Hijacked Christianity

This rant was started in my head by over hearing a conversation near me. I was at my local coffee shop reading for class when someone else's conversation caught my ear. Next to me sat two 40 year old women with nice three ring binders in front of them. They could have been on a lunch break from State Farm, and the tone of this casual business meeting point to something like that. Instead they were discussing a worship service at the church they no doubt worked for.

I was listening them discuss which songs would be best for what part of the service. A large part of the discussion was based on if two instrumental songs in a row was a bad idea. The conversation then centered around the "worship team" and how to properly tell a person that for that we they were not going to be playing.

Now let's get some things straight, I like Jesus, I like church, I like people, and I understand that it takes work for a church to run (including some people being on the pay roll). What bothered me was the tone, a discussion of how to manipulate people, what would "set the mood". When did my faith move from an everyday action to a manipulative service, complete with distracting lights. When was the body of Christ holier when moved by the song "I am a friend of God"?

Church is about a commonality, and a sharing of life with others. Maybe I am aesthetically challenged, but I don't really care what songs I sing, I care what people are in my life and how I am used. If we take Christianity seriously why are we not caring about what Christ cared about? When I see a large church I don't thing "there is what God likes to see" . It is the hijacking of my beloved faith that has always made be sick, and made me love devout Christians more.

This is the reason I have a problem finding a home church, and why I left CCU. I hate the hypocrisy. I hate playing the game of Christianity. God's love is unconditional and I think money muddies the water of what we should be doing. It is this outward hypocrisy that turns people away from Christ at a faster rate then sending the 3 percent of offerings to Africa to "save souls" Authenticity is the goal and it is time people strive for that, me included.

This is Dead On...

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

I'm Just Waiting for My Turn.

Reaganomics Finally Trickles Down To Area Man

This is the future.

Amazing

More Wind

I dont know why we cant just put tons of wind farms in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. There isn't anyone there. Well, this is what the Australians are doing.

Read for yourself
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7033568.stm

Huge Thoughts

Swing over to my other blog and check out some huge discussions about god from Jeph Porter and myself (along with some help from our friends)

www.thestrangecase.blogspot.com

U.S. Women's World Cup

Early this morning the U.S. women's soccer team played Brazil. The number 1 U.S. fell in this semi-final match. But what really needs to be said is something missing in what the news is covering on this (if the news even covers this).

Let's go back to when the men's teams played eachother. One of my first posts was about that game, that I was lucky to see. In the first half the U.S. men's team had an own goal. Nothing special at the time, but now I am rethinking my original hypothesis that, it was not the U.S.'s fault(Onyewu especially) but a sun glare off the large cheshire grin of Brazilian star Ronaldinho.

In the Women's game today there was another own goal by Leslie Osborne. Two own goals from the U.S. against Brazil in less than a month. This seems strange, and I think there must be something going on here larger than Ronaldinho's dientes. There must be some kind of talisman that the Brazilian National Team keeps hidden to throw off the U.S. I say we check Marta' shoes or maybe Kaka was hidding it. Either way there is foul play and I demand an investigation.

Fun with stats.

I watched this in class, it is great. This guy is funny, smart, and has a grand accent. Am I in love?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

China sends troops to Darfur

A little bit of good news, China plans on sending U.N. peace keeping troops to Darfur. This is a huge change for China, and can only be good for the reigon of Darfur. Maybe the U.S. needs to send more, we can't have China one uping us. Maybe this will be the start to a humanitarian Cold War?

Read/Listen for yourself.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14453538

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

Here is a small article from NPR about rental bikes in Pairs. The idea is simple, you pay a small fee and ride a bike rather than driving. This program was started by the mayor of Pairs, along with making more bike and bus lanes. The article even tells of Chicago Mayor Daley checking it out and taking notes. Living in Normal has showed me how much I miss a good bike lane, and the ease of getting from point A to B with out relying on anything motorized.

Read/Listen for yourself
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14429468