The Supreme Court has decided to hear a controversial legal battle this fall, one that pits a church’s right of free speech against an individual’s right to privacy.  Here are the details:

Matthew Snyder was a marine killed in Iraq.  His funeral was held in 2006 in Maryland.  However, during his funeral the Westboro Baptist Church picketed with banners saying "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers" even though Snyder himself was not gay.  The Kansas-based church headed by Fred Phelps has a congregation of 70 to 80 members who consider themselves prophets.  The church believes that various tragic events and killings such as a soldiers' death in Iraq are caused by God because he hates America for "enabling" homosexuality.  Westboro protests at all sorts of locations, events and funerals claiming they are works of God's judgment.  (They post their picket schedule online at www.godhatesfags.com).

So Snyder's father Albert decided to sue Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, for $5 million for invasion of privacy and emotional distress; at first he won.  But when an appeals court ruled their freedom of speech was protected by the First Amendment, Mr. Snyder's award was overturned and he was told he must pay legal fees of $16,500.  He has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and will argue that the church's behavior constitutes harassing people at their most vulnerable and is an incitement to violence, causing harm to others, in much the same way that one is not allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded room.

It figures an extreme religious group would be stirring up more hatred in the world.  Hard to believe these people actually think they are doing God's good work.  When I read stuff like this I realize why so many people hate Christians.

That headline may be a little incindiary, but it's essentially correct. A judge sent an Oregon couple to jail for failing to provide medical help for their sixteen year old son.

The Beagleys knew Neil was ill two weeks before he died in June 2008 from complications of a urinary tract blockage, they testified. Despite the boy's failing health, the Beagleys didn't take Neil to a doctor. Instead, they decided to honor the boy's wish to put his fate in God's hands. 

The judge got this one right. If you as an adult want to put your medical help in God's hands, then fine. But when you have children, you're not afforded that liberty anymore. Parents need to do everything reasonable to help their child live a healthy life.  And frankly, your Faith in God just doesn't cut it. 

Or I guess another way to look at it, God decided not to save the boys life. And God also decided to send these parents to jail to teach the rest of the congregation a lesson:  GO TO THE HOSPITAL!

I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

At Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip, the congregation can get more than just prayer at the Sunday worship services.

If a lucky — or "blessed and highly favored" — churchgoer is in the right seat, they can also receive a cash prize.

At each of the three Sunday services, the Rev. Dan Willis pulls a number of one seat from a bag and the worshiper in that seat wins a cash prize. Two of the churchgoers win $250 and the third gets $500. The church gives away $1,000 each Sunday, Willis said.

The cash prize is part of Willis' recent focus on helping his congregation pay bills and begin a debt-free life, he said.

"We've had soooo many of our people displaced from jobs, facing foreclosure," he said. "When people's faith was high, their debt was down. When their faith was down, their debt was high. I realized the two are connected."

Willis concedes the cash prize is a gimmick to fill the pews. But he's unapologetic about the plan, because it's working. On a typical Sunday, his church draws about 1,600 people to its three Sunday services. But since the money giveaway started, about five weeks ago, the congregation has grown to about 2,500 each week, he said. The money for the giveaway comes from the church offering. Lighthouse is a non-denominational church.

"If I can get someone in here and teach them and give them money, that's what I'm going to do," he said.

As part of the lessons, Willis set up a shredder near the pulpit to encourage church members to shred their credit cards and commit to stop spending. He talks about budgeting, tackling past-due bills and saving. He encourages the prize winners to use the money to pay down their bills, rather than splurge on new items. One Sunday, he gave away 15 savings accounts with $25 already in them. And he had bank representatives at the service so church members could set up accounts.

Full article can be found HERE.

A friend of mine (who knows I'm pretty anti-megachurch) sent this article to me today and I had to post it. Although I don't agree with all the points presented here I think there is a lot of validity to what this writer is staying. He believes that the evangelical church as we know it is headed for a major collapse that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West, which will raise intolerance of Christianity to levels many people are not prepared for.

Here's his reasoning:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

The author goes on to describe what will be left:

Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision. Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

Lastly he considers, if all of this is all really that bad and makes a very valid point in closing:

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century. We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I do agree that many evangelicals have dug a huge grave for themselves over the last few years. With so much focus on the "celebrity" Christian leader I wouldn't be shocked to see this collapse.  I guess only time will tell if they will be buried in that grave.

Question:  Would you support the legalization of marijuana if the government could regulate and tax its distribution?

Could this help pull us out of our current recession?

I say yes.

Anna asked me why I brought up the Newsweek article posted below and said: 

I’m done with this thread unless RP says something about why he brought it up. 

Anna,
I brought it up because I thought it would make for good discussion (which it has). I , personally, enjoy digging into controversial subjects…and…just because something may seem black and white to you or I doesn't mean that there aren't other opinions out there OR that our opinion is correct. May I never be so proud as to think I have all the right answers.

Now, this particular subject is rather difficult. I think so because in reading through many of the comments it seems people are arguing different things. Such as:

a) Is Homosexuality a sin?
b) If homosexuality is a sin should those practicing it be allowed to marry?
c) What role should the church play in legislating their morality on the world?
d) What role should individual christians play in legislation?
e) How do you feel about the "church's" current repsonse to homosexuals?

Here are my basic thoughts:

The first question is an easy one for me.

a) Homosexuality IS a sin. Based on what the Bible says or even if you look at it from an evolutionary stand point it just doesn't seem right.

