Room 101
This
section is devoted to things that bug me. And to things that bug other
people. It's going to be too easy to just fill this up with what annoys
me, so it's open you to Email
me with your own Bêtes
Noirs. I'll put them up whether I agree with them or not, but you'll
have to put up with my editorial...so rant about the evils of Heavy Metal
at your peril...
It's simple enough. Tell me what should go in the repository of all that is terrible, and why. If it's terrible enough, I'll let it in. If I think you've got to live with it, then you have to. Ripped off of the telly programme of the same name...
The Entries:
It's the laughing stock element here folks.
Listen:
I went around the Christian Aid tent at Greenbelt this year, where they had a display about life for the poorest in Jamaica. Folks live in abject poverty, partially because the G8 conference hasn't dropped the debts of the poorest countries - we prefer to take more from them in interest payments than we give in aid, partially because we rip them off rotten for coffee, tea and other third world products.
Since I sat here yesterday 40,000 children died of hunger.
And what is the Evangelical Alliance and similar groups whingeing on about? Harry Potter. Yes folks - 40,000 children can die of hunger and we don't give a shit, but a book about a boy who's learning to be a wizard, well that's really important isn't it?
WAKE UP!
Or rather, "Thus Saith my Imagination but I'll give it divine authority so you won't dare to disagree".
This is fine except when it's not the Lord at all. I'm fed up with 'prophecies' out of people's arses. You know the kind of thing - 'I have a picture of a river, with only a trickle coming down it, but there is a damn which will break and there will be torrents. The Lord is saying that at the moment there are only a few coming to faith, but in this mission he's going to break the damn and.....' and it's always a load of crap!
I've got a 'Thus Saith the Lord' for you amateur prophets. Check out in the Old Testament how you know a real prophet - he gets it right - and what happens to false ones - it involves stones.
Why is it that we are expected to sing anything from the banal to the ridiculous in Church? I ask you, can you sing: "My heart's one desire is to be holy" without your fingers crossed, honestly?
And "In his presence" do "our problems disappear"? Really? That's not Christianity, boys and girls, that's cocaine, as Mike Yaconelli said.
And it's not just the new kids on the block. Are all our problems really because we don't 'take it to the Lord in prayer?'. Hell, that makes me feel just great!
And when they're not ridiculous, it's banal. Clichés strung together to tunes that Karen Carpenter would have thought better of in the cold light of day.
God deserves better than this. Your organist deserves better than this. You deserve better than this.
Facts
First!
Why is it that some people are more concerned about whether people have their doctrine right than what their attitude to God is?
These are the people who think that a good way to evangelise a bunch of Biology students is to lecture them on Creationism, rather than to tell them about the wonderful love of Christ. I mean, what`s important here?
Whether you believe the right things about the way God made the world -- right facts -- or whether you know God? I find it sad that some people would put facts before love.
Crappy
Worship Songs