#22 The Truth Behind Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas, readers!  ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and ’tis the season to remind everyone who doesn’t go to church with us how they’ve ruined our holiday through their commercialism and greed!  Ho, ho, ho!  Yes, as we Christians know, Christmas is just a fancy word for “Jesus’ Birthday Party,” and this year, he’s turning two-thousand and eight (give or take).  And as we all know, one of the many great things about Jesus is that on his birthday, we all get presents!  Playstations for everyone!!

Hey kids! Did you know Frosty the Snowman was originally created as an allusion to neo-Christian archetypes?!

Seriously though, come this time of year, there’s no shortage of Christians out there who rightfully want to remind everyone the real reason for the season.  Christmas is, no matter what anyone says, a religious holiday— a straightforward jubilee for Jesus, and we crafty Christians have gone and tricked everyone into celebrating it! (Except for those pesky Jews, who simply refuse to give in…)  And, as your December email inbox will likely tell you, we’ve tricked those seculars in more ways than one when it comes to the holiday season.  We know that pretty much everything about Christmas somehow connects back to the man whose birthday party we’re attending.  Yes, every single Christmas tradition from candy canes to Christmas trees to Karen Carpenter started out as a tribute to the birth of our savior!  So if, during this festive season, you see an atheist jovially suckling a candy cane, you can smirk and silently acknowledge that he might as well be kissing Jesus square on the mouth, because candy canes were originally designed as sugary, hook-shaped Jesus tributes, and he just doesn’t know it.  So, in the spirit of the season, we’d like to provide for our Christian readership a handy guide to the real truth behind all those Christmas traditions that don’t have anything to do with Jesus (but secretly do!).

Candy Canes: These, obviously, are an upside-down letter ‘j,’ which stands for Jesus.  Or, right side up, they kind of look like a shepherd’s staff, and Jesus was a shepherd, and we’re his sheep, right?  Also, they are red and white.  Red is the color of Jesus’ blood, and white is… well, white is pure, and virgins are pure, and Mary was a virgin.  Case closed.

Santa Claus: The original Saint Nicholas was actually a Christian!  So when you take your kids to stand in line for an hour and a half at the mall to ask some retired old man with a white beard for a Nintendo Wii, remind your kids that Santa loves Jesus.  Also, Santa wears red and white, which, as we learned not too long ago, are Christian colors.

X-mas: while some may say the X intends to “take the Christ out of Christmas,” the truth is that X is actually the Greek letter Chi, or the first letter in the Greek spelling of Christ.  Booyah, seculars.

Gingerbread Men: back in the 17th century in Germany, a poor baker started selling cookies in the shape of a young boy from Nazareth, and the gingerbread man was born.  They were given their name because the phrase “gingerbread man” is an anagram for “g, bred in a manger” as in “G(sus) was bred in a manger.”

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Rudolph’s nose, as we all know, was the guiding light for Santa Claus when times got tough and he couldn’t do it on his own.  Jesus is the guiding light for you and I when times get tough and we can’t do it on our own.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Eggnog: We’ve all heard the story of Jesus turning water into wine, but few of us have heard the lesser-known miracle, turning that leftover wine into a rich, deliciously creamy dairy concoction he called eggnog.  Nutmeg, however, wasn’t added until the late 1800’s.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree: The partridge, as any well-trained ornithologist will tell you, is an ancient symbol of peace and truth.  Pears?  Well, pears are fruit, and apples are fruit, and when Eve ate the apple, sin entered the world, so naturally, pears equal sin.  So a bird of peace and truth in a tree filled with sinful fruit is obviously a symbol for Jesus entering a sinful world.  Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t figured this stuff out on your own.

These, dear readers, are just a few of the secretly Christian traditions of Christmas, so feel free to spread them far and wide among your Christian circle, and then snicker at your non-Christian friends who don’t even know how religious they really are.  There’s dozens more, and the good news is, if you don’t know what they are, you can just do what we here at SCL do:

Make ‘em up.

