Around this time year ago I was one of many people who grew interested in a thoughtful and poignant video poem posted by Jeff Bethke, and responded to the discussion in like fashion with a video poem.
Here is Bethke’s poem, “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus”
Here is the video poem I posted in response, “Jesus Loves You (and Pure Religion Too)”
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Occasionally you’ll bump into someone who is convinced that the Holocaust was a result of Christianity.
Now, I could dismiss this and laugh it off (no pearls before the swine). But then you would never know if it was true, and if you were searching for reasons to abandon your Christian belief then my reaction would seem cowardly. So let us discuss the matter.
Was Adolf Hitler a Christian? And, if so, is Christianity to blame for the Holocaust?
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Stop posting stupid memes. Especially ones about guns.
I’ve previously established the need for Christians to actually make alive the kind of kingdom that beats swords into ploughshares. This is what Isaiah prophesied (2:3-4), and which Micah prophesied (4:3).
Think about what this means: Taking swords and beating them into scythes, taking spears and beating them into pruning hooks.
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“I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened…Jazz is like life because it doesn’t resolve. But what if we’re not alone? What if all these stars are notes on a page of music swirling in the blue like jazz?”
I came across Donald Miller as a group at my church were studying his memoir, and then as my brother introduced me to him. Donald Miller’s memoir of reflective essays, Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, is a book that is refreshingly honest, complexly painful, and creatively provocative. It successfully reaches both Christians and non-Christians as an audience.
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This is how I saw them coming up with the title: Somewhere in rural Georgia director Alex Kendrick heard a preacher say, “Folks, you need to affair-proof your marriage.” He misheard the preacher, and thus an idea was born.
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The Abridged 2013 Church of Christ Directory:
Barbed Gate Church of Christ
Welcome, is this your first time? Would you like to be added to the church? Just sign up for our six-month course and then we’ll have you fill out our ten-page doctrinal questionnare before we get you in the water just to make sure you’re being baptized for all the right reasons.
Billy Peebles Church of Christ
Brother Billy Peebles has been preaching for our congregation for thirty years. Come and enjoy preaching by Billy Peebles. If you have a question about our beliefs, just go ask Billy Peebles. Visiting the sick, conducting Bible studies, representing our church—Billy Peebles does it all! We hang on every word Billy Peebles says. Billy Peebles is the place to be.
Bitter Springs (House) Church of Christ
We used to go to _________ Church of Christ, but they rubbed us the wrong way after years of faithful attendance. We now meet at brother Manning’s house, and we’re still trying to figure out how to accomodate to every member’s perfect ideal image of what a church should be.
Box Springs Church of Christ
With the most prime location, Box Springs Church of Christ maketh you to lie down in your own private green pasture. Close your eyes in prayer, and remain until the service ends. After all, the day after the Sabbath is a day of rest, too.
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I’ve tried the whole “read the Bible through in a year” thing about four or five times in my life.
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Am I unarmed? Well, I keep a baseball bat by my bed at home.
If someone comes into my house, I will confront them verbally. If they come at me with threat, I will try to defend my wife and child while also keeping that person alive. They are created in the image of God, after all. If they are after my property, I would most certainly rather them live and take it than die and me keep it. If they are after my wife and child, I will do what I can to stop them. And if I end up taking their life, I will pray and mourn, because no man’s death is something to celebrate to me, no matter his intentions, especially if that death occurs while he is likely lost from the way of God, for then I have sent him to a most unfortunate judgement.
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So I think now is the time to talk about guns. Now that all the fuss has died down.
I get it: Letting a flooded market of guns just saturate our culture so that people will be too afraid to shoot each other instead of anxious to shoot each other is naive.
I get it: Trying to ban all guns will just take guns away from law-abiding citizens and keep them in the hands of law-breakers and a sporadically tyrannical government, which makes it also naive.
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After a tragedy, sometimes people ask “where was God in this?” Sometimes I want to ask “where is God in your response?” and, more importantly, “what kind of God is in your response?”
Can we agree to a verbal armistice? Let’s pretend that bad memes and misuse of statistics are like using nerve gas and Agent Orange. Be the bigger one and stop using it, demonstrating that not-using-it-ness to those who disagree with you. Come on, I know you can do it.
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CALEB COY 