If you can't do something right...

Pope Gregory the Great got it right, "We do no harm in wishing to show the invisible by means of the visible" or how I like to read it, "We do no harm in wishing to show the invisible by means of decent film making."
As well as having a badass name Pope G.T.G knew libri idiotarum was Latin for, 'The books of the illiterate' and their necessity in the church, because people who can't read still need to connect with the story, and people who don't waste their time with poor media still need to know Jesus.
Because not only will they refuse to go to church, or watch anything on the faith networks, they won't pick up "evangelical" magazines regardless of how "edgy" they look or even read the "christian" harry potters. The odds are the same as an illiterate farmer studying from a Greek Bible. How do I know? Cause I sure wouldn't bother if I were them. Other than a few morsels of religion I feel obligated to swallow I don't really enjoy them either. So even though they have the basic motor skills to interpret a Christian movie, they shouldn't want to sit through it, at-least until evangelicals start making films for the sake of good film making. If all evangelical media were technically and creatively above par the world would take notice, any attention at the moment is unwarranted.

I think P. g2g would agree with me, "if you can't do something smart, do something right."

How Robots have Ruined Everything - Another guest blog by David Ward

I was wrestling a bear the other day, and I thought to myself: "I should start a blog for myself. That would be rad." So why am I still writing on Steve's blog, you ask? Well, we have robots to thank for that.

Freeze Ray, stops time, tell your friends

I wonder if God laughs...

I mean, he seems like a serious Guy. So serious I even had to capitalize “guy”
(glancing fearfully at the ceiling, I went back and changed it). But deep down I have to believe he would laugh if he stumbled upon Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, or read the web comic XKCD. I want to imagine him as that outlandish uncle that would sometimes pop in for dinner as a kid, a big guy with a bushy moustache and a booming voice that you could hear laughing for miles. Everyone would sit enthralled by his stories late into the night. “So there was this one time,” and we would freeze with food in limbo between our plates and faces, listening. From his stories I learned about life and love and faith, “how it really is”.
I like to think that Jesus’ parables were something like that; this carpenter guy would come for supper and tell some damn good stories, and you felt somehow wiser afterwards.

This is an excerpt from Quentin’s passage on Evangelicals use of the internet for delighting,
“In addition, evangelicals frequently enjoy witty online interaction and exchange delightful expressions of faith. Blogs demonstrate that evangelicals take pleasure in poking fun at themselves, too. ‘What should a good sermon be about,’ asks one website? Answer: ‘about God and about ten minutes.’ So much for long winded preachers!”

Stop it Quentin, that’s enough delight for one day.

Five lines about “delighting” are all Quent could fit in his 11 page chapter on Pilgrims in Cyberspace.

I wonder if God laughs...

God is a cancer

In an article entitled, 'Demons in the Christian bookstore', writer Larry M. Lake writes about "apocalyptic demon-hunting novels" such as This Present Darkness, and Left Behind and how they may restore Christians acknowledgement of the spiritual world but also give readers unrealistic expectations about spiritual life.
Lake also wondered if such books are reflecting "Christian dissatisfaction with the mundane ordinariness of real life in our culture."
I think he hits the mark here, Christians should never be satisfied with mundane or the ordinary. He also talks of a retired missionary pilot who was confused when publishers reviewing his memoirs wondered if there weren't more stories of spiritual warfare or "weird happenings."
Yes I believe spiritual growth tends to be slow and measured, but I think Lake is underestimating how painful and hard growth is. Careful loading of a seaplane is not conducive to growth, slow and measured actually requires pain and "weird happenings." It is hard enough to keep up our spirituality but to actually grow we have to constantly strive after more of God. And I don't think we can ever underestimate the Almighty. I wouldn't call Saul's conversion on the way to Damascus as slow and measured. Neither would I call Paul's life mundane.
And if "apocalyptic demon-hunting novels" help young people to become dissatisfied with their average life and begin to beg God for more miracles or to see angels and have their spiritual life grow like "a cancer cell", would that be so bad?