#21 Overreacting About Politics

DISCLAIMER: We here at Stuff Christians Like do not in any way officially support or oppose any political candidate, party, or position. We do not in any way intend to discuss who you should vote for or what party you should support. This post is more about being a Christian than it is about who you should or shouldn’t have voted for, or who is or is not president. That being said, let’s get to business.

Well, dear readers, this is it. It’s time for we Christians to gather as one, and bid adieu to Christianity as we know it in the United States of America. On November 4th, we elected Barack Hussein Obama as our next president, and that means that on January 20th, when he is sworn into office, Christianity will no longer exist within the borders of this once-great nation. It’s all downhill from here, friends. Soon our churches will be closed, remodeled, and reopened as abortion clinics and gay bathhouses, and the lack of those familiar buildings will greatly diminish our ability to worship God. In fact, God has decided that he’s going to leave the United States entirely, figuring now that the United States has elected Barack Obama, He might as well give up on Americans and try to spread His message in a holier place like Bangkok or Amsterdam. That’s right, God is vacating the United States, because he’s just as frustrated with Democrats as you are. If we want to maintain the religious freedoms America used to provide for us, it’s time for we Christians to pack up and move.

Okay, let’s turn the sarcasm off for a moment, and get to the point. Christians love to pretend that being Christian is easier when there’s a Republican in office, and that maintaining a healthy relationship with Jesus is darn near impossible when one of those big-city-liberal-Muslim-types gets all comfy in the oval office. If you have an aunt who 1) has been going to church for more than five years and 2) has an email address, no doubt you already know this. For the past six months or so, you’ve received emails outlining just how unholy Barack Obama is, and since he is unholy, and now he’s president, that must mean that you too are now unholy simply by living in the same country. Included in those emails is such damning information like:

a) Barack Obama has lied to his parents.

b) Barack Obama tends to agree with his own political party.

c) Not everyone Barack Obama has ever spoken to is a completely nice person.

d) His middle name is Hussein… you know, like that Saddam guy? They’re brothers.

and perhaps the most offensive truth:

e) Barack Obama celebrates Halloween.

You’ve no doubt also read and studied Dr. James Dobson’s “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America“.

…Actually… if you haven’t yet, then maybe take a pass. We’ll give you the summary: it outlines just how, according to Dr. Dobson, your nation will change in the next four years, including, but not limited to (and we are not making this up):

a) the disbanding of the Boy Scouts of America due to fear of homosexual troop leaders molesting young boys on camping trips.

b) the inclusion of pornography on television at all hours of the day, free for children to watch.

c) the exclusion of adults over 80 years of age from American hospitals.

d) Barnes & Noble entirely eliminating its Christian book section in large part due to Obama sympathizing with parading homosexual protesters.

e) four Supreme Court justices being replaced by liberal puppets of the evil President Obama.

This, dear Christian readers, is the future Dr. James Dobson sees for America, and it may be the future you see as well. And remember, since this and most of the other information you receive in your email is coming from fellow Christians, it must be completely and 100% unbiased. We Christians aren’t interested in perpetuating our own political beliefs, we just want everyone to know the same truth we know, that’s all. That’s why you probably got as many emails about John McCain as you did about Barack Obama, right? And that’s why right after you received the link to Dr. Dobson’s letter, you got the link to this letter, too, right?

But complaining now that the evil terrorist sympathizer is already in office is futile. There’s nothing we Christians can do to change who our president is, so we at SCL would like to offer you the following guide:

How To Remain A Christian With Barack Obama As Your President:

1. Keep doing what you were doing when Bush and Clinton were president.

Here’s why:

Voting one way or another does not promise me the country that I want, or make me any more or less “Christian.” Abortion, Gays, Health Care issues, and war will always be a part of my life as an American. I guess I had better deal with it, and maybe over time, perhaps come to see my opinions changed.

…okay, maybe the last part is a stretch; Christians don’t change their opinions.

#20 Harvest Festivals

We Christians love gentle alternatives.

