Via Dark Christianity:

Steve Sjogren at pastors.com writes: Don’t be original, be effective!

I would like to submit this article as evidence of one reason people like me, who pride themselves on critical thought, are driven away from Christianity.

Sjogren addresses the question of how much material not his own (I’d say his/her own here, normally, but in this context I’m pretty confident Sjogren doesn’t have women in mind) a pastor can incorporate into a sermon. Sjogren’s conclusion is that you can plagiarize all you want, because we’re talking about the good of the Kingdom.

His conclusion doesn’t surprise me, because if your goal is to reel in as many fish as possible, why would you be worried about matters of intellectual property rights? These pastors are fighting a war, and that war is fought from the pulpit. In times of war you do whatever it takes to win. If that means preaching, word-for-word a vintage Billy Graham sermon every single week, as Dr. Cho, pastor of Yoido Church in Korea (incidentally the largest church in the world) does, so be it.

Evangelical Christianity is not interested in exploration or interrogation of big ideas. That is what all religions attempt to address — the big ideas, the ideas that are beyond our grasp, but we try to understand them anyway, because we’re human. The questions of existence, good, evil, life, and death. Evangelical is interested in staying on message, in making the sale. Evangelical Christianity sells a product, and when you’re selling a product, you find the best way to sell it and you don’t fix what ain’t broke. Why would Dr. Cho risk a drop in his sales if he can guarantee increasing returns with a tried-and-true pitch?

When evangelical Christianity is selling a product, this approach makes perfect sense. Heaven forbid that a pastor actually exegete or illuminate scripture in a new way.

Plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas and claiming them as your own. That’s the academic definition, anyway, and by that definition, pastors like Rick Warren who listen to “two or three sermon tapes a day” and incorporate whatever ideas they like into their sermons are plagiarists.

The thing is, for many, a good sermon should include ideas and words from other sources. Those include the Bible, commentary texts and other books, and for the really hip and with-it pastors, cultural references. And most pastors with academic backgrounds will duly credit their sources.

But if there are indeed, as Sjogren says, many who don’t — well, that doesn’t inspire much confidence from the rest of the world, does it? The rest of us who have been taught that plagiarism, claiming someone else’s ideas as your own, is wrong. You don’t have to have a university or journalism-school background to have internalized those values; you (should have) learned that in junior high or high school, at least.

When it comes to Sjogren’s claim that originality is a form of pride, I wonder. All these pastors who forsake originality, and therefore pride, by preaching sermons they did not write — when their audience members come up to them after the service, shake their hands and say, “Excellent message, Pastor!,” do they divulge the origin of the sermon (Billy Graham, 1974; Bill Hybels, 1993)?

In the end, Sjogren’s stance on this issue reinforces the perceptions of folks like me, who believe that most Christians and churches have no interest in thoughtfully investigating their beliefs, their scriptures, their logic, their philosophy, their religion. Not, at least, when there’s a sale to be made.

technorati tags: pastors, christianity, religion, plagiarism, rick warren, steve sjogren, preching, sermons

Here’s a good way to start off the long (in Canada) weekend!

Trailer for The Ten Commandments as summer teen comedy.

technorati tags: video, movies, youtube, comedy

“I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer at the front saying ‘This is fiction.’” McKellen responded. “I mean walking on water? I mean, it takes an act of faith.”

In Winnipeg, we have something called New Life Ministries, run by a guy named Harry Lehotsky. Harry is a New York state native who misspent part of his youth doing some hard living, but changed his ways when he woke up one morning in the gutter (literally).
Now he’s a pastor who works tirelessly to improve the West End of Winnipeg. New Life buys up condemned apartment buildings and houses and renovates them into clean, safe, affordable housing in a neighbourhood where you might get the last thing, but not the first two. Last year New Life renovated a derelict movie theatre and adjacent building into a performance hall and restaurant. Now bands and movies play at the theatre and the restaurant is a bright, friendly room that serves tasty and well-priced food.

Harry Lehotsky works the system, lobbies City Hall, fights off massage parlours and spends his time trying to make life better for the people of the West End. He and I aren’t on the same page when it comes to certain issues (he ran as a Conservative in a provincial election a few years back), but no one can deny this guy is a positive force in our city.

Today Harry Lehotsky was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, which, as you may know, is pretty much the worst cancer you can get.
My dad knows Harry through all the pastoral things; my mom’s friends with his wife; my brother and I are friends with one of his sons.

So on a personal level, this whole thing is distressing because you know Virginia and Brandon and his brothers Jared and Matthew are going through hell. I know what it’s like to sit in the waiting room in intensive care while your dad on the ward. It really freakin’ sucks.

