In the News

Christians in America: The New Minority?

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The other day I asked whether Christians were a majority in this country. Few refuted that idea.

About six weeks ago, Newsweek published a story asking if it is the end of Christian America. (Please consider reading the piece).  In rebuttal, Mark Driscoll, one of the more polarizing nationally recognized new Church leaders, believes that the decline in numbers is merely the chaff falling away. (Please read the Driscoll comments.)

Are the days we live in pointing to the threshing floor? What are we to believe about the perceived decline in Christian America? And is such a decline inevitable considering that revival burns hot in non-Western countries?

Your thoughts are appreciated!

Haterz?

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I’m not much of a TV watcher. I think that too many of us in the American Church spend far too much time watching TV and not enough doing what Jesus commanded us to do.

I watch two shows a week, and normally tape the one for viewing during peak downtime. I’ve enjoyed Antiques Roadshow for years (I think it’s the aesthete in me), plus I started watching the show Fringe this season. That show is much like a former obsession of mine, The X-Files. So as much as I said I wasn’t going to get involved in another series, I got caught up in Fringe. (And was devastated by the show’s story arc, which I’ll leave for another post.)

A weird thing happened in watching Fringe, though: It didn’t always start at 9 p.m.  sharp on Tuesday nights because it followed American Idol, which ran long many nights. Idolatry on parade?That meant I always saw a few carryover bits of the final Idol performances of the evening.

I can’t speak as an Idol aficionado, but Adam Lambert has to be one of the best performers I have ever seen—anywhere. He not only has a set of pipes, he was riveting to watch. His performance of “Mad World” was a tour de force. I thought to myself, How can this guy not win?

My tapes captured a couple performances by Danny Gokey and Kris Allen, and time and again, I kept thinking, How did these guys make it so far into this competition? They weren’t bad; they just had nothing extra going for them, something which Lambert had in spades, even from the limited number of performances I saw of him.

So, I was checking the news on CNN.com this last week, and noticed one of the most commented upon links from their entertainment blog was about the Idol outcome. Seems that Kris Allen won, a surprising and disappointing outcome, at least as I saw it. I mean, what was up with the voters?

Then I read the comments on the CNN blog. Here are some samples (all sic):

I guess we can thank those hatefilled, intolerant, homophobic Christians for this injustice. I am so sick and tired of those people. I used to be polite to them, but no more.

Another Christ loving Heterosexual male who wont sell albums… way to go America.

…yes it was a robbery because the only thing about Kris is that he’s a christian and you homophobic people would rather keep talent down to pump yourselves up. Kris is horrible he had 2 good songs all season and isn’t even as good as Allison is. he should have been gone a long time ago but he didn’t win and i mean didn’t win based on talent it was based on religion and that Adam is different and that shakes your whole damm world. Even he had to address the issue of religion and didn’t want to win based on that well he won and only based on that.

Obviously the Falwell coalition lives on and regardless of Adam’s true sexuality, the rumor flourished enough to cause “Jesus freaks to triumph. The sad thing is that Kris is really a cookie cutter talent. Vocals are along the lines of most boy bands of the past. Adam was the true talent and unique in his singing and stage appearance. He will do like Clay Aiken did and sell a hundred times more albums as Kris will become the winner, much like Taylor, where you scratch your head and say, “He won Idol? Really?!

I am sick of all you people (i.e BODEE!!! {Note: the first comment above}) . What is your problem???? Kris didn’t win because he is a Christian anymore than Adam lost because he is gay. GET OVER YOURSELVES!

NOBODY CARES! But if they did, you are going to have to face the fact that Christians ARE the majority in the country…no matter how much you , Perez Hilton, Obama and the Democrats stomp your feet and cry foul…

Well, the Christians spoiled the vote, but as they say †“ the devil has the best tunes.

Go Adam.

And on and on…

Well, I had no idea that Kris was a Christian, though he exuded plenty of that harmless Michael W. Smith boyishness that so many young women adore. And as far as I can tell from Googling, Adam’s never come out and said he’s a homosexual, so I don’t exactly get that point.

But none of this, in the long run, has to do with American Idol. This post has everything to do with the comments on CNN’s blog. As there are almost 1,500 of them, they make for interesting reading. Definitely a good representation of where America is in 2009.

Over at the Huffington Post,  Michael Giltz commented on this phenomenon of Christians voting as a bloc for the most Christian of the contestants. He posted this partly t0ngue-in-cheek, but I’m not so sure he’s wrong. I know many Christians who watch Idol, and some do almost as an obsession. I can imagine they are voting for their faves en masse. And until this disputed outcome of the show, I had no idea that people could vote more than once. Seems like the Bible Belt was certainly throwing a few multiple votes Kris Allen’s way.

