I can’t believe I didn’t post this! It wasn’t until my brother mentioned his desire to post about it that I remembered. So I’m beating him to the punch.

I went to church on Christmas Eve morning (it always seems like such a good idea. Then once the service starts I find myself in deep regret) with the aforementioned brother. When we went out to the parking lot after, we (OK, Mark) discovered this exact tableau on the asphalt:

In case you can’t read the fine print, the text on the kazoo reads “Jesus Loves Me.” And yes, that is a yellow condom.

My brother and I have this tradition of me buying him t-shirts from Threadless. This I do mostly out of self-interest so my brother doesn’t look like a hobo. Also, I love him, I guess.

Anyway, I like to buy when they have their $10 sales, as they do right now. And when I saw this one, I thought, YES.

It is entitled “BFF.”*

(Check out the product page, with more pictures, here.)

I hesitated because I thought that maybe he wouldn’t actually wear it that much. I knew he’d wear it to Bible college, where he’s in his last year of studies, just to get a rise out of his classmates. But once he graduates and presumably becomes a youth pastor?

I think he’s going to buy it for himself, though. I mean, $10 sale!

*For those of you who are challenged in the arena of pop-culture initialisms, “BFF” stands for “Best Friends Forever.”

Ah, Friday. The day of unabashed meme-blogging and, what else? CJD (Crazy Jim Dobson) Wingnuttery!

Pandagon has the story, but it can be best summed up with this line from the Focus on the Family site:

We know dogs aren’t born mooing. But what about people? Are they “born gay?”

You know it’s bad when they don’t even bother to create the pretense of making sense anymore. Dogs… mooing… gay… science…

I’m really trying, here.

Friday Random Ten
“I Everwith,” Blunderspublik
“Warm,” Kinnie Starr
“Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” Neko Case
“Strugglin’,” K’naan
“The Grass is Blue,” Dolly Parton
“Enjoy,” Bjork
“Back it Up,” Peaches
“AFK,” Pinback
“Yesterday Is Here,” Cat Power
“Life Effect,” Stars

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

I have something to share with you.

It’s a little video, and it’s bizarre, and non-sequitur and involves Kirk Cameron.

Click here to watch a guy explain how bananas prove the existence of God.

Make sure you watch until the end, that’s when it gets truly surreal.

Mercifully, Kirk Cameron does not speak.

technorati tags: kirk cameron, creationism, evolution, christianity, video, fruit