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Pretending to be a Christian

matt — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:03:17 +0000

I saw several links to this story on the New York Times Freakonomics blog this past week about a family in Texas that pretends to be Christians so that their children can socialize with other members of the community.

We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended.

This type of behavior coming from people claiming to be followers of Jesus is just so contrary to how he lived his own life. Reading comments on various blogs seems to show that this is probably more common than most Christians would like to think. People are pressured into ‘acting religious’ in order to fit into their community or families or to keep a job or other position where someone in power is forcing religion on them. What is so sad about this is that the people who are pressuring this family to behave this way are missing out on some great conversations and friendships.

If we really cared about them and wanted them to see true Christianity in action, then we’d seek them out for play dates and social interactions before those who were regular church attenders. Compare the behavior this family encountered with the way Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, or his interaction with Zacchaeus, an outcast of Jewish society in Luke 19:1-10.

What? Evangelical != Republican?

matt — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:47:26 +0000

There’s a very interesting article in this Sunday”s New York Times about an Evangelical church in Minnesota that has (somewhat) rejected the Republican party”s stranglehold on their church. The Senior Pastor, Greg Boyd preached a series of sermons on the hot issues (morality, abortion, taking back the country for God, etc – all of these are linked off the NYT article). The result? Maybe up to 1,000 of 5,000 members left, but those who stayed had interesting things to say. Some of the comments reflect the peer pressure that Christian Republicans place on other Christians to vote and think Republican – or else! It can be difficult to speak up and not agree with the current set of Republican talking points if you are in an Evangelical church today.

It looks like Greg Boyd has written a book based on the sermon series that the article is based on: The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church. I might have to get a copy. I wonder if this will be a start of a trend?

eBible Beta

matt — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:40:39 +0000

I got my eBible alpha/beta (their blog uses both terms) membership today, and spent a little time checking it out. There are some very impressive AJAX effects, including verse highlighting, side-by-side bible reading, and flyover commentaries for each verse. It was also pretty speedy, so hopefully they are ready for a full launch next week.

There are a few interactive features – like the ability to tag and search tagged verses, storing bookmarks, and seeing who last tagged a verse. However, I don”t see too much in the way of community building – it looks like more of a resource site that is trying to sell Christian literature (which is not a bad thing). The ads are not too obtrusive, and it looks like they have a few companies publishing ads now (and while they”re in beta, it looks like the ads are free).

I have 3 invites, let me know if you want one.