Meghan O'Gieblyn talks about growing up in a Christian home and listening to Christian music, including this little gem about Carmen.

If you’re wondering what teenager in her right mind would listen to a forty-year-old Vegas showman with a Jersey accent rap about Jesus, the answer is: me. In junior high, I saw Carman in concert three times. The Standard was the first CD I ever bought. I rocked out to Carman on my Walkman on the way to youth group and dished with my girlfriends about what a hottie he was. At the concerts, I bought his T-shirts and posters, and when he called out “Who’s in the House?” I made my arms into letters, YMCA-style, with the rest of the crowd and shouted “JC!”

I was homeschooled up until tenth grade, and my social life revolved around church. I grew up submersed in evangelical youth culture: reading Brio magazine, doing devotions in my Youth Walk Bible, eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Left Behind series, and developing a taste in music that ran the gamut from Christian rap to Christian pop to Christian rock.

She pretty much nails what it was like to be immersed in Christian pop-culture in the 90's.  And Meghan closes her article focusing on why so many Christian teens abandon their faith in their 20's.

Despite all the affected teenage rebellion, I continued to call myself a Christian into my early twenties. When I finally stopped, it wasn’t because being a believer made me uncool or outdated or freakish. It was because being a Christian no longer meant anything. It was a label to slap on my Facebook page, next to my music preferences. The gospel became just another product someone was trying to sell me, and a paltry one at that because the church isn’t Viacom: it doesn’t have a Department of Brand Strategy and Planning. Staying relevant in late consumer capitalism requires highly sophisticated resources and the willingness to tailor your values to whatever your audience wants. In trying to compete in this market, the church has forfeited the one advantage it had in the game to attract disillusioned youth: authenticity. When it comes to intransigent values, the profit-driven world has zilch to offer. If Christian leaders weren’t so ashamed of those unvarnished values, they might have something more attractive than anything on today’s bleak moral market. In the meantime, they’ve lost one more kid to the competition.

There is little to no authenticity in today's modern Evangelical church. It is just another club where the leaders try to sell you stuff you do not really need. 

Because we are a blog that does discuss all things spiritual, I had to touch on this topic.  I've seen billboards, vans, and signs all over Southern California predicting May 21st, 2011 as the beginning of the end of the world with the quote "the Bible guarantees it."

This all started when Harold Camping, the 89-year-old founder of Family Radio said back in 2009 that May 21 was the day.  It took awhile but more and more people desperate for a "need to belong" as I call it, jumped on the bandwagon.  And according to an NPR article "Is The End Nigh? We'll Know Soon Enough," these people are serious.  Some have quit their jobs, moved cross country, spent up their savings even separated from loved ones who don't believe.  As Camping puts it "there is no plan B."  It's funny though because Camping also predicted September 6, 1994 as the end of the world and we all know how that turned out. 

Now I'm not one to deny that our world is seeing a lot of natural disasters as of late (earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, etc.) but I do remember reading Mark 13 where Jesus clearly tells his disciples that the end of the world will eventually come but that "no one knows about the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (verse 32).  So as much as the end of the world should be a thought in the back of all our minds, I wouldn't put any trust into what these people are saying.  In fact their false claims are addressed by Jesus in the passage as well (verse 22).  It's more likely that this was the last ditch effort by a dying old man to make a name for himself and pad his pockets with a little more cash.  I'm sure he's made a nice profit of this claim especially for his radio network (the article says it's worth more than $100 million).  I just wonder what the response from these people will be when the world doesn't end.  Are they going to come back and say "oops, my bad," or will they just disappear off into the sunset?  I'm sure the latter is more likely, while the rest of us non-crazy believers are left holding the bag explaining to our non-Christian friends and families once again that not all of us are nut jobs.

Rob Bell's new book offers a different approach to the definitions of Heaven and Hell.

In an elliptical style, he throws out probing questions about traditional biblical interpretations, mixing real-life stories with scripture. Much of the book is a sometimes obscure discussion of the meaning of heaven and hell that tears away at the standard ideas. In his version, heaven is something that begins here on earth, in a life of goodness, and hell seems more a condition than an eternal fate — “the very real consequences we experience when we reject all the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us.”

Some Christians do not approve.

One leading evangelical, John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, wrote, “Farewell Rob Bell.” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a blog post that by suggesting that people who do not embrace Jesus may still be saved, Mr. Bell was at best toying with heresy. He called the promotional video, in which Mr. Bell pointedly asks whether it can be true that Gandhi, a non-Christian, is burning in hell, “the sad equivalent of a theological striptease.”

I don't have a dog in this fight, as I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what Heaven and Hell are really like. But I do think the modern Evangelical church is going to be much more accepting and tolerant of other religions. I tend to think this is a good thing. But I can see where traditionalists are not going to be pleased.

Also, just renewed the blog domain name for another year. Best $10.50 I've spent all year.

They both make you sad.

Or so says this article from the Christian Post.

Journalist Libby Copeland speculates that Facebook might “have a special power to make us sadder and lonelier.” How can this be, though, when Facebook is generally so, well, happy, brimming with smiling faces and beautiful families? Well, that’s just the point.

“By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people’s lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles’ heel of human nature,” Copeland writes. “And women-an especially unhappy bunch of late-may be especially vulnerable to keeping up with what they imagine is the happiness of the Joneses.”

The author then makes the comparison to church.

it seems to me, the very same phenomenon is present in the pews of our Christian churches.

…nobody is as happy as he seems on Facebook. And no one is as “spiritual” as he seems in what we deem as “spiritual” enough for Christian worship. Maybe what we need in our churches is more tears, more failure, more confession of sin, more prayers of desperation that are too deep for words.

I think the key to keeping Facebook and church from getting you down is moderation. Don't refresh that Facebook page 30 times a day. And get a life outside of church. You keep Facebook and church in perspective, and I suspect you won't be as sad anymore.

I'm not a big fan of things in Christian media, as I often find them focused on "celebrity Christians" and pushing a message that is very "old school" or right of center so to speak.  However, I was recently introduced to Relevant Magazine and was surprised at its approach to Christian media and mainstream pop culture. This magazine doesn't seem to be trying to be an alternative cool for Christians, but rather just speak to important social and political issues from a faith based perspective, without being preachy.  And from what I've read the magazine is trying to offer more information and less opinion, letting the reader determine how they feel for themselves.  Here are a few articles that I liked:

• A New and Improved Christianity? – a discussion of how Christianity is evolving and a new generation is influencing the world
• Hollywood's Confusing Treatment of Sex - a good review of how sex and virginity is portrayed in movies
• Why Social Media Is Good for Us – a look at why Christians shouldn't ignore social media networks like Facebook
• While We Talk, People Die – a discussion on the problem of lip service within the four walls of the church, with very little action 
• Christian and Gay? - a look at why we should rethink our assumptions about sexuality and faith.

I've been saying it for a long time now, but I really do believe there is a slow but ever growing shift away from the old right wing, conservative, prosperity Christianity that I knew in the 80s and 90s, into one that is more centered on the truth of the Gospel and association with pop culture, rather then fear of it.

Christians are once again doing their best to keep up their image as unloving a-holes.

Fourth-grade teacher Jarretta Hamilton was newly married and expecting a baby when she went to speak with her supervisors in April of last year.

But the administrators at Southland Christian School in St. Cloud parried her query about maternity leave with a query of their own: When did she conceive?

After Hamilton admitted that her child had been conceived about three weeks before her February 20, 2009, wedding, the school fired her.

But you know how I feel. I'm curious, what do you all think. Should the school have fired her?