There’s nothing quite like a song to brighten your day. Here’s one from B.T Beauty. Now, while it took me awhile to figure out what song was being parodied, once I did it was pure joy.

I bring you a song with no name (sung to what I believe is the tune of Achy Breaky Heart)

 I can tell the world you never was my church
I can call you names now that I’m gone
I can tell my friends just what a fool I’ve been
And laugh and joke about you on the blog.

I can tell your hands to go write another sermon
I can tell your feet to hit the door
I can tell your lips to tell your fingertips
You won’t touch my money anymore

But I can’t tell your heart, your cold and greedy heart
I just don’t think it’d understand
And if I tell your heart, your cold and achy heart
You might blow up and hit the fan
Ooo

I can tell your members I moved to Arkansas
I can tell your elders to bite my a**.
Or tell your Pastor Frank who wouldn’t give a damn
He never really liked me anyway.

Oh tell them geez-Louise! Tell anything you please
Myself already knows that I’m okay
Oh I can tell your eyes to watch out for your mind
It might be walking out on you today.

But I can’t tell your heart, your cold and greedy heart
I just don’t think it’d understand.
And if I tell your heart, your cold and achy heart
You might blow up and hit the fan.
Ooo

Bloggy McBlogster recently wrote in to tell us all that "guilt by association" is cheap rationale for critical commentary". While I agree with his comment, I can't help but wonder he really just works for CBC and is actually looking for a raise.

Here's his full comment:

I've been following this blog since its inception. Having grown up in church, I read a lot here I can totally agree with, but some I think is simple mob mentality. Knowing how to differentiate the two is something I think purveyors of authentic faith ought to be good at doing. And we all need help.

Locutus, I think it's very decent of you to point out that, though you might not be fully agreeable to CBC at large, it shouldn't necessarily mean that "everything any leader from CBC says is somehow wrong." Many (though not all) lack the objective chutzpah to understand this concept. I wish, for the sake of more interesting dialogue, more of us could figure out that "guilt by association" is cheap rationale for critical commentary.

Many, I think, are just too involved in throwing stones to know when one is less deserved.

Hmmmmnnn, lets see Mr. McBloster, you are sticking up for CBC, but you do it with such little conviction… You make a good comment, but you do it on a banned blog… and you actually admit to "following this blog since its inception"…I say NO RAISE FOR YOU.

On a side note, I agree with you completely. There is a mob mentality here (of course "safety in numbers" is one of the founding pricinples of this blog) and sometimes it crosses the line. It doesn't really bother me though, I think people are too damn sensitive.

And finally, as my good friend Sister Paula says, just because a preacher/teacher may say something with which you disagree, don't rob yourself of the blessing of the many things that they teach with which you DO agree. It seems this is a concept we both agree on.

B.T. Beauty offers this link to an article that discusses the churches obligation to adequately compensate its pastors. The article offers this advice:

Whatever the cash salary or total compensation package being offered to a pastor it contains a hidden message. Your hidden message says that you appreciate the work of your pastor, that you want your pastor to stay with you for a long time, or that you are ready for a new pastor. Most church leaders I know take seriously their God given responsibility to provide for their pastors, but there are many who financially hold hostage the shepherd of God.

The author also makes this observation:

Pastors are sometimes called the "poor man's psychiatrist." Counseling is part of our professional training, and we get plenty of practice, though we don't charge $60 to $90 per fifty minutes. In fact, we don't charge at all. We're called on to help wives and husbands patch together troubled marriages, and to counsel families whose children are in trouble. We do a good bit of career and job counseling for people between positions and we're often used as a sounding board when people are trying to sort through a particularly tough decision.

I do not doubt that Pastors work very hard and they have a thankless job. (I am sure most PK's can attest to this.)  However, you should not join the clergy to get rich. If you want to get paid $60 to $90 an hour for counseling, then become a counselor. 

Of course, you may find that your PBC education is not going to get you that high paying counseling job.  

Former Inner Circle Member sends in this article about the increase of religious fraud throughout American churches. Evidently, Christians are gullible. Who knew?

Snip:

Typically, a con artist will target the pastor first, by making a generous donation and appealing to the minister's desire to expand the church or its programs, according to Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, who played a key role in breaking up the Greater Ministries scam.

