From the post:
“My invitation to you, my brothers and sisters who would one day beat your swords into ploughshares (but not just yet) is simply this: at least be more welcoming to peaceful peasants such as I am, who have welcomed God’s kingdom into our lives by laying down our sword and shield (perhaps preemptively) by the riverside to study war no more. We are doing no harm to you. Further, I would challenge you to consider what it is worth making your ploughshares into swords and your gardening tools into spears over.”
Tag Archives: church
The Conclusion to “My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures”
by Jeremy Marshal
the Shocking Truth:
From the Conclusion:
“When I wrote these, I wrote them
for children who were told that dancing is tantamount to sex.
For girls who were taught that their bodies were shameful by preachers who blamed Bathsheba for David’s sin.
For families where brothers and sisters were not even allowed to swim in the same pool for fear of arousing unnatural passions.
For those who have lived in constant fear of hell because of a soteriology that can only be described as, “Once saved, always in jeopardy.”
For those who have been deprived the comfort of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their life by preachers who told them that the Spirit dwells only in the Bible.
For entire families of preachers who have literally been kicked to the curb without notice because of a homiletical misstep or a personality conflict with a power-hungry eldership.
For those who have been told, “We will not even baptize you until you divorce your wife, because your marriage is unscriptural. It is better to break up your family than to burn in hell.”
For the women who have been “put in their place.”
For the LGBTQ family members who have spent hellish years trembling in the closet.
For the young alcoholic booted out of the Christian college without so much as an offer of help or treatment.
For the young man with a porn addiction who confided this to an elder and was threatened, “I’ll bet your momma would be real ashamed if she knew what you were doing.”
For the men with porn addictions who were told in the Open Forum of a Christian college lectureship: “I don’t see how it’s a problem. I love to go fishing, but if Jesus told me not to do it, I’d get rid of my rod and reel. It’s that simple, boys.”
I wrote these for everyone who has ever felt the need to pray, “Lord, protect me from my brethren.”
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshal, Wednesday, part 1
“My Week at the FUll Armor Lectures”
by Jeremy Marshal
Wednesday, part 1
from Wednesday:
“Brother Sharp was acting like a game show host announcing that I’d won the grand prize. “Besides the vacation, Calvin, the Cortez church is going to be donating these books to you, for your personal library.” He handed me the list to look over. Debates I’ve Won; More Debates I’ve Won; and Debates I’ve Attended and Really Enjoyed, all by Dr. Remus Philbert. A Critique of Everything Written By Strudel Harrison Since 1985 (Including Church Bulletin Articles), by Mance Tatum. Whores of Babylon: Why All the Liberals Want to Score, by Flavil Waddey. A Preacher Boy’s Guide to Pulpit Humor and Potluck Etiquette, by Herbert and Edwina Sharp. “What do you think, Calvin?” he asked. You might have thought he was telling me I just won a new BMW the way he was going on.”
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 3 (pt. 2)
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures”
by Jeremy Marshall
Day 3 (pt. 2)
From day 3.2:
“After my talk with Beauregard Jones Tuesday morning, I decided to skip the pre-lunch lectures and go to the Memphis Zoo. It dawned on me that the Full Armor Lectureship—indeed, our entire fellowship—was its own menagerie, a stationary Noah’s ark whose inhabitants refused to leave, all blaming one another for the stench in there. We are not exotic breeds from faraway lands in the First United Primitive Christian Church, however. We are more like stubborn relics of the recent past, looking at the world through nauseatingly garish Technicolor lenses. We live on in the rubble of Modernism, proudly making no concessions to the rest of the world as it evolves without us, flinging our filth at each other. I felt quite at one that day with the animals in the zoo, for it came to me that I, too, had been bred in captivity.”
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 2 (pt. 4)
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
Day 2 (pt. 4)
from part 4:
“Just look at the logo on the dust jacket. This book was published by the once-sound, now apostate Harlan Publishing House. Let me give you a brief list of titles, so you can see what other heretics they are harboring. They’ve put out My Mama Sang Tenor, Too by the weepy story-teller Buddy Silver. They published the downright odd volume,Jesus and the Art of Volkswagen Repair by the so-called “Hippie Preacher,” Archie Klein. And they also released an awful book called Lessons I’ve Learned About Christian Living From Playing Texas Hold ‘Em, by Francis Spicoli. That Harlan Publishing released this book from Brother Jones is very telling–it means that none of our faithful publishing companies like Banner of Love or Full Armor Press will touch it with a thirty-foot pole!”
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 2 (pt. 3)
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
Day 2 part 3:
“Good Brother Mack was shaving the other Sunday morning, and he cut himself several times. I mean he tore his face smooth up! And when he came downstairs for breakfast with several hanks of toilet tissue on his face, his wife asked him how come he’d cut his face all up. He told her he’d been distracted–thinking about his sermon more than he was about shaving. So his wife told him he might ought to think about shaving his sermons!”
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 2 (pt.2)
“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
Day 2 part 2:
“After a wholesome and patently uninteresting luch at a nearby Picadilly cafeteria, I arrived back at the Doogood Ave. building about half an hour before Brother Mack Snipes’ lecture, “Hell is ETERNAL,” was slated to begin. I checked the lectureship schedule, and saw that the session was to be held in room 17 of the children’s wing. It turned out to be a classroom for five-and-six-year-olds.”
“My week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
Over the next week (or two) I will be reblogging a series of installments by my friend and fellow blogger, Jeremy Marshall. As he himself will tell you, these installments are completely fictional. I mean, no church would ever dare to limit God’s grace to the event on the cross, let alone mark hymns as “dangerous” that focused on God’s grace.
My week at the Full Armor Lectures: “Day One”. by Jeremy Marshall
an excerpt:
Brother Olley continued this way: “See, God’s only just so gracious. You know John 3:16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have e-ternal life!” Brother Olley’s delivery of that verse was rapid-fire; he can quote Scripture with the speed and force of a machine gun. “Now that’s all the grace a man or woman could ever need, folks!” He concluded, “And there’ll be no repeat performance of that, Hebrews 9:25-28. Essentially, the message of the Gospel is that we’ve gotten all the grace we’re going to get, so stop messing up! Or what? Should we continue in sin, so that grace may abound, Romans 6:1? Certainly not, because there’s no more grace to be gotten!”
Jesus is…
Sunday night during a Bible study with some saints in Blacksburg, we discussed the nature of the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God in accordance with a theme one of our ministry leaders, Frank Sullivan, has been carrying us forward on: The Real Jesus. On this night he brought up four things about Jesus we teach in particular that we must confront both the world and ourselves with:
- Jesus is God
- Jesus allowed people to choose to follow him by responding to testimony.
- Jesus is a man (not that he is still walking the earth, but that he came in the flesh and that experience is in his “memory” today and he lives in his saints, who themselves live in fleshly bodies, today)
- Jesus came to show us God.
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Why Are Kids Leaving Church?
Why are kids leaving church? This post suggests some very real possibilities that parents need to consider.
CALEB COY 