I remember watching a poorly made video called, They Sold Their Souls for Rock and Roll with promotion by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort no less, which decried the evils of rock music. I remember feeling pretty manipulated by the video that seemed to take quotes out of context and twist the intention of some of the artists comments. What reminded me is a post over at challies.com that mentions another video about the ‘evils of rock n’ roll called Hells Bells.

Hells Bells Description:

After opening with an engaging apologetic on the power of music and the nature of man, Hell’s Bells examines the ideas of key satanists and occultists and looks for their parallels within the world of secular rock music. (Surprise, they’re virtually everywhere!) It then contrasts these “vain and evil imaginings” with the teachings of Jesus. By the end of this absolutely captivating video (multitudes of lost people have watched it out of interest, curiosity, even a desire to rip it apart!), the viewer has seen and heard the gospel forwards and backwards and knows that ultimately there are only two types of people (the lost and the redeemed) and two paths to go on (the path of self (satanism) or the way of the cross). Tens of thousands have been saved through this video! Produced in 1989; 185 minutes; VHS (NTSC); English

And here are some comments from Challies: (more…)

Five years ago I remember walking up to total strangers and telling them they were sinners and were on their way to a torturous hell. It’s hard to forget. My friend Patrick and I went down to Hollywood on a Friday night and decided to stand in front of a porn shop and offer people warm words of fiery encouragement. No, I’m not kidding, that was the way in which I thought evangelism would best be honoring to God. I assumed cutting to the quick and getting rid of all of the peripheral fluff would be the best thing for the hearer if honesty was to be applied. Needless to say, Patrick and I didn’t receive a very warm welcome. Often I got the middle finger, or a nasty little comment which I would walk away thinking how good it was to suffer for the sake of Christ.

…continue (written by David Fairchild)

Great sarcasm…the battle over the bumper continues as the gauntlet is thrown down. It’s going to be funny seeing how our ‘all-to-eager track-passing’ brothers in Christ will answer this one. Maybe Jesus with a sword coming out of his mouth? It will have to be half of the back of someone’s car. With the level of cheese on christian t-shirts I’m sure they will out-do even our wildest expectations. (Thanks to groovingdan and the Holy Observer for the find.)

Yesterday Mike Gunn, a good friend and pastor of Harambee came in to town. We got together for lunch and spoke about the Kingdom of God, evangelism and such. First we talked about evangelism not so much as a ‘convert to my thinking’ but more of a community of God bearing witness that non-believers could experience. How can we as a community be a people of redemption? What is the gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about that is here now. So often we Westerners see salvation about ’saving our souls from hell’. We are saved and will reap our reward (heaven) when we die. We often don’t desire to live out this Kingdom (already) now in eager anticipation of Jesus return and establishing the not yet part.

We spoke further about this verse:

1 Cor. 6 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

It is so easy for Pastors to go to a place of moralism from this place. Don’t do X or Y. These sins are the really bad ones. If I have lust in my heart, aren’t I an adulterer? Further, compare Christians with Buddhists, Mormons, even athiests and we lose the moral argument. It’s funny our pastor (David Fairchild) says his time preaching is a confessional. He’s been confessing his sin/struggle with the verses he preaches. I imagine a lot of people are uncomfortable with this. He said a book on preaching said that pastors should not confess sins in front of their people that the people need to respect the pastor. This doesn’t seem real.

These are some random thoughts put together…we’ll see where it goes.

A common theme of converstation with people who are part of the emergent movement is this idea of Kingdom living. Most Americans look at Christianity as an individual thing. I’m saved, that’s all I have to worry about. Often Christians view heaven as the goal of our faith. Many people I spoke to reacted to this. “Heaven is not a 401k plan where we cash out.” I just interviewed a guy who pastored a church called Anchor Pointe, he said the gospel is:
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I’m going to post one interview a day from people I met and spoke with this week at the EmergentYS Convention. In these interviews I listened to people speak about their faith, beliefs, view of the church and what exactly ‘emerging’ is.

Garret Akerson lives in Oceanside and attends Saddleback Church. “I only attend because my wife wants to and we only go once a month.” He currently is looking for a new church to participate in, located near his home. He has preached at other churches as well as served as a Youth Pastor.

“The Christian Church has to sober up. The church in general is in a bit of a drunken arrogant stupor. We feel like we have arrived. Christians have a belief that we are superior to everyone else in our rightness.”
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Someone has a LOT of free time on their hands. They’ve recreated many of the Bible’s stories with legos. (Here is God creating Eve.) Some of these are pretty funny. Warning: Some lego scenes depict nudity, sexual content, violence, and cursing. (Now how many of you are actually more interested in seeing these?) Go to the brick testament >

There are a number of new articles this month for your review:

Duane Smets contributes a review of Adbusters Magazine (see below) as well as the new Bright Eyes album, Wide Awake Its Morning. Tom Moller continues his writings with The Problem of Pigs. David Fairchild explores The Gospel According To Ikea. And finally, Drew Goodmanson writes a review from his Sheep & Goats perspective, Preachers and their Esoteric Language (see below).

