Inclusion of a resource/presentation does not indicate endorsement of the contents. Provided for educational purposes regarding developments in the fields of religious studies, the humanities and social sciences from a Christian perspective. Issachar Apologetics Collegium is conservative Trinitarian not affiliated with any organized denomination at this time.
Friday, March 27
Priests Mocked For Exposing Yoga’s Cultic Nature
Interesting how professional clergy get all excited about urban ministry yet have seen some remark that their building looks like a “country church”. What’s so wrong with a “country church”? I know must of those folks are White, but don’t they need Jesus too? Apart from massive cathedrals, “country style” churches tend to be the most photogenic.
Wednesday, March 25
Phil Robertson Enunciates One Of The Greatest Apologetic Arguments Of All Time
Homeschool Activist Insists Converts To Catholicism & Anglicanism Little Better Than Serial Killers
In his tirade, Swanson went off on how could anyone could go from the perspective that the just shall live by faith alone to one where an anathema is pronounced upon those that undermine the role of works in securing eternal salvation.
One cannot speak to the nature of the Baptist church attended by these twins in their youth, but in some of these hardline Baptist and Presbyterian churches in Swanson's orbit, often the soteriological formulations on either side of the Reformation divide have degenerated pretty much into a distinction without a difference.
Granted, this particular variety of Protestant talks an exquisite game regarding the nature of salvation as a free gift and how our works are as filthy rags.
However, from the clarifying expositions and admonitions of these pulpit homilists, it is not enough for the believer to strive for the big virtues such as loving your family, refraining from sex outside of marriage, and slipping a few dollars into the collection plate every once in a while.
According to this particular strain of Protestantism, you might not even be a Christian if you don't share particular viewpoint regarding the propriety of denying females access to education, the necessity of begetting more than five children, and the imperative of being married by 25 years of age.
Perhaps more would hold to the liberty that is claimed to be found in Christ if they were allowed to experience the liberty found in Christ rather than being forced into the spiritual slavery found under another form of legalism.
Kevin Swanson isn't even Baptist but rather Presbyterian.
So how would he like it if some fanatic Baptist raved that Presbyterianism was a slide back down into Rome's eventual embrace?
Instead of insinuating that your formerly Baptist child is one step away from being a serial killer if they become a Catholic or Anglican, perhaps Kevin Swanson will also give as much time reflecting upon what might have pushed these individuals away from a Reformed understanding of the faith in the first place.
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, March 24
Southern Baptists Applaud Financially Unprepared Child Marriages
It was said in a sermon that, if one visits a foreign country and one is identified as an American before one is identified as a Christian, there is something wrong in your life. Not necessarily. And what exactly is a distinctive Christian mode of dress? Given that the minister making the remark is explicitly Baptist, it is doubtful that this pastor would think that highly of clergy shirts, habits, vestments, or monastic robes. Secondly, it is not someone’s fault if they look American in terms of their physical appearance. Granted, Europeans often share a similar genetic ancestry with run of the mill Caucasian Americans. However, one is forced to admit that many Europeans possess a more gaunt or malnourished countenance. Just because the residents of the Old World might not be as fastidious in terms of their grooming, it does not follow that Americans are obligated to adopt similar practices of deliberate slovenliness
Atheist Presbyterian Insists It’s Hate Speech To Claim He’s Not A Christian
Jesuit Subversives Call For The Genocide Of The White Race
Monday, March 23
Ministerial Red Lights Necessary To Prevent Ghastly Church Accidents
In one of the the remarks, he observed that one hand must be on the wheel.
He expanded on that declaration by saying, “At the church house, someone has to be in charge. A leader is a necessity. The pastor is the scripturally appointed, God-anointed person to be the leader.”
Smith further clarified, “Many of our churches are sitting idle and getting nowhere because just before they put the pastor in the driver's seat, they tied his hands behind his back...So let's get real! And let's be scriptural about it! Let's get a driver who knows how to handle the vehicle and let him drive it. Amen!”
Very well then.
Let us be scriptural about the matter in compliance with Shelton Smith's admonition.
Where in the corpus of divine revelation is blind obedience to the pastor commanded?
If anything, it seems that quite the opposite might be called for.
Acts 17:11 reads, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scripture every day to see if what Paul said was true (NIV).”
Let's continue a bit with the driving analogies.
Despite dealing with her own doctrinal challenges as she navigates reconciling the demands of celebrity and the Christian faith, Carrey Underwood exclaimed “Jesus, take the wheel.”