But then there’s that other level, the fact that if we lose Harry, everyone in Winnipeg does, too.

I know a lot of you reading are praying people, and if that’s the case, now would be the time. I personally always expect the worse when it comes to these things. Sometimes people are healed. Sometimes they aren’t. But you have to hope.

UPDATE: He’s out of the hospital now, but the doctors have given him two weeks to nine months.

I suppose iTunes realized this week that not everyone is a music geek and spat out a random list that’s far more accessible than the last. (Read: there are seven bands/artists on this list that you have no good excuse for not recognizing!) (Unless you’ve been in the mission field, or something.)

“Alright (Blackwatch Radio Mix),” Kinnie Starr
“There Is a Light that Never Goes Out,” the Smiths
“Sing for Absolution,” Muse
“She Bop,” Cyndi Lauper
“Belleville Jungle,” Les Triplettes de Belleville
“Death to Death,” Stars
“L.O.V.E.” Frank Sinatra
“Black Math,” the White Stripes
“Transatlanticism,” Death Cab for Cutie
“Good Music,” the Roots

In other news, today I am grateful for Twisty and her principled stand against the scourge of online communication, the ellipsis. If I were a famous blogger I’d institute the same policy.

Sometimes when you’re in the majority and attempt to curtail the minority’s rights to the things you enjoy, the minority gets all uppity about it. The minority might refuse to be ashamed of their “deviance” and declare that they are proud to be who they are.

As a card-carrying member of the majority, what do you do?

This.
Often in feminist circles when women are discussing how oppressive the patriarchy is, a man will show up to declare that he too is oppressed! And maybe he is. But not for being male.

This isn’t the same thing, of course, but it’s just as obnoxious.

Visit their about page for more info on the heterosexual agenda. Basically, these folks are ferverent in their defense of heteronormativity. Girls must behave as girls, and therefore must be taught how to behave girlishly by women. Boys must behave as boys, and therefore must be taught how to behave boyishly by men.

Lesser_gods on the Dark Christianity LJ community said:

I would like to see someone pointing out to them that, by their logic, it would still be okay for lesbian couples to raise girls, and gay male couples to raise boys.

But as usafpa says, they’d have an answer for that, too:

Oh no. that means they would teach teh boy to wash dishes and make beds. That will never do. The lesbians might make the little girl change the oil in the car.

Part of the conservative Christian fight against the queer community has to do with the verses in the Bible that ostensibly condemn a man lying with a man and so forth, but the other part has to do with gender and the belief that God intends for us to adhere to a strictly binary, firmly defined set of gender expression. My favourite and yours, Crazy Jim Dobson is big on this. That’s why Focus on the Family has two magazines for teenagers, one for girls which talks about preparing yourself for your future husband and one for boys which talks about how masturbating is bad for you. Not to mention the books about raising boys to be boys so they don’t turn out gay.

On a lighter note, I found it very amusing that the image on the frontpage they’ve got this image — two women, side by side, with one wearing a rainbow vest.

One other point of hilarity and/or terror: check out the similarity between one of their t-shirt designs and a Nazi logo.

technorati tags: homosexuality, religion, christianity, heteronormativity, focus on the family, gender

So I think I’m gonna quit church again. This week really managed to rub me the wrong way. Does the worship leader have to announce that “One thing we all have in common is that we believe Jesus is _______” (fill in the blanks). Look, I know evangelicals have a distaste for all things pomo, but can’t we at least acknowledge that everyone in the service might not accept the same doctrinal points? Forget disagreements between Christians, because individual churches do tend to be communities of like-minded people as an obvious result. But aren’t you alienating any of those precious “seekers” who might be in the crowd, let alone semi-re-lapsed Christians like me?

To quote Gob Bluth (I’ve been on an Arrested Development bender lately), come on!

Then the sermon was all about how people who are believing in Jesus are going to heaven and those who don’t are going to hell. Yawn. Actually, it might have been more interesting but I got thirsty in the first five minutes of the sermon and had to take a water break, then I got sidetracked in the lobby by various things like two-month-old babies named Tobias (coincidence? I think not!).

I’d like to take this opportunity to shout out to Eddie(F) at Edge of Faith who, after much deliberation and study, is leaving the Christian faith for good. Now he gets to enjoy the patronizing remarks of still-Christians who comment that this is all part of his “journey.” In my experience, there is nothing more obnoxious than that, because the implication in the word “journey” is that journeys are OK as long as you end up with Jesus in the end. Stephen Colbert put it well last week at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

“And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion - be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

It’s funny because it’s terrifying because it’s true.

technorati tags: stephen colbert, christianity, religion, politics, church, jesus