Well here we are, just a handful of days away from Satan’s favorite holiday, and we’ve yet to discuss the Christian perspective on this damned pagan celebration.  A curious Christian may wonder what their stance should be on this hellish evening, since Jesus never says whether or not he thinks Trick-or-treating is acceptable.  Whatever should I do with my children, you may ask, who are all to eager to go knocking on doors asking for candy that is more than likely laced with razor blades and PCP?  How can I convince my son that dressing up like Harry Potter is a sin, and since all sins are equal, he might as well murder the neighbors and push their Prius into a lake?  How do I appropriately show the love of Jesus to the neighbor boy who just smashed my mailbox with a baseball bat?  WHAT SHOULD A CHRISTIAN DO ABOUT HALLOWEEN?!?

We here at Stuff Christians Like are all about finding solutions to life’s quandaries, so we have for you the answer, plain and simple: change the name, take out the fun stuff, and move it to a well-lit parking lot.

The website ChristianAnswers.net explains the secular holiday of Halloween thusly:

“The October 31st holiday that we today know as Halloween has strong roots in paganism and is closely connected with worship of the Enemy of this world, Satan. It is a holiday that generally glorifies the dark things of this world, rather than the light of Jesus Christ, The Truth.”

Out of this mindset, the Harvest Festival was born.  Halloween celebrates the enemy of this world, you say?  Well, look at us, we’re gonna flip it on its ear!!  We’re gonna make something that looks just like Halloween, but it’s gonna be about Jesus! Well, a little about Jesus… some of it’s about candy, too, and we’ll probably have a pumpkin carving contest, but a lot of it is gonna be about Jesus!  So THERE!

Yes, the Harvest Festival is meant to be the healthy Christian alternative to Halloween, because even the church knows that Christian kids are gonna be peeved if everyone in their class shows up at school November 1st with a lunchbox full of candy and they don’t.  So the church provides non-offensive “Fall Fests” that don’t require you to take food from strangers or pray to demons like Halloween does.

If you grew up in the church, you already know what I’m talking about.  You dressed up in an appropriate costume (nothing scary, please!) came the party, played a few lame carnival games, and left with a rationed selection of church-approved (cheap) candy, which lasted you about a day and a half, if you stretched it.  Meanwhile, your next-door neighbor actually went trick-or-treating and came home with two pillowcases full of name-brand candy that he added to his now replenished stash of whatever he hadn’t finished off from last year’s Halloween.

But you got your candy, and that, according to your parents, gave you nothing to complain about.  Sure, you had to dress up like a cowboy for the sixth year in a row, and true, there was a strangely high ratio of Smarties-to-anything else in that brown bag you got, but at least you got to experience something.  And you were back home safe by 8:30pm, which is probably the most important part.  Trick-or-treating till all hours of the night is for the seculars, and you have school in the morning.

#19 Puppets

James Maury Henson was a genius.

Just go with me on this one.  The man more commonly known as Jim Henson developed a philosophy that Christians today regularly utilize as a teaching tool.  See, Jim Henson had a message, and his message was a simple one.  Jim Henson wanted to teach the world about love, kindness, sharing, and friendship, but he knew that if he just came out and said how great those things were, people would just write him off as just another beardy, wacked-out hippy and completely ignore him.  So what did Jim Henson do?  He stuck his hand up the tucchus of a green felt frog, that’s what he did– and just like that, he became a hero, a humanitarian, and as previously mentioned, a genius.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?  Still, it’s a mystery to me how puppets can communicate simple ideas so much more effectively than a human can, especially when you know there’s a human attached to the puppet. But the truth is, it works.  So if Big Bird tells me I need to share my crayons, then doggone it, there just ain’t no two ways about it, I’m handing ‘em over.  But if the guy inside the Big Bird costume dumps the feathers and tells me outright, there’s a good chance I’m gonna straight up ignore him and just keep on colorin’.  Perhaps it’s just that people in general are more willing to listen to something that actively engages their imagination.  It worked for Willy Wonka and those stubby little orange guys, and when you think about it, there’s not too much difference between Ernie from Sesame Street and an Oompa Loompa (both short, both orange, both with indistinct sexual orientation).