How is what Shelton Smith is arguing for that much different in kind than the papal infallibility and the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church where those in the pews are expected to keep their mouths shut if they want to be considered acceptable members?
If anything, isn't the pastor more of a tour guide than a driver that is not to be questioned or challenged?
For is not Christ or the revealed Word of God in Scripture the one theoretically driving this bus?
In the age of the child predator, the fit parent reinforces in the mind of their offspring not to get into a vehicle with someone they don't know, don't trust, or have a suspicious feeling about.
In this day where all kinds of abuse (both spiritual and physical) is taking place in a variety of churches across Christianity's vast theological spectrum, contrary to the impression given by the likes of Josh Harris in his book “Stop Dating The Church”, you as an individual created in the image of God are free to get off the bus of a particular congregation any time you want.
A minister that insists upon broad pastoral powers without teaching that these are curtailed within explicitly delineated boundaries has neglected his responsibilities in a manner not that markedly different than an intoxicated motorist as he veers into lanes in which he ought not to travel.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, March 20
Should Wheaton College Allow Non-Practicing Lesbian To Dispense Spiritual Counsel?
Must Christian Dictatorship Be Implemented To Facilitate Christ’s Return?
Christian Youth Celebrate Moral Degeneracy
Tuesday, March 17
Monday, March 16
Baptist Propagandists Undermine U.S. Immigration Law
It was claimed that God has designed us to naturally defer to those with more training and expertise than we do. At least now there is a high sounding theological justification as to why I tend to find the vast majority of clergy utterly full of it these days.
Sunday, March 15
Friday, March 13
Creflo Dollar Needs 65 Million Of Yours To Afford New Luxury Jet
Does God Want Your Teaching Limited To One Pastor?
Don't Complain About Immaturity & Then Interview Potty Humor Comedian
In particular, it was mentioned that, in Biblical times, an individual was considered an adult at the age of 13.
Yet in contemporary America, the adolescent period can extend into the 20's as education is completed and the young adult strives to figure out their place in the world.
Nothing was said about most being dead by the age of 40 in the era when adulthood was conferred at the age of 13.
However, don't you undermine your own argument when on the same episode you interview a longhaired comedian who proceeds to make a punchline about his bladder freezing in the Wisconsin cold?
Seems to me there is more set in Biblical stone about it being shameful for a man to have long hair then about adulthood being thrust upon thirteen year olds.
by Frederick Meekins
China Insists It Will Be A Cold Day In Hell Before They Let Dali Lama Rest In Peace
Thursday, March 12
Are Christians Obligated To Publicly Insist That Hymns Are Their Favorite Kind Of Music Even If They Aren’t?
Is The Vatican Positioning The World For The Apocalypse?
A blog post at Christianity Today suggests that Evangelicals should reevaluate the moral legacy of Margaret Sanger. Rather than judge her as a founder of abortion front group Planner Parenthood, ethicists are urged to also consider the good that has accrued as a result of families not conceiving more children than they could afford. But in light of the millions that have been aborted as a result of her movement, isn't that akin to extolling Hitler for his appreciation of Germanic culture and efficient railroads.
Wednesday, March 11
Don't Hide Behind Piety During Totalitarianism's Rise
From the clip highlighted as the sound bite of the week, one gets the impression that articulating a defense of the gunned down editorial office's freedom of expression isn't really all that much of a priority.
After all, the ultimate concern of the church is not so much with things such as innate or constitutional liberties but rather with the proclamation of the Gospel message.
That might be true in regards to those called to the ministry in the strictest sense of that narrow vocation.
However, not everyone within the church is required to emphasize the exact same aspect of the comprehensive Christian worldview.
Given that this program is Lutheran, one would think they might be quicker to remember the wisdom of Martin Niemoller who reflected how, because he remained silent as the acolytes of totalitarianism hauled off a variety of dissidents, that there was no one left to protect him when the Fascist hordes came to take him away.
Christians don't have to applaud religiously offensive artwork.
However, when bloodthirsty savages begin murdering those that they disagree with, the believer needs to realize that it won't be long until these demoniacs gun down worshipers for little more than singing doctrinally distinctive hymns or reciting the classic creeds.
By Frederick Meekins
Leaders Claiming Direct Revelation From God
Mohler Condemns Those Not Married By 25 But Insists Queers To Be Viewed As Normal
Tuesday, March 10
Are Tattooed Slobs Leading Naïve Evangelicals To Doctrinal Ruination?
