Longing to be great

The goal is not to be remarkable for remarkable’s sake. I don’t want to just build a purple cow empire. I want to grow the kingdom. I want see hearts bowed before King Jesus. I long to see the image of God (us) claiming the far corners of the earth for our great King. That is the type of radical greatness to which this author and this blog aspires. So, let us now turn to the objections that unbelievers - outsiders - have to Christianity. What is it that keeps unbelievers from engaging the claims of Christ. David Kinnaman, in an important research study of Mosaic and Buster outsiders (which he defines as 16-29 year olds outside of Christianity) reveals 6 major objections. Unfortunately, and this is the challenge for us, the reason many people do not engage the claims of Christ is because of his followers. As Gandhi is often quoted as saying, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Here are the six major themes (objections or points of skepticism) that Kinnaman’s research revealed (I will quote Kinnaman here and save personal interaction with them for the upcoming series of posts):

• Hypocritical. Outsiders consider us hypocritical - saying one thing and doing another - and they are skeptical of our morally superior attitudes. They say Christians pretend to be something unreal, conveying a polished image that is not accurate. Christians think the church is only a place for virtuous and morally pure people.


• Too focused on getting converts. Outsiders wonder if we genuinely care about them. They feel like targets rather than people. They question our motives when we try to help them “get saved,” despite the fact that many of them have already “tried” Jesus and experienced church before.


• Antihomosexual. Outsiders say that Christians are bigoted and show disdain for gays and lesbians. They say Christians are fixated on curing homosexuals and on leveraging political solutions against them.


• Sheltered. Christians are thought of as old-fashioned, boring, and out of touch with reality. Outsiders say we do not respond to reality in appropriately complex ways, preferring simplistic solutions and answers. We are not willing to deal with the grit and grime of people’s lives.


• Too political. Another common perception of Christians is that we are overly motivated by a political agenda, that we promote and represent politically conservative interests and issues. Conservative Christians are often thought of as right-wingers.


• Judgmental. Outsiders think of Christians are quick to judge others. They say we are not honest about our attitudes and perspectives about other people. They doubt that we really love people as we say we do (p. 29-30).

Now, remember, these may or may not be true and may or may not be fair representations. But they are, at least, widely held perceptions. This is not to say we compromise on truth, but maybe we need to learn how to texture truth with grace in these arenas. In the coming posts, we will explore each of them and their challenge for the church today.

Interact: Do any of these objections resonate with you? Is there one that causes you anguish or slowed (slows) your receptivity to the claims of Christ?

P.S. > Part of the reason that people object to Christ is because they are depraved, slaves to the evil one. It is not our job (we couldn’t do it if we wanted to) regenerate hearts. That is the work of God the Spirit. However, to the extent possible, the path to greatness in the kingdom requires us to be diligent and faithful, quick to learn when and where our actions and our attitudes become obstacles.

Religion Isn't Morality

Yesterday I listened to a podcast where a scientist was interviewed about global warming. There’s nothing unusual about that, but in this case he was also a Christian. I don’t just mean someone who identifies themselves that way because its just a habit, I mean someone who really believes the Christian doctrine about Jesus being sent to save us, etc.

I find these people really annoying because they keep saying that faith and science are fully compatible when they clearly aren’t. Its all the more obvious that they aren’t compatible when you hear these people talk. Their science demands the highest standards of objectivity and proof but their faith is just nothing more than wishful thinking.

There were several occasions when the interviewer tripped the person up on inconsistencies in his beliefs but he just blindly continued and probably didn’t even see that he was acting like an idiot.

Yes, that’s bad enough but there’s something even worse. That’s the way Christians seem to think they have some sort of monopoly on morality. This person was saying that Christianity needed to be applied to the question of global warming because it was partly a moral question. He said, sure science shows us global warming is going to be bad for many people, but morality is needed to decide whether we should care.

That’s partly true, but the really insulting thing is the implication that without religion (specifically his religion, Christianity) there can be no morality. This is nonsense. I could make an argument to show that its only the absence of religion which can lead to true morality.

The interviewee said his religious knowledge, including his morality, was derived from the Bible. In other words he just accepts what is written there (or at least part of it) without having to really think about what is right and wrong. Who says that accepting the opinions of a bunch of desert nomads recorded in an old book is any better than looking at all the factors affecting modern life and deriving a morality from that? Personally I think taking your morality from a book is lazy, cowardly and ignorant.

