Allow me to take a break from all this discussion and invite everyone to join in on the greatest movie of all time…

The King of Kong

A Fistful of Quarters

If you haven't seen it, go find it, rent it, and watch it…which will inevitable lead to you going to buy it. It is the most quotable movie I have ever seen…I don't really know how to explain how great it is other than leave you with this quote from the movie:

I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, "Hi, I see that you're good at Centipede."

                                                                                  -Walter Day

Protest Starbuck's old coffee cup logo. A group of Christians in San Diego is challenging the sexual content of an old Starbuck's logo that the company is now placing on some coffee cups.

I do believe this is spelled out in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19,20.

"Therefore go and find unimportant, uncontroverisal issues, protesting in the name of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Kenneth Copeland. Teach America to become increasingly annoyed with your lack of priorities and your obsession with wealth. And surely I am with you always, though embarrassed by your inability to understand the basics of grace and compassion."

We get emails, lots and lots of emails:

I just came across your blog, and find it fascinating.  As a former member of the City Church and Capital Christian Center, and a frequent visitor to CBC I had to send you these clips.
 
Meet "Pastor" Krist Wilde, the youth pastor at Capital Christian Center in Boise (Son of Senior Pastor Ken Wilde). He is the self-proclaimed best friend/cousin of Judah. He has spent his adult life trying to duplicate the life and ministry of JS.  In fact, in the first few minutes of the clip from April 2008, he mentions his jealousy of the fact that he is stuck preaching while Judah is attending this year's Master's Tournament watching Tiger Woods. (2:50 in the clip)
 
http://www.capitalchristian.com/Resources/MediaViewer.aspx?id=74&st=1
 
Krist's messages are marked by:
 
Large words he looks up in the thesaurus and uses in incorrect contexts

Lots of the same marriage/sex references Judah uses

The same wardrobe stylings and flat-ironed hair from the Judah playbook

Same long winded sermons filled with lots of fluff and no substance

You combine the lack of sincerity with the desperate attempt to appear cool, and frankly, I felt a little embarrassed for the guy.  

Yes, I know this is a theme we've hit on over and over again, but it's close to election time in Oregon, so I thought I would roll out another fun article about how young Christians are a little miffed with the Christian Right.

"I think it's a new movement starting," said Amy Archibald, 19, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University. "Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons."

Like I say, you need to vote for who you think will do the best job as President. You need to vote your conscience. Unless, of course, your conscience is telling you to vote for John McCain or Hilary Clinton. Then you need to stay home.

(Thanks Chris)

Great question from a reader:

Alright. So, I'm a transplant from California to Seattle. Let me tell you, I've had considerable trouble finding a church to join up here, largely due to many of the doctrinal issues I just read in your blog.  (Funny story: someone recommended City Bible as a church for me, and I googled them and found this site.) Fortunately, I grew up in a church that taught me about grace properly. My problem now is finding a church that will keep me honest and provide some nourishment without helping me become more self-righteous than I probably already am. Do you have any suggestions?

Do any of you Seattle readers have any ideas?

Busy with real life right now, but for some high entertainment:

http://datingdelilah.org/

Good times.

WhatHEsaid shared: “During the Forward Together campaign [at City Bible Church] some years ago, I felt uncomfortable with the program. I gave a CD of a sermon to Theo [Johnson] to listen to, as I wanted someone more mature to evaluate it…” 

Who was Theo Johnson? Theo Johnson attended East Hill Foursquare Church (a mega-church in Gresham, Oregon) for many years. He was there during the days of Jerry Cooke, the pastor who was known for sitting down casually on a stool to preach and before the recent retirement of senior pastor, Ted Roberts, author of, Pure Desire. 

Although a dentist by trade, Theo was a good counselor and blessed many people with his class called, “New Images.” Approx. 2 years before Theo passed on, I spoke with him over the phone about his long experience at East Hill Church. This is part of what Theo told me: 

Ted Roberts, the senior pastor of East Hill Church at the time, forbad anyone to use three specific words from the pulpit or the platform of the church. The forbidden words were: “sin,” “hell,” and “repentance.” If anyone would ever slip and use any of these words publicly, the pastor would have a talk with him/her in his office. 

When the pastor traveled for ministry out of town, Ted would allow Theo to preach. Kind of for the fun of it, Theo told me that he would purposely let one pr more of the pastor’s forbidden words slip out of my mouth just to see what would happen. Each time, his mentioning of one or more of the pastor’s forbidden words would get back to him after he returned home, and the pastor would call him into his office and confront him about it. 

This happened so many times, that finally, Theo had to resign his church staff position. He just could not see how a church could stay true to the gospel of Jesus Christ or the Bible without ever mentioning the words “sin,” “hell,” or “repentance” from the pulpit. 