Lack Of Racial Diversity Does Not Necessarily Mean Hostility
Depending upon how the question was formulated, that might not even indicate any discernible resistance on the part of the common pewfiller.
These responses might indicate nothing more than a satisfaction with things the way that they are or that this issue is not seen as that big of a problem when compared to other issues such as a decline in overall morality.
One story regarding the conclusions of this survey observed that most White, Black, and Hispanic Southern Baptists attended churches where the majority of parishioners were of the same racial or ethnic background.
So long as they are not blatantly hostile or cruel to others different from themselves, does this really matter?
Perhaps those surveyed simply did not want to alter their basic order of service to satisfy newcomers.
For example, why should 85 year old WASPS that have enjoyed a solemn liturgy their entire lives have to put up with the more “exuberant” Black way of doing church where it is not unheard of for those gripped by a moment of spiritual ecstasy to run up and down the aisles banging on a tambourine.
As has been observed, often Baptists sleep in the pews while Pentecostals jump over them.
Should an Hispanic church that conducts its affairs in Spanish be required to alienate its congregation by switching to highly articulated English?
If Southern Baptist leaders such as Albert Mohler and Russell Moore are so troubled by this finding among Southern Baptists, do they intend to relinquish their own prestigious and highly paid positions so that these can be filled by minorities?
It has been claimed that attendance at Souther Baptist churches has declined for seven straight years.
That could be in part because of this ongoing effort to wrack the average person in the pew with overwhelming guilt for having done little more wrong that simply having been born White.
By Frederick Meekins
Apostate Lutheran Insinuates Jesus Was A Sexual Deviant
Will Navy Chaplain Be Dismissed For Failing To Embrace Obama As The Name Above All Names?
Speaking on picking up the mantle of Elijah, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist remarked that the reason more men don't start churches is because they are too enamored with material comfort. Maybe so. But these same ministers that emphasize an extremist position on ecclesiastical separation would probably go out of their way to prevent someone going into the ministry that did not embrace a particular perspective or ideology regarding an assortment of nonessential secondaries.
Are Jesuit Propagandists Fomenting Liberal White Guilt?
Will Transhumanist Deception Push The Church Closer To The Edge Of Damnation?
Monday, March 9
Feminist Undermines Masculinity & Gripes About The Results
What she is asking for simply isn't a lad that protects the innocent and provides his own way in life while giving his mom a heartfelt hug once in a while.
What she wants is one that surrenders without resistance to multiculturalist dictatorship.
She further writes, “Most stories about maleness suffer from the myth of redemptive violence...the dangerous narrative that violence is a natural means to order and stability.”
This translates as she would have preferred her son to have been conceived as a girl and no Superman or G.I. Joe stories for this poor lad.
Wenches like this get on national TV and insist with a straight face that the key to resolving the ISIS threat is an additional government jobs program.
Throughout her article, she struggles with finding an appropriate male role model or mentor for her son.
That means she should have gotten married before deciding to breed and picked a more appropriate individual with whom to procreate.
By Frederick Meekins
Does Vehicular Homicide Expose The Corruption Of The Episcopal Church?
In a sermon on picking up the mantle of Elijah, a pastor remarked that most young people are more interested in what’s on TV than preaching. But it’s not like they would likely ever be considered good enough to engaged in the aforementioned ecclesiastical elocution anyway.
Saturday, March 7
Tuesday, March 3
Pastor Invokes Death Of Nimoy To Condemn Trekkies As Occultic Cabbalists
Those Not Having Reproduced Damned As Pagan On Lutheran Radio
In response to adoption, Christians often have it rubbed in our faces about how eager we should be to adopt the orphaned because God adopted us. Using these kinds of strained Biblical analogies, should we threaten to nail one of our kids to a cross for breaking our rules since that was the price God required for breaking His?
Did God Tell Lady Preacher To Minister Inside The Sex Box?
Could Kent Hovind Have Avoided Prison The First Time If He Wasn't A Tax Cheat?
Monday, March 2
Does Black Hole’s Discovery Undermine Evolutionary Cosmology?
Fanatic Homeschool Insists Adults Living By Themselves Are Moral Deviants
What Happened To The Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement?
Saturday, February 28
Are Vatican Insiders Attempting To Censor Advocates Upholding Traditional Catholic Doctrine?
Are Leftwing Nuns Advocating Hispanosupremacism?
Friday, February 27
Are Jesuit Propagandists Advocating Compulsory Involuntary Servitude?
