.

Am I misreading the song?  If so, what do you think Pettis meant when he wrote the song?  Is there Biblical support for the idea that God “believes in” us?

How would you rewrite that line?

I’m in-de-pen-dent!

On Wednesday morning, the Gideons were on campus at the University of Michigan, distributing Bibles. These distributions tend to generate worthwhile anecdotes, and Wednesday was no exception. This one is short, but it’s thought-provoking:

A Gideon offered a Bible to a passing student, and the student declined, saying, “I don’t need that; I’m a scientist.”

You’re smelling quite Christian today

The Detroit News published an informative article last week.

At the International Christian Retail Show, companies hawked products like Follow the Son flip flops, which leave a “Follow Jesus” imprint wherever they go, Christian Outdoorsman’s camoflauge baseball cap with a cross on the front, and Revelation Products’ Gospel Golf Balls.

Among all those relatively pedestrian products bound for religious bookstores, one product was particularly eye-catching.  Or rather, nose-catching.

Christian perfume.

The new fragrance, called Virtuous Woman, is intended to be a tool for evangelism, according to Milton Hobbs, the man behind the smell: “It should be enticing enough to provoke questions: ‘What’s that you’re wearing?’  Then you take that opportunity to speak of your faith. They’ve opened the door, and now they’re going to get it.”

There are countless jokes to make based on that product, and I’m sure most of them have already been used.  I’m not looking to make jokes; I’m just wondering if there is any way to make this sort of thing stop.  I’m tired of seeing products best suited for a Saturday Night Live spoof commercial marketed instead as a serious product; I’m tired of fighting through a river of what some call “Jesus Junk.”  I just want to be Christian without being told to buy Christian.  I want to be able to say the word “Christian” and have it mean people, not things.

I do not want to look, sound or smell Christian; I want to BE a Christian.

“Really good karaoke”

I was angry this morning.

Most mornings, I am too busy not sleeping to entertain real emotions; I try to save those for later in the day. But this morning presented a significant exception.

As usual, the radio was playing in the background as I was eating and preparing for work; this morning, it was tuned to WMUZ, and they were playing their usual assortment of songs. And then I heard a new one.

Well, at first I thought I was actually hearing an old one, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. I thought I was hearing Jeff Buckley‘s Hallelujah, a song written by Leonard Cohen, but I knew there was no chance WMUZ would ever play Hallelujah. Upon a closer listen, I discovered I was hearing Hallelujah … but I wasn’t. I was hearing Lincoln Brewster‘s rewrite of the song, called Another Hallelujah.

As I listened to the song and discovered that he had almost completely rewritten the song — retaining only one or two lines and the chorus of a repeated “hallelujah” — I became angry. I was angry because he had blatantly taken a beautiful, haunting, compelling song and turned it into a sanitized church-ready song.

If there were to be anything positive in Brewster’s song, it would be his efforts to make the song sound like Buckley’s performance; for most of the song, he continued those efforts. But my anger increased toward the end of the song, when he abandoned the quiet, haunting sound of Buckley’s Hallelujah in favor of a full rock band conclusion. It was not just that he failed to stay faithful to the song he hijacked; it was also that the high-energy conclusion failed to fit the mood of the rest of the song. Following the song, the WMUZ morning hosts confirmed that I was not the only one to feel that way, saying a caller complimented the song but expressed dismay at the mismatched ending.

For the most part, my anger has subsided, but I continue to consider Brewster’s rewrite to be utterly outrageous and ill-conceived. Religious music already has its critics, and Brewster carelessly handed a substantial grenade to those critics. Cover the existing song as it is written or write an entirely new song, but please, don’t rewrite an existing song to make the lyrics work for religious radio. To do so is a sad display of some of the biggest faults of — and restrictions on — the creative culture within the Christian community.

Lincoln Brewster, and others: instead of redecorating other songwriters’ houses, please, build your own musical houses.