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Swiped from Robert Cargill.
I grew up in North Carolina, the state currently at the center of this argument. My problem with this picture is that the creator assumes that most folks now accept interracial marriage. From my experience, the opposition isn’t dead, it’s merely gotten quiet.
Having drunk all the tequila in Mexico, Scott Bailey is now back from his vacation and back to posting with a vengeance. In his latest post he takes apart some of the feel good sentimentality found in certain shallow Christian ideas: God Loves You, And Has A Wonderful Plan For Your Life:
How many times have you heard some sort of deterministic, flowery phrase that generally goes like this, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”? If you run in Christian circles this is generally accompanied with some poached Bible verses, “Before you were born, even when the Lord was forming you in your Mother’s womb. He knew you. And even more, the Lord declares, ‘I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.’”
He quotes Bill Hybels, “He’s the God who has orchestrated every event of your life to give you the best chance to get to know Him, so that you can experience His love.”
Bailey’s responses are brutal, but I’ll let you view them on his site. What struck me was the contrast between this idea that the all-wise, all-knowing God has a carefully scripted plan for your life, and the way that some Christians use intercessory prayer. If God already has a plan in place, what’s the point of praying for something to happen or not happen?
For an extreme example, consider this image from The American Jesus, where Zack found this line on the back on a book by Benny Hinn. Note the arrow:
These two ideas exist side by side in contemporary American Christianity. On one hand, God had a plan for you already laid out before you were even born. On the other, God will drop that plan if you ask nicely. How do you maintain both ideas at the same time?
So Adam West gets his star on the Walk of Fame just in time for this:
It’s bad when a church tries to co-opt popular culture, it gets worse when they’re 30+ years off the mark.
Via American Jesus
People do weird things to the Bible.
We’ve taken the cherubim and changed them from the fierce guardians of Eden into chubby little naked children with wings.
If someone really was born in a stable, it would be an ugly scene with blood on the straw and the smell of afterbirth and manure. We’s sanitized it and put it on Hallmark cards.
Somehow, “Biblical” has come to mean “wholesome” in American culture. So Rachel Held Evans presents these Biblical entries into the cloying “Precious Moments” line. Here’s my favorite:
And also:
These were originally created by Tom LaMothe, pastor of First Baptist Church in Greenport, New York. I’d say they are pitch perfect.
It’s really embarrassing that we still occasionally have to deal with the question, “If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?” It’s a nonsensical question. At least now there’s a useful rejoinder:
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