The Christian's Duty In A Pagan World
Will Deviants Gestate Skinwalker Clones?
Will Islamists Ban Jews From Student Governance?
Thursday, February 26
Fundamentalist Pastor's Reflections Regarding The Single Life Border On Christian Sharia
The preacher revealed that he prefers warm weather. Yet he resides in an area where he must preach outdoors wear multiple layers while exposed to the cold because that is the will of God.
It might be, but not to the extent to which the Bible explicitly forbids carnal sins such as fornication and adultery. Those are not choices in the sense such as where the pastor decides to live or the methods he decides to employ in evangelistic outreach.
From this rhetorical peek, this exposition only went downhill.
Pastor Jason Cooley proclaimed that his children (especially his daughter) will not be allowed to leave home until they are married. If they are not sufficiently brainwashed, what will prevent them that does not violate the laws against unlawful detention from fleeing home once they reach the age of majority?
Pastor Jason Cooley further remarked that it was never appropriate in a church setting for a woman to join in on a conversation with a group of men during a time of fellowship. What would they be talking about at a church function that was so filthy that a proper Christian lady should not be present to either hear or comment on to begin with?
In this sermon on singleness, Pastor Jason Cooley asked what are singles doing to help others. Given the increasing tax burdens, they are helping with approximately a third of their incomes every day that they go to work. They are not responsible if government authorities then squander what the productive have provided.
In a sermon on singleness, Pastor Jason Cooley suggested that the single women in a congregation where obligated to render assistance to those that were married with children. If married church people have procreated to the extent that they are unable to take care of their own progeny, perhaps they should have been less vigorous in their reproductive undertakings.
Pastor Jason Cooley in a sermon on singleness insisted that there is no such thing as a Christian feminist. It would depend upon what is meant by the term.
It would be accurate in terms of God not approving of acts such as abortion or a promiscuous lifestyle even though Christians might fall into those particular sins. However, what these hardline pastors lump under the banner of feminism can include women doing little more than wearing pants, being at the beach at the same time as men, failing to change out of one's night cloths while a college dorm is burning to the ground, and apparently talking to a group of men following the conclusion of these asinine kinds of sermons.
By Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, February 25
In a sermon comparing those that don't hold formalized membership in the congregations that they attend to shacked up whores, the preacher claimed that if you don't belong to a single church, you won't know what pastor to submit to. There isn't that much divergency in orthodox formulations of the faith that the teaching is going to pull you in two competing ethical directions. If you don't hold a position in a church beyond that of pew filler, no church should be allowed to control you to such an extent. If you need someone to control you on the personal level that you can't decide for yourself what constitutes solid teaching and sound morals, you are afflicted with a profound mental or emotional deficiency.
Those holding to a Reformed perspective taking delight in being little more than God's toy to be discarded if you happen to be a Bespin guard or Jawa rather than a Boba Fett or Luke Skywalker in terms of action figure like to boast how the sinner's prayer does not save. A recitation of the mere words might not. However, believing them does. It is a reasonable wager that fewer were damned for reciting the sinner's prayer than for relying on their infant baptism without ever exercising their own belief.
An Examination Of Anglican Eucharistic Understanding
Did Fidelity To The Kings James Bible Lead To Pensacola Christian’s Athletic Victory Over Bob Jones University?
Toddlers Surrendered To Moloch & Baal
Gay Jesuit Demands Right To Openly Wallow In His Carnal Inclinations
Tuesday, February 24
Will Justin Bieber Now Pick The Pockets Of Deluded Christians?
To What Extent Should Wheaton Punish An Apostate Graduate?
In opposition to Rob Bell's support of homosexuality, the hosts of Generation's Radio suggested that Wheaton College (the school from which Bell graduated) should do more than simply stop selling the apostate's works in the campus bookstore.
Instead, the university should revoke Bell's degree and hold a book burning.
Is that the direction American's ought to take cultural disagreement in this country?
Should similar policies also be applied to those holding to explicitly conservative religious positions?
For example, the host Kevin Swanson holds a degree in engineering from a secular university.
Should it be revoked not for reasons of academic corruption but rather on the grounds of his opposition to wanton debaucheries such as gay marriage or upholding orthodox Christian belief such as those pertaining to the divinity of Christ?
By Frederick Meekins
Southern Baptist Functionary Lays Claim To Your Extraneous Income
The justification for this principle can be found in the admonition that godliness with contentment is great gain.
