The Gospel is not a Gun – Part 1

I profess that I tend to be an adolescent minded Christian . It’s true. By and large, I live my Christian life like a middle school kid playing Cowboys and Indians. Cops and Robbers. Good Guys v. Bad Guys.

I study theology. But not so I can attain intimacy with Christ. I study so that I can feel right about myself. It’s a way of loading my gun. I pride myself on knowing the right things about God, on being Orthodox. I want to be Orthodox so that I can hide myself inside an iron clad fortress of Theology, the way a Sheriff might barricade himself inside the jail when the bad guys come to town. I surround my Orthodoxy with a plethora of hired guns – Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Spurgeon, Piper, and Keller. I recruit all the deputies I can, just in case a fight breaks out. I pin the tin star of my pastoral position right above my heart as proof of my Legitimacy. The star sparkles and shines and says “Sheriff” in bold letters and it gleams bright in the high noon sun.

We Need God

Douglas Coupland is a writer from Vancouver, Canada who became fairly famous in 1991 for his fictional novel,“Generation X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture”, in which he coined the phrase, you guessed it, “Generation X”. Coupland is eccentric to say the least. He’s written several odd and provocative novels on post modern culture. With titles like, “Shampoo Planet”, “Microserfs” and “Girlfriend in a Coma”, Coupland has become a semi sub-cultural pop icon. Besides writing, Coupland has also gained recognition as a film maker and as a visual artist. He once sculpted a series of works in which he chewed up copies of his own books and wove them into hornets nests. Weird dude, huh? Coupland does not claim to be a Christian, and is in fact openly gay. But here’s the thing…

Douglas Coupland is very different from me. He is a non-southern, gay, liberal, public TV watching, sports hating, non-Presbyterian. Yet, he wrote one of the coolest paragraphs I’ve ever read about the human need for a relationship with God.

The Church of Oprah Exposed – an analysis

There is a video circulating around the internet called “The Church of Oprah Exposed”. Maybe you’ve seen it. If not, you can check it out at the bottom of this post. The video accuses Oprah as being a sort of “pastor or priestess” of the world’s largest “new age” church. While I agree with the video in general, I believe that it overstates the case in regard to Oprah. Make no mistake. Oprah is a powerful proponent of dangerous and anti-biblical thought. I mean, how can anyone deny the impact and thought of Oprah? She beautifully exports her well dressed anti-biblical ideas, every day, to millions of people, with no apologies. She recently has become even more assertive as a result of her relationship with Eckhart Tolle, who has written two very popular books “The Power of Now” and more recently “A New Earth”. Along with the books, Oprah and Tolle assert the idea of discovering what they call “The One Thing” – which simply means embracing that there are many paths that lead to Spiritual Awakening (or God).

We Are The Hollow Men – TS Eliot

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The Hollow Men by TS Eliot, creates the imagery of a group of scarecrows that huddle together in a barren land. They only move as the wind moves them. They are stuffed with hay and yet they are empty of anything of substance. They can hear the winds of heaven, but only as a fading star. Only Christ, the Multifoliate Rose, the Perpetual Star, whose “eyes” gaze at the Hollow Men from death’s Dream Kingdom, can save these empty men from the cactus land of Idol Worship. Are we the Hollow Men?

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