The Problem with Knives - A Special Guest post by David Ward

I was cliff jumping yesterday, and I started thinking: "Knives are an integral part of daily life." Think about it. Do it. How many things do you think you cut up in a day? I thought of about fourteen different things in about a minute, and I am sure that there are more. A slice of bread, a box, etc. Knives have more than one use as well. Think of how hard it would be to prepare a piece of delicious, delicious toast without a knife to spread the jam.

Yet knives are not always used for good or wholesome purposes. Some people throw knives into trees. Some people even use knives to cut things that people don't want to be cut, like important legal documents or car tires. I've even heard that some people use knives to inflict physical and emotional pain on other human beings. This depraved use of knives saddens me. Every time I cut my food into smaller, bite-sized pieces, I can't help but think of some hooligan cutting up an important legal document into smaller, bite-sized pieces. (I do not imply that the hooligan wants to eat the legal document, but the pieces are nonetheless bite-sized.)

So how do we then proceed? Do we do away with knives altogether, and start making sandwiches with two entire loaves of bread instead of slices? Or do we eat our conveniently sized sandwiches while turning a blind eye to the billions of knife related infringements on happiness that happen daily? The answer is responsibility here, people.

Evangelicals are the cats pajamas, the bee's knees

Why do Christians always feel so smug? It could come from the fact that we have the only tickets to heaven but why do we have to create sub sections? Heaven isn't a club and the Evangelical "tribe" isn't the V.I.P section.
The foreword to Shultze's book by Clifford G. Christians begins, "I read this book and hear the New York Philharmonic. The aesthetic harmony of a symphony orchestra sounds from its pages."
Really?... Really Clifford? You hear that? It sounds more like you are advertising your own high brow taste in music. But it doesn't stop there.
In chapter 5, Ken Waters writes, "Hundreds of print-based Protestant and Catholic periodicals are regularly published. The most vibrant ones are associated with the evangelical movement in American History. He goes on to list numerous Christian publications with wowing numbers of subscription. But he laments that they cannot find new readers because mainstream bookstores and new-stands do not carry them but instead people have to go to Christain book stores. "vibrant but invisible".
I am finding it hard to stomach this evangelical spin on media. Its leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. It seems to me that what they are truly achieving is creating content, by evangelicals for evangelicals. And that seems like the opposite of what their name implies. I wouldn't find it annoying except that the writers in this book seem convinced they are doing a bang up job at what they do when it seems to me that they are merely creating content and then patting themselves on the back. I wouldn't call that evangelical media but media for evangelicals.
I agree that these publications can "combat sin, edify believers" but "change the course of history"? Not any more. C.S Lewis said it best that what the world needs is less Christians, or tribes of evangelicals, writing Christian books, and more Christians simply writing.

Hikikmori vs. Bookworms, judge Otaku presiding

Violence, nudity, innuendoes and offensive language usually meant a movie was out of consideration at the video rental place as a kid. If a film had to resort to such things its message was somehow irrelevant or just bad. As an adult however, I would agree that children should not be watching such films but I would have to assume that other adult Christians should be mature enough in their convictions and faith to be able to learn and think deeper after watching a good movie, despite its "grittier" content. But I was intrigued with the idea that the effect of a medium's form may be more powerful than its content.
In an article in chapter 1 of ‘Understanding Evangelical Media,’ Michael Jindra suggests that the form of video games, regardless of content, might have a greater effect than most think of, in particular its power to inhibit social relationships and "real" community.

Video games are a very real staple in my college dorm. Most of my friends play video games and a large part of our free time is spent playing cooperatively or competitively. This is stark contrast to the idea that, “some men lock themselves away in their rooms after dinner, playing online network games all night long, and then sleep half of the following day. Unlike bookworms, they don’t even go to the library or a café to read and thereby chance upon meeting a friend.”

Ouch.

This is not the picture I see every day. I come back to dorm in between classes and at any given time I can find anywhere from 2 to 8 guys in my room playing 4 to a TV with others watching and commentating. If anything gaming in dorm has brought many people together who may never have taken the time to say hello. Now they have something to talk about and from there life long friendships could, dare I say, blossom?

I have never seen a roomful of reading college students explode into cheering and yelling every couple of seconds. And when we play, we keep the door open for anyone to wander in and join in the virtual fray, and go to supper together afterwards. We don’t leave it to chance.