Whom would Jesus whack?

Another sign Pat Robertson hasn’t really been following Jesus for decades.

Back in the heyday of what we call “the priest abuse scandal” (as if someone’s abusing priests, rather than it being about certain priests abusing children) I was teaching at a Christian school, and I suggested that my sixth grade class pray for the church because of what we’d have to go through as a result.

“But we’re not Catholics,” one of the kids said. (She didn’t know that half her class was Catholic. She just assumed this, since the school was connected with a Pentecostal church.)

“That doesn’t make any difference,” I pointed out. “Catholics are Christians, and to every pagan, a Christian is a Christian, and we’re gonna get flak for what other Christians do.”

Same deal with Pat Robertson. He’s a charismatic Evangelical Protestant, which means there are three groups that are gonna have to denounce him for calling for the assassination of Venezuela’s president. To the pagans, this is just another example of typical Christian lunacy. To the Christians—well, televangelists are an embarrassment anyway, and Robertson is one of the worst of the bunch.

Reading 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘑𝘢𝘻𝘻.

Kent’s Recommended Read:
Donald Miller:
Blue Like Jazz

Kerry was off rafting today, so while I had a few hours free I read her new book, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.

She’s likely going to tell me in a day or so, “You really ought to read this book,” and then I’ll have to confess that I read it Sunday afternoon, and that’ll just annoy her. ’Cause I didn’t just browse through it, I read it. The whole thing. That’s how quickly I go through books. This book will take her days to get through. So this annoys her a lot.

…Which makes no sense to me. I’m not annoyed that she knows more about music than I do. I expect her to; she has a B.A. in music education, for crying out loud. I expect her to excel in the things she has a knack for. As for me, my knack is reading an entire book in an afternoon. (Especially one that only has 256 pages, and several of them had one-panel cartoons on them. To be fair, it’s pretty slim compared to what I usually read. But it’s dense thinking.)

Since I read it, I may as well plug it a little.

The book’s title is misleading. He prefers the term “Christian spirituality” to Christianity because non-Christians don’t know what “Christianity” means (and, to be fair, neither do many Christians—and it’s supposed to mean Christian spirituality) and he calls his observations “nonreligious” even though they are. They aren’t couched in Christian-ese; maybe that’s what he means by nonreligious. The book is quite definitely Miller’s religious thoughts about Christianity; but what makes it unique is that he’s a member of the Christian Left rather than the Christian Right, and he’s a really good writer.

More stuff is available on his website.

Cookie Monster has to be the parent.

I was reading about how Sesame Street has decided that Cookie Monster promotes childhood obesity, so they're gonna have him now promote the idea that cookies are "sometimes" food.

Cookie Monster promotes childhood obesity? What are they babbling about?

When I watched Sesame Street, these many many years ago, I don't recall that Cookie Monster promoted anything other than comedy. The poor dumb bastard was presented with cookies, then we watched as his id battled with his superego about whether or not he was going to eat 'em, and in the end he always did. I say "eat" but since the Muppets have no actual mouth-hole, it was more like "crumble to little bits that fly everywhere." That was actually funnier. He had no self-control when it came to cookies. Hence the name "Cookie Monster."

I had no self-control either; but I was a child and didn't know any better. That's what parents are for. They limited me to three cookies, or two donuts, or one pack of Twinkies, or whatever junk food was around. This may have been because I got uncontrollably hyper when I did eat sugar, but my parents also recognized that you don't just give kids whatever they want, whenever they want it.

Most parents currently make that mistake. It's easier to give in; they spend more time having "fun" with the kids instead of arguing with them (or so they think; it never actually turns out that way); they figure, "I have the money, so I can afford it"; and (worst of all) they don't want to deprive their kids in the same way that they were deprived when they were kids. Never mind that deprivation taught them to succeed so that they could get what they wanted; they've blotted that part of their lives out of their minds and don't think about it anymore. As a result their kids won't be deprived; and they won't succeed either. They'll just expect things to be given to them automatically. Like they do now.

It's sad that Cookie Monster has to make up for the parents' sloppy jobs.

Of course my own addictions include Cheez-Its. I often turn into Cheez-It Monster (left) but believe it or not, what got me off those square orange opiates is the fact that the price went up to more than $2 per box.

Recommended reading. The Internet Monk’s comments on five things your youth minister needs to hear. Because they do. You've likely heard me rant enough about youth ministers anyway; I like his comments a lot.

Recommended listening. The last two Wired Jesus Podcast episodes about why some guy isn't a Christian. It's interesting to listen to, especially since I have a similar background and yet I turned out Christian and he didn't. But hey, if your Christianity is based on logic, you're in trouble. For every logic statement Jesus made, he pitched two paradoxes. That's just what the kingdom is like. Deal with it.