It starts to get a lot more complicated from that point on. 

b) Personally, at this time, I don't care if gays get married or not. I do not see how it effects me one way or the other. I don't see marraige as something so special that I must fight to protect it to stay "traditional".  I don't see Biblical examples of Jesus or other Christians fighting to push their agenda through the political field. That being said, because of I believe homosexuality is a sin, should the issue come to a vote I would likely vote against gay marraige.,,if I voted at all (I did not vote on Measure 36 years back). 

c) It is my rather strong opinion that the church needs to back the EFF up. Until they can show the world the LOVE of CHRIST they need to quit worring about showing the world the LAWS of CHRIST. The church should take a page out of the Bible (a novel idea i know) and treat the world the way that Jesus treated them. Try sacrificing their lives for homosexuals…and allow GOD to convict them if He so desires. The WORLD will never listen to Christians when they are treated so poorly by the church.

d) We should feel free to vote our morals and feel free to legislate our agendas…but we should do so as Americans and not as Prophets for God. I'm tired of hearing Churches preach on "whatever ballet measure they think is important" and act as though they know what God wants. For instance, how many Churches were convinced that God wanted John McCain to be President? Vote. Legislate. But understand that God will always be in control and you will always be able to serve/worship Him no matter what laws are created.

e) The church has failed. If God treated us like we treat Homosexuals we would all be burning for eternity. If God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit told us "Conform to our standards and we will love and accept you…otherwise we will have nothing to do with you because you disgust us" how would that work? Our message to the world should be that of Love…this is not to say that sin will go unpunished but people please…lets try the Golden Rule for awhile. And if you must tell someone about God's justice over sin…tell it to the church. Our churches are just as sinful as the world…and we should know better.

 For the record, this is just how I feel right now. I haven't done an in depth Bible study to come up with my beliefs so there is a strong chance that you all could change my mind through your comments.  For those of you in the Portland area it looks like we could get snowed/iced in for quite awhile…plenty of time for us to unpack this a little more.

There is a fascinating article on Newsweek.com about Gay Marriage and what the Bible says about it. Here is the opening paragraph:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel-all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments-especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple-who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love-turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

I think they make a good point that Christians should address…when did marriage become 1 MAN & 1 WOMAN? Certainly not in Bible times.

Christian Guitar Hero???? I thought it was a joke too. But here is the email that Jack (He's Back) sent me"

  http://www.christianguitarherogame.com/index.html   Look at the banner graphic on the page – I think the female looks like a real Christian, with her bustier, fishnet, g-string and her Warlock guitar knockoff … the guy with his biker grimace, leather jacket and air-humping his Les Paul looks like he could be a pastor …  
Here's a link to the product I saw on display; you have GOT to read the comments from purchasers: http://store.digitalpraise.com/guitarpraise-2.aspx  

… it would really be cool if you made expansion packs of a band, Like Guitar Hero has Aerosmith, I would totally pay top dollar for a THIRD DAY expansion pack. Consuming Fire has an awesome guitar intro that I would love to play to. another thing that would really be great is being able to play online so that you can worship and praise God with other in cyber!

Thanks for givin' the devil a BIG BLACK EYE!!! Very cool I was excited to see some of the older christian bands like White Cross, Petra and Bride … I would put these christian bands up against any that the "world" has to offer… they would blow them away!!! If you havn't heard some of these guys just look em' up on the web… I believe that God has the best musicians for himself.

I'm so glad that me and my little ones can finally rock out totally awesome-style with the praise of God in our hearts. None of that Satanic meaningless dribble like in those secular Guitar "Hero"(I put that in quotations because Jesus is the only hero…ever). My kids have been begging me for one of those Rock Band games but I told them"Unless a song is about praise and worship of our lord, I don't it in my house" Because as everyone knows, if a song isn't about God or Jesus, it's about worshiping Satan. My son tried to argue that a lot of secular songs are about personal feelings or deep thought and thats when I knew I'd have to set him straight. Now that he got his hands on Guitar Praise he can totally rock out without sinning.

I would like to think that this site and those comments are a parody of some kind (I love a good parody) but something about them rings true. THANKS FOR GIVING THE DEVIL A BIG BLACK EYE? Satan has got to be pissed right now…sitting at home…in hell…with a frozen steak over his recently blacked eye…or he's laughing at how stupid many Christians are…in fact he's laughing at how he tricked them into thinking that he was the one with they black eye when clearly these comments do nothing but damage the good name of Jesus.

On a side note, I have never played Guitar Hero…but the thought of rocking out to some Petra Praise sounds great right now…"Somebody's gonna praise his name…somebody's gonna call Him Lord…it will either be you and me…or it's gonna be a rock or a tree…"

 I totaly just rocked that.,,,,(for Jesus of course).

This is "Offend your Readers" week here at City Business. …and so without further ado, I present to you:

CHRISTIAN NYMPHOS: A blog for Christian Wives who really like having sex with their husbands.

Here is how they describe themselves.

We are women with excessive sexual desire for our husbands! There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, God wants us to be madly in love with our husbands. He wants us to keep that fire burning in our marriage beds! We have the Song of Solomon as a perfect example of a Christ honored union where the two people are obviously intoxicated with each other.

As far as the second definition goes, we each do have some good friends who have called us abnormal because of how happy we are in our marriage beds. Their attitude is that a wife should just put up with sex once a month or so to keep the husband happy. So for them to hear us praising our husbands and talking about how much we enjoy being with him, they do think we are “against the norm” so to speak.

Good Times!

(H/T The Vig)