I said above that this person just picked the parts of the Bible he wanted to believe and more or less ignored the rest by labelling them as “poetry” or “metaphorical”. The problem with this, of course, is that its not clear which is which. Most people think the creation myth is not to be taken literally but some people (creationists) do. If that myth is a metaphor then maybe the story of Jesus is too. Maybe the whole Bible is. There’s absolutely no way of knowing which makes the whole Bible no better than a work of fiction with certain philosophical discussion inserted here and there.

If that’s all the Bible is then why be a Christian? Its just totally illogical. The big problem with the whole issue is that the Bible is really just a pile of myths written by primitive tribes but people are looking for a higher level of information there which doesn’t really exist. Because they are looking for something which isn’t there they can see whatever they want. So people see a reflection of their own wants and needs but they still use the Bible as justification for those beliefs.

If that’s the source of Christian morality then I say count me out. I would rather have a system of ethics and behaviour that I am individually responsible for, that takes accounts of modern issues, and is based on reality instead of fantasy.

Morality And Moral Judgment In The Bible (1/3) - The Atheist Experience #573

Three Coins and a Round Thing....

Another three games on which to report, and 6 points out of 9 is not a bad return but certainly not enough for the masses who demand perfection at every turn.

 

On the 7th Day of Mars, on the occasion of the confirmation of marriage of the beloved and I, the WindyBricks were playing away at the large area at the back of that unfunny prick my dad liked but I thought was tiresome’s house – It’s the News Huddlines made my skin creep, Dad – and we won 2-1. The Scottish Lord put us 1 up early in the second half, but the northerners in blue stripes and three sides to their ground when I went there, equalised shortly thereafter. Just as the David Seaman lookalike was calling the flock in for the mock wedding, St Elmo’s Fire told me that the WindyBricks had snatched the lead in injury time, with a goal courtesy of Hooray not Thierry. He’s good he is. Joy unconfined, yet again.

 

Last Tuesday, and the WindyBricks had a load of old cobblers from up the M1. Never good games at the home of the Bricks, and this one lived down to expectations. A few decent chances early on were spurned before drudgery ensued. Just a few minutes before a break, Hooray not Thierry, he’s good he is, diddled the full back, squared the ball across for The Great Gary to sidefoot in from where he couldn’t probably miss. Hooray not Thierry missed a great chance early in the second half to kill the game, but at the end the old cobblers were threatening us, and given they were as threatening as Clive Dunn, our panic was misplaced, and the WindyBricks held on for another three points before our crack at home to the top of the table Tax Fiddling Jockeys.

 

We lost this big game to a goal by Frankie Howerd, who netted past Dagenham Dave from just outside of the box while the WindyBricks cognoscenti were screaming at the linesman for offside. The Tax Fiddling Jockeys were comfortable most of the afternoon, with the Holiday Village in goal returning to his old stamping ground having a quiet day. The WindyBricks were subdued and never really threatened. Alas, when a big game is in town, so does the knobhead quotient increase and the game was interrupted by a number of missiles descending on the playing area, most ridiculously a hard boiled Edwina Currie. I do despair at the primeval thought processes wandering through some of these Brickheads, especially their tone deaf serenading of the followers of the Tax Fiddling Jockeys at full-time. I’m all for singing a choon or two, but wouldn’t it be better during the game than afterwards. After the singing took on a bit too much Charlie rather than Charlie Chester, the Old William, despairing that they hadn’t had too much of a rumble down Senegal Way waded in for a merry old baton dance, by all accounts. The Brickheads reciprocated with their customary generous donations to the Old William’s Christmas Fund, and also their kindly attempts to assist in urban regeneration by relocating old masonry free of charge, and everyone went home to reflect on their contributions to a day of nonsense.

 

Off to the Concrete Cow Academics in Economics on Tuesday night, before two further away games at Mandleson’s place and the gang from the railways. It’s getting tight with the WindyBricks….

Obama stands with his allies, of course

WASHINGTON – In proposing only modest changes in how lawmakers finance their pet projects, President Barack Obama tossed aside a golden opportunity to work with Sen. John McCain. Instead, the president stood foursquare with his Democratic allies, the people he needs most to advance his ambitious agenda.

