I was just bumming around online today and I came across this article , “Is Christian Music Dying?”, in Collide magazine.  I looked at the first couple of paragraphs in print last month, but never got around to reading the whole thing.

The article is a discussion of CCM - Contemporary Christian Music - and whether or not it has a viable future. There are some great lines, a couple of which I’ll look at here, but you should take some time and read it through. McClellan does a good and fair job, in my opinion, of looking critically at Christian music and the Christian music industry.

I’ve never really been a fan of CCM.  I’ve tried it a few times, but I always felt like I was expected to like it just because it was Christian…without worrying about whether or not it was good.  I think there are a couple of fundamental things wrong with the industry that are, in the very near future, going to drain what life is left. (continue reading…)

The advance copy of John Kerry’s speech at Yale Divinity School contains this line:

Somehow, we have to find a way to agree that faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for.

I think it’s absolutely right.  We’re supposed to imitate Jesus; and though he had the power and the authority to do otherwise, died for us, so that we could be forgiven, freed, and redeemed.  The Apostles died similar deaths. To kill in the name of Christ is something that - to be quite honest - doesn’t make enough sense for me to attempt an explanation.  All I can say is that if you claim to be killing in the name of Jesus, you’re really doing it in the name of self.

H/T Michael Paulson.

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I haven’t done 3 Things in a while, so it’s time to get back in the game.

1. Do You

“The Holy Spirit uses Driscoll in a lot of ways. Driscoll can tell you that you are stupid on a Sunday morning and everyone will say, “yes I am, how can I be saved?” But, if you try and be Mark, instead of who God has called you to be, you are going to look like a bunch of jackasses!” Matt Chandler, at Text and Context Conference

We all know who we look up to as a preacher and as a teacher.  And we all know that we want to be just like them.  But if God called us to preach and to teach, then he’s given us our own voice.  If we ignore that voice and try to apprehend someone else’s, we’re not allowing the Spirit to take hold of us and use us as He intends. (continue reading…)

Hemant Mehta, author of I Sold My Soul on eBay, was interviewed in the last issue of Wineskins.  He’s an athiest who set up an eBay auction promising “that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old … says he suspected he had been missing out on something. The winning bidder actually asked him to visit 10-15 church services, then write about them. I was surpised to find that in this interview he said a few things I agree with.

“…the pastors were speaking to a group of believers; however, I still didn’t get the feeling that the various congregations were going to question anything the pastors said.”

“I was shocked because I rarely saw critical thinking going on. I thought the churches would emphasize the reasons for believing a lot more than they actually did.”

“I took the phrase “Bible Study” much more literally than I should have. There was very little questioning of whether we should believe everything we read, and much more of “The Bible says it so it must be true.” I’m sure Christians would become stronger in their faith with more of the former…”

(continue reading…)

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