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Went back to the EmergentYS conference today. It’s somewhat odd to actually stick around after these sessions and speak with McLaren (Time Top 25 most influential evangelicals in America) and Stanley Grenz discussing their thoughts and asking questions. One of my friends actually got into some stuff with McLaren. Grenz was really thoughtful and cool. Session:

Scripture: The role of the Bible in the life of Christian faith cannot be overestimated. But, the connection of the Bible to life is not easily made. This dialog will advance our thinking on this important issue
Presented by Stan Grenz (theologian) and Brian McLaren (practitioner).

After that I spoke with the blogging group discussing the role of blogs in the emergent movement. I’ve got to run but more to come…

I read this at Relevant and thought is was an interesting article:

There are a number of things that can make the movie-going experience uncomfortable for me. A sticky seat, a big fro two rows ahead, a diet coke gone through my system too quick, a bad date sitting right next to me. Little glitches such as these have the potential to pull me out of the film and get me squirming for the next two hours.

Lately though, I’ve noticed that what gets me squirming in theaters hasn’t been a bad seat or a bad date, but instead has been the increasingly negative portrayals of Christians in recent films. We’ve all seen them, kind of chuckled at them or maybe huffed in offense at them. We’ve all “gotten down with G-O-D” and Mandy Moore in Saved, all gasped with amused disgust at “Freakshow,” the hymn-singing truck driver covered in boils in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. We’ve argued alongside Jason Schwartzman and Marky Mark as they battled it out with a pair of fundamentalist Christian parents in I Heart Huckabees. These scenes and these characters have initially gotten us to laugh along, but our laughter is terse and forced, because as long as we identify ourselves with the term “Christian,” we must also identify ourselves with these characters, no matter how caricatured or untrue they might seem.

Read the whole article at Relevant >

The Burnside project I’m working on got some press in it too:

One of his big plans, in fact, is to make the Rose City the hub of a national network of unconventional Christian writers, which he’s calling the Burnside Writers Collective. There’s Chris Seay, the pastor at ex-witch Kelly Hall’s church in Houston, author of books called The Gospel According to Tony Soprano and The Tao of Enron; McKinley, pastor of Miller’s own congregation, Imago Dei, will publish Jesus in the Margins this fall. Miller is characteristically self-effacing, calling plans to coordinate the promotion of a select bunch of writers through a website “a bait-and-switch operation, a cynical effort to sell more books.”

Miller sent me a bunch of stuff this morning, so we should be wrapping up pretty soon. He also sent me an article from Relevant Magazine, where he mentioned Burnside again:

Miller’s currently planning a creative community called the Burnside Writers Collective, an outlet for a group of writers/thinkers/speakers who are writing similar literature. “I want to create a catch-all for like-minded thinkers,” Miller said. “There are some cool voices out there that I think are entertaining and real and raw and profound, so it will be cool to shine the spotlight on some of these voices.” The initial lineup includes Miller, McKinley, Houston pastor and author Chris Seay and singer/songwriter Derek Webb. “We will make their stuff available online, and then also plan river trips, conferences and this sort of thing people can go to, to spend time with them,” he said.

I’m going to see if I can post the article…it’s for the March/April 2005 issue.

I just got this feature on Donald Miller from a secular perspective. After talking about all his success, why doesn’t he have any coverage in local media:

How come? Simple: Miller’s a Christian. Half his sales are through religious bookstores. The afternoon photo shoot is for a slick magazine called Relevant, basically a hybrid of Spin and Entertainment Weekly aimed at the youth-ministry set. At Harvard, he’ll address the Veritas Forum, a gathering of Christian intellectuals. In Toronto, he’s speaking at a Christian college so small even he hasn’t heard of it. The stage version of his book will run at “faith-based” venues in Canada’s biggest city.

Or how about our Christian brothers quote:

The weird thing is, Miller is not just a religious fish out of Portland’s hyper-secular water. He’s also an oddity among Christian authors. Some Christians don’t care for him one bit. “I truly believe that Blue Like Jazz is in large part a heresy masquerading as Christianity,” says Vince Bissey, one of Miller’s most vociferous online critics.

The whole article on Donald Miller is here.

I was thinking today of all the legalistic things people do as Christians to fit in. How many people burned their cds? Thought it was wrong to drink or dance? I’d love to hear some things you’ve seen/done that were done from legalism.

Today I spoke with a local pastor for my column about the end times. It’s been said before but I always think this is a sad indictment on the North American church. I think it was five years ago, the two most popular books were The Prayer of Jabez and Left Behind. When you added it all up it became for most readers how can I get more stuff and when can I get out of here. I guess it make much sense in our consumeristic, missionless churches.

A review of Adbusters Magazine by Duane Smets.

Adbusters magazine is unlike any other magazine because it has no ads. The magazine has become a key participating leader in a revolution brewed by people who call themselves “culture jammers.”

Culture jammers are a collective of “artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.” Their aim, “to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.” Their name coincides with their mission, to try and jam up present ideologies and the forms that allow them to create a culture gone wild.

Full article (at Kaleo) >