McCain is the top sponsor of a proposal to give the president more power to cut spending from bills project by project, a kind of line-item veto lite called “expedited rescission” that’s been around since the early 1990s. But when it came to discussing how to deal with so-called earmarks on Wednesday, Obama had nothing to say about McCain’s idea.

Little wonder. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid don’t like it. And a fleeting alliance with McCain isn’t as important as good relations with those who regulate the flow of legislation in Congress.

Just Tuesday, Obama’s budget director said Obama would probably support legislation introduced by McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to award Obama the beefed-up rescission powers.

“The president during his campaign spoke about a line-item veto that would need to be done in a constitutionally valid way,” said White House budget chief Peter Orszag. “Enhanced rescission powers are also a possibility.”

Asked about the idea last month, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama would “love to take that for a test drive.”

Obama won’t get that chance. On Wednesday, during a meeting in which Obama’s earmark proposal was finalized, the president sided with the old-school Democrats. They view expedited rescissions — both the House and Senate would vote on whether to accept a recommended list of cuts shortly after receiving it — as an intrusion into the prerogatives of Congress.

The White House has signaled that Obama will use the existing rescissions process to identify waste in the just-enacted omnibus bill and send it to Congress. But Democratic leaders could ignore the missive; under McCain’s legislation a vote would be guaranteed.

McCain’s idea is a far weaker anti-spending tool than the line-item veto that congressional Republicans gave President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s. That version required two-thirds votes in both the House and Senate to overturn vetoes. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1998.

McCain’s bill was on an options list and was discussed, said a Democratic House leadership aide, who demanded anonymity to speak candidly about the private negotiations.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., scoffed at the idea that Obama should have sided with McCain.

“Stand in lockstep with all the (Republicans) who’ve been so supportive of him over the past month and a half,” Hoyer said. “That’s a heck of a strategy!”

Indeed, McCain issued a statement Wednesday blasting Obama’s proposed reforms as thin gruel.

“We will continue to do business as usual in Washington regarding earmarks,” McCain said. “The president could have resolved this issue in one statement — no more unauthorized pork-barrel projects — and pledged to use his veto pen to stop them. This is an opportunity missed.”

In his comments on earmarks Wednesday, Obama sounded more like a defender of earmarks than a critic.

“Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that’s why I’ve opposed their outright elimination,” he said.

The future of publishing (part 2 of 3): the authors

With the inevitable changes taking place now and in the future, I believe that authors are going to benefit in the long run.

As more and more of us publishers learn how to do our jobs, and then find that there aren’t enough jobs to go around, we’ll actually start to manipulate the business structure in the pub world.  With the different POD options out there and the limited turn around time for making an Ebook from an Indesign file, it’s going to be easier to help authors get there books in print and available.  With limited time and money, sliding scale royalty rates should apply, giving both the author and the publisher the opportunity to tailor to each individual project.

This means that instead of having to pay several hundred dollars to self-publish, an author could have a publisher do the same amount of work, getting paid only if the work sells.  I know, I know, doesn’t sound like too good of a deal, right?  But it just means more opportunities for the author to get their work out in the world.

Additionally, with all of the content that will be used in the big publishing houses (I’m thinking of creative marketing plans, web content, hyperlinked backstories, webisodes, etc.), authors will be some of the best people to fill those roles.  Creating content, blurring the lines between real and virtual reality, will fall to the most prepared of the authors.  Blogging, creating narratives (which can then be easily converted to some new Ebook device), and telling stories on netbooks and cellphones will serve some of the multiple narrative streams that authors will get to do.

While there might not be as many ways to make a huge ton of money off of a book directly, if (and this is a big IF) the book in question gets to that “tipping point”, based on the future’s interconnectedness, it will be easier to analyze the chances of getting viral (when fully analyzing the mavens and network brokers that visit your site), thereby helping well-connected authors get assistance in getting published.

Hopefully.

Again, while there not be as many opportunities to make money, there will be many outlets for creativity.

And if they can eat and stay clothed, will be a good thing.

 

-bk

Make Money On Myspace In 48 Hours Part 1!