Interestingly, Platt is not providing this advice so that you might provide better for yourself in the rocky times ahead likely to result from a declining economy.
Instead, you are expected to give the abundance away (no doubt towards programs from which Pratt's own bottom line will ultimately benefit).
Perhaps the first extraneous expenditure Christians ought to eliminate from their budget should be the purchase of any books published by Pastor Platt.
Secondly, if we are to live our lives in a hyper-Biblical fashion, perhaps Christians should cut donations to Christian organizational bodies found nowhere in Scripture.
The first of these coming to mind might be none other than the International Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
By Frederick Meekins
What Does It Matter What Scott Walker Thinks Of Obama’s Religious Profession?
Outrage has erupted over Scott Walker not being sure whether or not President Obama is a Christian.
What does it matter what Scott Walker conjectures regarding the President's soterilogical state?
Scott Walker holds no office in any church exercising ecclesiological authority or oversight over Barack Obama.
Nor does Scott Walker exhibit any signs that this perceptual thread in his comprehensive epistemic web will prompt him towards any act of violence.
Oxford University Wonks Admit Artificial Intelligence Could Annihilate The Human Race
In a podcast regarding church government, it was postulated that you can’t go hobnobbing on social media with someone voted out of a church. The control your church exercises over you should not be that pervasive unless you are on the payroll possibly. And that is not so much from the standpoint of some lofty moral principle possibly but more from the organization’s power to ruin noncompliant hirelings financially.
Monday, February 23
Does Southern Baptist Mission’s President Suggest Muzzling Opposition To Sodomite Matrimony?
Is Stratospheric Goo Proof Of Extraterrestrial Life?
Perverted Evolutionist Conjectures Humans The Result Of Chimpanzee/Pig Orgy
Saturday, February 21
Media Elites Call For Satanic Revival
Episcopal Hierarch Makes It Sound Like Drunken Bishop Did Bicyclist A Favor In Running Him Down
Friday, February 20
Is Focus On Christ Alone Sufficient For Church Unity?
So what happens when that focus on Christ leads some to believe that His Eucharistic remembrance actually becomes the literal body and blood of the Savior, some that his presence is somehow contained within the elements, and yet still others simply are a symbolic contemplative commemoration?
And whose teaching is to prevail in the way Sunday School positions or slots on the deacon board are doled out when the focus on Christ leads some to conclude that He returns to retrieve His church prior to the Tribulation and others to conclude after the Tribulation?
In his homily, Pastor Harris ruminated what the church in America would be like if there were no denominations.
Provided people did not just abandon organized religion altogether, the situation would return to the upheaval characterizing the Reformation and Counterreformation if it was required that only a singular opinion would be allowed to exist within the boundaries of a unified Christendom.
by Frederick Meekins
Do The Sarcastic Lack The Holy Spirit?
Thursday, February 19
During an episode of Generations Radio, some woman was giving one of those testimonies where they air all of the dirty laundry of their past lives as justification as to why you have to live a super strict lifestyle renouncing nearly every convenience of the modern world. In this verbal pity party, the lady remarked that she had never had a honeymoon. Given that she had six children by that point and was banging against the headboards with her now husband before he had divorced his previous wife (mind you, this is from the same movement where your daughter is classified as a street whore if she holds hands or kisses someone prior to the wedding ceremony), hadn’t she already had a honeymoon multiple times over?
Interesting logic. Because some overly sheltered Christians went hog wild into debauchery once exposed to the secular university campus, a number of homeschool podcasters insist that those in the listening audience aren’t supposed to aspire to anything beyond a life of manual labor even if they do not possess an affinity towards tasks requiring mechanical alacrity or to attain any knowledge other than that possessed by their parents. Sometimes I think about being a preacher. But if this represents the kind of reasoning we are supposed to nod in agreement with while verbalizing a hearty “Amen”, I sometimes think it is more my purpose to be more like a Mark Twain or Chesterton and just expose some of this foolishness.
Obama’s Terrorism Conference Refusing To Admit To Existence Of Radical Islam Opens With Islamic Prayer
Lesbian Threesome Eager To Brainwash Infant
Wednesday, February 18
Christian Filmmaker Befuddled Over The Relationship Between Media & Religion
In the synopsis, he name drops that the upcoming film features Harry Anderson.
The cinematographer reminds that Anderson, before his descent into obscurity, starred as the judge on the sitcom “Night Court”.
So if the truly sanctified believer is to refrain from these kinds of wordly entertainments, how is anyone in the listening audience even supposed to know what “Night Court” is?
