Bart Ehrman on Colbert

Colbert takes on Ehrman’s new book, “Jesus Interrupted.” Warmed over Divinci Code stuff. Will stupid stuff like this ever stop?

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Is Same-Sex Marriage Inevitable?

Al Mohler at his blog asks this question and essentially says yes. Those who support same-sex marriage have momentum on their side, and our cultural milieu makes it virtually impossible for those opposed to same-sex marriage to look like anything other than knuckle-dragging neanderthals. Even our evangelical leaders have been tamed by the culture into a half-hearted and unenthused response. They know they have to support the biblical position, but they clearly are not happy about it. They think you can get on with the work of evangelism without much bothering about the issue.

Maybe I have lived in Massachusetts too long, but this battle has been lost. It’s done. The only decision left to the church is how we will handle it in our local churches. So far the state has not used its power to keep churches from speaking their minds or determining the criteria for membership. But the state is not our primary concern. It’s the people in the pew who belong to the churches who are taking the values of the culture into the church. That’s where the real battle is.

The church is very able to live and thrive in hostile cultures. It almost always has had to do so. Some would even say that is when the church is at its best. But now the question is whether or not the church itself is hostile toward the morality of the Bible. The case could compellingly be made that this is increasingly so. As a pastor I am often stunned to find out what the guy in the pew really believes about these things. He doesn’t shout this stuff, but he has real doubts about the sinfulness of multiple divorces, sex outside marriage, the practice of homosexual sex and same-sex marriage and other issues as well. In a lot of evangelical churches there is lukewarm support for sermons on these matters. I actually wonder sometimes what moral agreements the churches actually do have.

Therefore, I think the real work of the church is the church, ordering the household of faith. The church is in need of rescue from a god we have invented, a god without a moral code but only a god of forgiveness and mercy who guarantees us peace. He is a god without virtue and moral purity. He is the god of Deepak Chopra.

Yes, we have our work cut out for us. But it’s not the work of transforming America. It’s the work of renewal of the church. And I am not sure which is going to be harder.

Good Friday at Mars Hill Church, Seattle

I watched this event online last night after Good Friday at my own church. (Yeh, I know-I can’t stop going to church; wind me up, watch me go) If you gave me a choice of watching Gibson’s Passion of the Christ or Good Friday at Mars Hill, it would be Mars Hill.

It was, above everything else, bloody. I mean bloody. But not offensively so. Helpfully so. It depicted the physicality of the passion and helped me feel the weight that I put upon the Savior. The continual eye shots of Jesus kept the viewer in touch with the personal, not merely the spectacle.

I loved the music. Saddleback this is not. Screaming, dissonance, loud, driving bass line, no rhyming and little rhythm. But it fit. It was great that the artists could not actually be identified. No clear face shots. Just silhouettes in the dimness. (Many of the musicians I know wouldn’t be pleased-they need face time!!! Don’t get between them and a mic)

Applause to Mars Hill for a job well done. Phenomenal investment to make this happen. This isn’t your grandma’s church on the corner.

But then again, grandma’s church on the corner has a service and not an event. Maybe that is a false distinction. But I think we get the difference. An event is something I go to in order to have something happen to me. A service is where I go to “serve up” something to God, to others. I don’t just attend. Little ‘ol me actually participates. The people are the actors. I know the ribbing the Roman Catholic church gets for its liturgy – up, down, kneel, sit, recite, stand, kneel, read, sing, genuflect, sign of the cross, sign of peace, etc. But for the engaged worshiper, it is all meaningful. For the insincere, the lazy and the stupid it is meaningless and a poor rendition of a service – can’t compare to Mars Hill Church. But, of course, that is exactly the point. We are not professionals who have the time to practice the perfection of worship. We work, feed families, pay bills, get flats on the way to church and can’t afford a new tire. The kids have a test the next day and the management team is showing up at work to run a review. Worship must be done by these kinds of people – us. And while it is thrilling to see someone else perform a ritual of worship excellently, it is I who want to worship and not just feel something at church. It is I who want to woo my wife and no other man, though he may be much the better at it. He might have the time to go to the gym, work out, buy the right clothes and drive the right car. But watching him woo my wife is nothing I want to see. And I want my wife to have the thrill of being wooed by someone who gets it all just right. But I want to woo her myself, however clumsy I might be. And if I am the bride of Christ, it is I who must enter into the romance. No one else can be hired for that job.