If the pastor invests, churchgoers view it as a tacit endorsement. The con man, often promising double digit returns, will chip away at resistance among church members by suggesting they can donate part of their earnings to the congregation, Borg says.

"Most folks think `I'm going to invest in some overseas deal or real estate deal and part of that money is going to the church and I get part. I don't feel like I'm guilty of greed,'" Borg says.

If a skeptical church member openly questions a deal, that person is often castigated for speaking against a fellow Christian.

And who's most at risk you ask?

Investigators say all denominations are at risk, but the most susceptible communities are ones where members are deeply engaged in church activities, such as service programs and small group prayer, giving con artists plenty of chance to ingratiate themselves with congregants.

Often, perpetrators are so successful building an image as good Christians that churchgoers won't cooperate with law enforcement authorities even after the crime is revealed.

"Money has a way of blinding objectivity, even for we who are believers," Minkow says.

But the church gives out food baskets at Thanksgiving time. And the congregation is really happy. And the worship is so wonderful. And its such a warm community.

So really, who are we to object?

We have quite a few Preacher's Kids who comment on the blog. Here is one PK's testimony regarding growing up in the church and how it influenced her faith. I noticed several similarities between the commenters and this testimony:

As a child, I sat with my mother and two brothers in the very last pew every Sunday. We were PKs, or preacher's kids, and church was not optional unless we were on our deathbeds. She did her best to keep us restrained throughout the service.

My father's watchful eye as a Lutheran pastor came from the pulpit. He couldn't see everything, but I was certain God would tell him what we were doing anyway. In my young mind, my father and God were inextricably intertwined. I remember watching him prepare Sunday mornings, starching his white collar, playing the harmonica to loosen up his voice, rubbing a tiny Kiwi polish tin to vigorously shine his black shoes. The last thing he did was hang a large silver cross around his neck. I thought that cross gave him special superpowers and I was afraid of him in that way.

Being a PK added another level of parental conflict and of pressure to conform. The same person who reprimanded me for an unmade bed was also my spiritual leader. Confusing his criticism with God's disapproval, I couldn't separate my father's and God's expectations.

In that sense, my faith was never my own and as I grew to adulthood, I followed a rebellious path, finding independence from my family and from God. When I came back to the church in my 30's, it took every effort I had to squelch the all-knowing voice of my father inside my head, running through the "approved" church checklist.

One Christmas, I visited my parents in the Midwest and shared my enthusiasm about my new church. I had joined the choir and made new friends. When I returned to D.C., my pastor spoke to me after the service, noting that he had received a letter from my father regarding my attendance. Exasperated, I blurted out, "That man drives me to drink!"

The long arm of my father had reached out over 1,000 miles to intrude on my faith, something I had worked hard to claim for myself. But he was happy that I had finally embraced something he had loved all of his life. And I understood that for him, my embrace of my faith was much more about my acceptance of my father than it was about his approval of me as his daughter.

I have been closely following Marc Estes' blog and specificly his series on "Reaching". I believe his latest post is worth sharing so here it is:

The world is filled with people who have immense needs. It is my firm conviction that one of the greatest ways to preach the good news to a dead and dying world is through meeting their needs and touching them at their point of brokenness. In the gospels, Jesus models this approach by reaching out to people’s needs on forty-six different occasions before ever opening His mouth with a gospel message. He may have been on to something?

It says in 1 John 3:16-19, “We know what real love is because Christ gave us his life for us…Dear children, let us stop saying we love each; let us really show it by our actions.” John is trying to communicate a fundamental point that is missing in the lives of many Christians and many churches today; demonstration precludes proclamation!

It was Christ’s dying on the cross that validated His ministry and ultimately the gospel’s power and affect on humanity. The same applies to sharing the gospel. What validates our proclamation to a needy world is our willingness to meet them at their point of need, just as the guy in the ditch who was touched by the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

In addition to our actions, we must make the motive behind our actions, compassion. It is important that we reach out and show action to our words, but they too are in vain with out genuine love, care and concern for the person you are attempting to reach.

Let us make love our great aim, and SHOW a world the love of Christ as we proclaim the good news. The end result will be many people coming to Christ as a result of your sacrifice and love.

Thank you Marc for your thoughts. I couldn't agree more.