P.S. Several years ago, Ted Roberts told a Saturday morning class of which I (DM) was a part that the church growth experts were recommending that in order to get more non-churched people to attend church on Sunday mornings, that pastors should cut out their worship services entirely. Ted told the class that he was unwilling to go that far. 

Ted Roberts has fairly recently turned the pastoring of East Hill Church over to his son-in-law, Jason Albelo, the son of the director of East Hill Adult Education, Gil Albelo. I do not know if Jason holds the same kind of platform philosophy that Ted held according to what Theo Johnson told me. 

I file this under, "Sure, why not."  

"Someone's making a lot of money and it's really, really wrong," added Twyman, who founded the Prayer at the Pump movement last week to seek help from a higher power to bring down fuel prices, because the powers in Washington haven't.

The half-dozen activists — Twyman, a former Miss Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two volunteers at a local soup kitchen — joined hands, bowed their heads and intoned a heartfelt prayer.

"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".

I sincerely hope this movement replaces See you at the Pole, where students pray in front of the flag pole every morning before school. And instead, I hope we get, "See you at the Pump", where the working class gather around their local gas station every morning before work, asking God to lower gas prices.

As a believer in the Power of Prayer, I figure if God wants to lower prices, He certainly can. Of course, I'm not so sure God actually wants to lower gas prices, but I suspect this has a better chance of keeping oil prices low than, you know, invading Iraq.

At the Shell station, Twyman had dire words of warning for those who are raking in profits from high gas prices.

"Woe be unto those people that are really greedy and taking advantage of American families," he proclaimed from his pump pulpit.

"These prices will come down, just like the walls of Jericho came down in the Bible," he said, as another chorus of amens punctuated the sound of cash flowing out of the gas pumps.

Sounds like a fun and practical preacher.

Some conservative Christians have drafted an Evangelical Manifesto which shares concerns about the social agenda Evangelical leaders are pushing. The documents founders are asking Christian leaders from around the country to sign the Manifesto:

The declaration, scheduled to be released Wednesday in Washington, encourages Christians to be politically engaged and uphold teachings such as traditional marriage. But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed "truth without love," helping create a backlash against religion during a "generation of culture warring."

"All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others," the statement says, "while we have condoned our own sins." It argues, "we must reform our own behavior."

However, not all Evangelical Leaders are rallying behind this document:

James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, a Christian group in Colorado Springs, Colorado, did not sign the document, said Gary Schneeberger, a Dobson spokesman. Schneeberger would not say whether Dobson had read the manifesto or had been asked to sign on.

Phil Burress, an Ohio activist who networks with national evangelical leaders, said that if high-profile evangelical leaders such as Dobson and Land don't support the document, "it's like throwing a pebble in the ocean" and will carry no weight.

While I tend to agree with Phil Burress that this isn't going to change much, it is another sign of discontent from Evanglicals toward their leaders, which you know, I always think is a good thing.

A couple of months ago I heard the following on the Christian radio station 1330 AM (Portland, OR):   

~Christians should not be involved with practicing Yoga. There really should not be a “Christian” version of Yoga practiced in the churches. Not only could Christians be affected by the pagan spirits behind this ancient art, God would not be pleased for Christians to put their bodies into postures that are used in India and other pagan countries as postures to worship their gods and goddesses.~ 

When I heard this, I felt sorry for the speakers. Little doubt, they thought that they were warning God’s people from a spiritual danger that might hurt their walk with God. Instead, what I heard was a very ignorant form of religious legalism. 

The ancient Babylonians used to raise their hands to their chief god, Marduk, and his consort Sarpanitu just like the ancient Israelites used to lift their hands to praise their God, Yahweh. Because the Israelites used the same bodily expression, as did these idol-worshippers, does it mean that they were worshipping Marduk instead of Yahweh? 

In ancient pagan fertility rites that involved sacred prostitution, it would be very reasonable to surmise that the priests and priestesses who copulated in the pagan temples with the belief that thereby they would be guaranteeing good harvests that year for their people, were using the same bodily positions that Spirit-filled couples use to consummate their godly marriage vows. Do such similar bodily postures relating to sexuality mean that Christian couples are performing acts of sacred prostitution when they make love?    

The fact that Christians who practice Yoga for exercise might be putting their bodies into the same bodily postures as pagan worshippers, in my view, does not mean that Christians are worshipping the same gods or that there is an evil spirit involved in certain bodily positions. God looks upon the position of the heart - not the position of the body. 

If well-intentioned ministers want to warn believers of the spiritual dangers of the Orient, they need to dig much deeper. One might be amazed at how a few good Yoga exercises would go a long ways in helping the over-weight preachers we see on cable TV every day to lose a few pounds and thus be a better testimony of the Christian faith – a faith that holds that the physical body is a temple of the Holy Spirit - no matter what form it takes.