Monday, June 16, 2008

Weekly Links We Like to Link to - Hystorical Christianity Edition

If President George W. Bush were to convert to Catholicism (and he may, if sources are to believed, after he leaves the Oval Office), would that mean that a lot of us who consider ourselves post-Evangelical may return to the mainstream Evangelical fold? Would a lot of progressive Catholics see this as their last straw and leave their churches?
One can only imagine...

Something about this is troubling my soul...

Speaking of Christian imaginings, an archaeologist believes that he may have found the oldest church in the world underneath the rubble from an already-ancient Christian church, dated from about 35 to 70 AD, in Jordan. The church is believed to have housed-of-worship the original 70 disciples.
To be quite honest, I don't buy it. With the notable exceptions of Paul, his followers and their converts, the earliest Christians - especially the 70 - didn't really leave Jerusalem until about AD 70, if I have my memory intact (though I guess across the river may have been one spot where they may have congregated). Furthermore, the "evidences" proffered up by Mr. Hussein seem sketchy at best.
I mean, it could just as likely be this guy's temple.
h/t to Relevant and again to MarkO

And finally... Sex and the City? Not on our watch! Did Christianity Today's movie website endorse pornography in their review of the movie?
Now, before you answer that, consider this: They gave it 3 WHOLE STARS! That's a half more star than the current Jesus movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Something or Other Involving a Lot of Battle Scenes and Stuff Not in the Book or Series but, What the Heck, We Really Liked the Lord of the Rings Movies So We Tried to Emulate Them.
The original review by Camerin Courtney is here.
The scathing smack-down by Focus on the Family Singles Guy Ted Slater is here. (Yes, you read that right. He told them - all up in their face and as the t-i-t-l-e of his piece, that they "relish in sexual perversion" and that they need to "repent". Wooooord!)
The cooking of the smack-down by Jeffrey Overstreet is here. (Doesn't Mr. Overstreet understand that to argue with someone who is so obviously right and on God's side is to take the side of the devil? Is Overstreet a baby-eating, cat-sacrificing warlock? I think so.)
The clarification of said smack-down is here.
And the reiteration of the original cooking of the smack-down (which, by its nature of not changing the argument is itself a put-down) is here.
So, the obvious answer is "Yes."
Btw, this is how ALL movies should be reviewed, by strict normative standards of decency and by counting sex scenes and cussing words, not some wishy-washy subjective uses. God doesn't want us to waste our precious minds on thinking about what we're watching, but rather on thinking about how to best judge the poor saps who can't see clearly that what they are doing is poisonous to God. Thank you Plugged In for watching dirty, filthy, unsettling, troubling, complicated and earthy movies so we don't have to.
I'm just glad we were warned by these gate-keepers about that horror-skin-flick The Passion of the Christ before I went to see that. Did you hear about all the buckets of blood in that movie? Not to mention the torn-apart eyes, skin, the rotted carcass... I just don't think Jesus would approve of me watching that type of filth.

(Did I lay it on too thick?)

And finally, youth ministry for the post-Evangelical churches. InternetMonk has got some ideas, some of which I've heard before, but it's good to get so many under one roof.

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