Locutus sends in a link to an article about a Christian Scientist who believes Evolution and the Christian Faith can co-exist. The scientist offers this difference between faith and science.

As a scientist you are trained to accept only that which can be proven as a fact. But as a religious person, you are necessarily operating on faith. How do you resolve this dichotomy?

Well, that is very much the argument I had with myself when I was an atheist as a graduate student. And the problem, of course, is that science, with all of its appropriate demands to rigor, really only applies to investigating the natural world. If one decides that the natural world is the only interesting place to study, well, then science will do. But as you get a little bit more thoughtful about it, there are a lot of really important questions that science can't help you with, like, What's the purpose of my life? Is there a God? What happens after I die? Science is powerless to come anywhere near answering those questions. And yet, for most of us, we probably would be well served to think about those things.

I've linked to this guy before but he offers a compelling argument for why Christians shouldn't be afraid of Science. And I think it is worth mentioning again.

That said, I still don't really believe in Evolution. Maybe it's because I was home-schooled and went to a Christian High School, but it just seems like the best theory for people without answers.

I remember when I took my first Biology class in College. The professor was a staunch advocate for evolution, and I was genuinely excited to hear a non-biased argument. Being homeschooled and going to a Christian School, I never really learned about evolution. It was just something you weren't supposed to believe. And I always felt that had left a serious whole in my education. Because while maybe I didn't believe in evolution, I figured  I should at least have a limited understanding of the subject.

So I get to class the day the professor decides to start his series on evolution. And before he starts lecturing, he puts in a video tape to explain the foundation of evolution. The video tape was a cartoon of a bunch of different animals turning into other different animals, except it went on for hours. It was as though he thought if I keep showing you all these animals turning into other animals, you'll just believe. It was quite possibly the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. And I walked out of the class absolutely livid thinking, "Are you kidding me? The best argument for evolution is a freaking cartoon." And I have never taken the subject serious again.

I should probably also mention that I hate science and I got a D in the class. Which was due in large part to the fact that my study partner partied the night before the final and showed up the next morning completely hung over chanting… "D is for Degree… D is for Degree…"   

For those who haven't gotten this yet, Dave's email address is:

Chris Snethen sends in the following link to a documentary about a Christian Camp in North Dakota called Jesus Camp.

Here's an excerpt from an article describing the camp:

 "Jesus Camp" offers a unique window into the North Dakota camp where young kids are actively trained, in the words of an announcement, "to become dedicated soldiers in 'God's army'."

And here's another view of the film and camp from IMDB:

At Jesus Camp, the daily activities include standard camp fare such as spelunking and go-karts, but they also include speaking in tongues and smashing coffee mugs emblazoned with the word "government". Children learn that "science doesn't prove anything," and learn to consider themselves part of an Army of God. They are compelled to pledge that they will fight to end abortion. They are even pushed into publicly confessing their impure thoughts, and many of them cry and wail charismatically.

From everything I've read about this film, it is a very fair look at Christian Camps. Evangelicals love the film because it offers an accurate look at how Fundamental Evangelical Christians live. And everyone else is shocked because the film offers an accruate look at how Fundamental Evangelical Christians live.

The IMDB review concludes with this:

No doubt some viewers will accuse the filmmakers of the dreaded liberal bias. But this is not a work of fiction, nor is it slanted reporting. These are real people and real events, captured on film. If the evangelical movement comes off badly in this film, the people on screen have no one but themselves to blame.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently asked themselves that question and decided:

Um, No. It's not Language. 

Someone offered this rebuttal:

We didn't need scientific proof to know tongues are of God. If you would free up your mind, you too could experience the gift that is from above. It is an experience of faith. Acts2:38 read it and ask God for faith to understand it, not intellect.(Act 2:38) Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Another Commenter challenged the assertion that everyone should speak in tongues:

Sure, Acts 2:38 says that, but if you take a look at the new testament as a whole, there are two points.1. Speaking in tongues was ONLY done to facilitate translation. ie greeks could understand phoeneicans. It was NOT made up gobeldy gook.2. Only the apostles had the power to speak in tongues, or lay on hands so that others could speak in tongues. Since no one BUT the apostles could pass it on, no one could have the power to speak in tongues today.