So here are my questions:

1. In the same way that we have the Ugly American, have we created the Ugly Christian? What are the characteristics of such a creature?

2. Are Christians the majority? And if they are, what kind of Christians are they?

3. Are Christians obligated to choose a Christian over a non-Christian, no matter what the focus of the choice might be ?

4. What’s up with Christians supporting blandness? What Christian artists of the past rocked the world with their controversial works?

5. Suppose one of the finalists on Idol were openly homosexual. Would it be a sin to vote for him/her? What does that answer say about the Church in this country?

I’ve talked with a few folks over the holiday weekend about this, and their answers surprised me. What do you think?

More Cowbell VII!

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Gene, give that sucker a whack for me, eh?Cerulean Sanctum’s More Cowbell Award,  given to the most ridiculous aspects of “Christian” practice, has not been handed out since October 2007, and since “time may be running out,” I better bestow another while I still can.

I start this seventh award by asking, Has there ever been a more bloodthirsty, demon-driven culture than the Maya?

The Maya of Mesoamerica practiced ritualized slayings of enemies and willing victims as part of a large number of religious festivals. These sacrificial victims often had their hearts carved out of their chests while still alive. The Mayan gods were animistic demons to whom the Maya offered perverted blood sacrifices, a complete corruption of the one genuine blood sacrifice that truly mattered, that of Jesus.

Oh, and then there’s that wacky Mayan calendar. You know, the one famously set to run out of time at the end of 2012.

So how is this a Cerulean Sanctum post, you ask.

Well, if you’re like me, you’ve received spam from supposedly Christian sources attempting to link the lack of a 2013 in the Mayan calendar with the Second Coming of Christ. Yes, indeed, June 2009 marks 3½ years before the end of that calendar. And we all know how the numbers 3½ and 7 figure into speculation about Christ’s return.

Jesus, however, said this:

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. ”
—Mark 13:32-33

You know, I take that as pretty authoritative, as it comes from the mouth of Jesus. Yet there are “Christians” out there who are willing to state that the heart-extracting, demon-worshipping Mayans have got one up on the Lord of All. With all apologies to the original lyricist of the classic children’s song, those folks seem to be singing, “Jesus may not truly know, but the Maya tell us so.”

Good grief.

But before we set to stoning the New Age syncretists behind this “Mayan Calendar Predicts Jesus’ Return” garbage, need I remind anyone of a couple sets of dates:

7/7/07

Rosh Hashanah,  September 1988

The first was the “magic number” trotted out by a bunch of charismaniacs. We all know from the Bible that 7 is a blessed number, so let’s all go crazy and predict that Jesus will come back on a day filled with that number. All I can say in response is that the Rapture must’ve been really, really small, and not too many of us passed muster, apparently.

Now I’m generally a contrarian, but even I was struck by how many sane Christians  decided to spend the entire day of July 7, 2007, praying. A fine endeavor on its own, yes, but let’s get real about why they were doing it. And if they were doing it for that reason, they were doing it wrong.

As to the second date, I was working in a Christian bookstore when the infamous 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be  in 1988 came out. I urged the owners of the store to send the book back to the distributor. They didn’t listen. I didn’t last too long at that store afterwards.

That summer of 1988, I worked at a Christian camp. Everyone was talking about the book. A lot of the young, Evangelical staff wondered if they would be raptured as virgins, thus missing out on the be all and end all of life. Evidently, the senior class of Cedarville Bible College (not too far away from where I live) thought the same thing, but they remedied their fear the old fashioned way: by marrying in droves before that second week in September. (I’ve always wondered how many of those couples are still together.)

I know people may not remember this, but earnest believers, especially in the Bible Belt, sold their houses, stock, and all manner of goods just so they could be unencumbered when that decisive week in September 1988 rolled around.  Some went so far as to euthanize their pets  so that Muffin and Bowser—who, being soulless beasts, would not be raptured—didn’t wind up as  animal sacrifices atop the altars of millions of Satanists who would be left behind.

You may laugh, but I’m not joking. I have no doubts that a few folks reading this are saying to themselves, Yeah, I was one of those fruitcakes.

I’d blame the false prophets behind this kind of stuff ordinarily, but they only pander to the crowd.

So this More Cowbell Award instead goes to

People who listen to lying prophets about the date for the Rapture.

I mean, this is a no brainer, folks. This doesn’t require any major spiritual discernment when Mark 13:32-33 exists in every Bible I’ve ever read.

Why not try this instead: Live every day as if Jesus was coming back tomorrow.

Sound good?

Word of warning: If no posts show up here after today, you’ll know I was done in by a shadowy cabal of book publishers who make a bazillion dollars off Christians by marketing  according to the old adage There’s a sucker born every minute.

Or I was raptured.

😉