Admittedly, I saw a few episodes of Night Court in my youth.
From what I remember, the comedy was heavy on innuendo,
I will confess I enjoy doubled-meaninged word play a little too enthusiastically at times.
However, I don't host a podcast insinuating that your daughter is going to end up being a lesbian if she's too infatuated from a literary or dramatic standpoint with the world of “Little House On The Prairie” as Generations Radio suggested some years back.
Are we to take away that it is acceptable to watch “Night Court” but we need to repent if we find “Hunger Games” to be an intriguing dystopian projection of the world to come in a few decades?
For this very same director that bragged about casting a former celebrity from “Night Court” insisted that it is not enough for a movie to be family friendly, wholesome, or make valid moral observations.
Rather, to be acceptable, a movie must deliberately push Christianity onto the viewer.
Christiano went on to lament how Christians don't get excited over Christian movies.
Sorry, but I don't plop down $10 for any movie where the characters do little more than sit around crying about their everyday feelings and common disappointments.
To be theater worthy in my opinion, considerable spectacle is needed such as some kind of mass battle, talking animals, robots, superheroes, space aliens, clashing wizards or spies.
Christiano further observed that someone couldn't remember what their pastor preached about a month ago but could recall details about “The Wizard of Oz” despite having not seen it in years.
Before heaping hellfire and damnation upon those that might respond similarly, a number of things need to be taken into consideration.
Firstly, how old are they now compared to when they first saw “The Wizard of Oz”?
So isn't that more of God's responsibility for how He allows the brain to decay overtime where it is often easier to recall things that happened to minutest detail 30 or 40 years ago but you can't for the life of you remember what you had for dinner last night?
Secondly, perhaps the blame should be placed more upon the pastor for lack of showmanship and presentation rather than upon the average Christian for failing to retain the intricate details.
For I am sure the next time that there are flying monkeys and dancing midgets in church that you are going to remember it.
Which brings the discussion to another very important point.
One goes to the movies precisely to see an out of the ordinary spectacle.
That is not the the case necessarily in regards to a church worship service.
Upon further consideration, what is retained from a sermon might not be all that different from what is retained from a film.
For example, unless one sees especially at a young age a particular film over and over again, does anyone really retain much beyond a memory of the basic plot usually?
As I approach middle age, sometimes I find I can't recall what happened the previous week on some of the dramas that I follow quite closely.
Thus, instead of condemning a congregation or group of random Christians if they can't elaborate the specifics of a single sermon, shouldn't the professional clergy be more pleased and concerned that those under their care recall the main points of the comprehensive Christian saga rather than the obtuse actions of a single Old Testament character with a name that defies pronunciation?
Along the lines of this criticism about the moviegoer longing for innovation and spectacle, Christiano lamented how movies never satisfy and people always want to see the next big blockbuster.
Let's apply that presupposition to other aspects of life one would otherwise consider wholesome, admirable, and desirable.
For example, according to this logic, shouldn't it be enough to go to church once and never have to go again to quench one's spiritual thirst?
If one's marriage is truly based upon love and not upon the titillation of fleshly desires, by Christiano's thinking, would a couple need to enjoy carnal relations more than once throughout the course of their entire marital union?
Media spectacle will never replace sermonic exposition as the primary didactic methodology through which concise doctrinal content is transmitted to the believer.
However, it often seems that certain Evangelical factions aren't that interested in making much use of these supplementary media formats to augment the learning experience.
In regards to the upcoming “AD” miniseries, the hosts of one program after remarking just moments before about the tendency of a number of Christians to stay in their own bubble, didn't really give much of a reason to avoid the production other than that its producer Roma Downey is a Roman Catholic with mystical New Age tendencies.
Wouldn't it have been better to wait and see if there are any factual errors in Downey's narrative rather than condemn the production on the basis of whatever errant peculiarities she might gravitate towards in the personal aspects of her devotional life?
After all, most conservative Evangelicals allow the King James Bible to stand on its own merits without the homosexual and Romanist proclivities of the monarch for which this translation of divine revelation is named allowed to detract from its literary, historical, or theological merits.
Like it or not, believers find themselves in a culture surrounded by media.
It is therefore imperative not only to figure out how the media can be used to disseminate the Christian worldview but to also understand where the methodologies of entertainment and the church can diverge from one another without there having to be a spirit of hostility between the distinct purposes of each of these modes of communication.
By Frederick Meekins