So maybe that’s why, shortly after the debut of Sesame Street, Christians so eagerly boarded the puppeteering movement, teaching fun, spiritual messages to children of all ages (and children at heart), all the while making silly voices and developing severely sweaty palms (and I would daresay that puppetry is the only ministry within the church in which ’severely sweaty palms’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing).  And it all makes sense, when you think about it.  If you’re going to listen to a Bible message from some guy with a beard and a robe, which would you pick, this guy or this one?  Seems like an easy choice to me.  So Sunday School classrooms and Vacation Bible Schools became littered with our felty friends teaching children the lessons of JC.

Puppets don’t have the stronghold on the Sunday School universe they once did, though.  Today there’s not much room for puppetry in the church because technology advances and changes society, and in today’s Sunday School class, puppets have traditionally become supplanted by musical produce.  When you think about it though, Veggie Tales are just a modern, computery version of the fuzzy singing puppets that we all grew up on.  It’s just that today’s Sunday School teachers replace talent and creativity with a DVD player. (Wait… this is the church we’re talking about… who am I kidding?  They’re using a VCR.)

So the lesson we can take from all this is how puppets (and cucumbers, apparently) utilize a child’s imagination to reach them on a different level than adults can.  So the next time you’re in the grocery store listening to some kid scream his head off because his mom won’t buy him any M&Ms, and you want nothing more than to grab him by the scruff of his chubby little neck and scream right back at him to shut his yappy little piehole, take a moment, calm yourself down, and teach him a lesson the right way: use your hand.

#18 America…sort of

I am enjoying a bowl of Americone Dream, the delicious Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor inspired by Stephen Colbert. It is at these moments I am particularly proud to be American. Thank you Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, Ben, Jerry, and the Redeem Team. No expert on novelty ice cream, I am nearly certain we are the only country full of patriots who celebrate our democracy in ice cream bowls. If there is an Deutchsland Delight, it is probably made for American tourists.

I love singing America the Beautiful in church in July as much as the next guy. Like you, I am proud of “in God we trust” and “one nation, under God.” And, like you, every once in a while I think about where these are good things.

Like everyone else, I have some friends who are outwardly anti-america. They still live here, of course, like I do. I laugh inwardly at them when they complain, and casually suggest they move to Canada or the moon. But here we both stay, nice and comfortable, eating Americone Dream.

Aldous Huxley said he has the impression that too many of us love “their nation state far more than they love their God.” Wooooo, slow down buddy. That’s a little bold. I love 4th of July hot dogs and watching Taylor Swift sing the national anthem as much as the next guy, but there’s no way I love America more than God.

I hope that’s true. Who knows what will happen in the next 2 years, 10 years, on November 4. I hope (if I already haven’t) that if I ever have to choose between the two I’ll make the right choice.

#17 Book Spin-Offs

Walk the “Christian” section of your local Barnes & Noble, and you’re likely to notice an interesting pattern that sporadically repeats itself throughout the alphabetical archives.  Christian authors that effectively inspire the general religious populous are often encouraged by both their publishers and said populous to share their wisdom over and over, again and again, thus the most popular authors often build up quite a library of their own works that people look to for wisdom, inspiration and guidance.  Occasionally, however, it seems as though the inspired idea they first came up with contained an overwhelming majority of everything they had to say, so when pressed for a second book, they might find it easier to simply rewrite the first book for a different audience, or from a different perspective, or just rearrange all their original words to say the same thing they already said the first go around, and give it a new, clever title.

This behavior dates all the way back to the Biblical days, when authors like Samuel, Timothy, Peter and John all got such great reviews off their first books that they decided that rather than come up with some new, fresh idea for a second book, they’d just stick with the same ol’ shtick that got them famous, and come out with second and third books with such unoriginal titles as “2nd Timothy” or “3rd John” (probably with some serious pressure from Zondervan, or whoever it was that was publishing them at the time).  I doubt I’m the first one to think it, but heck, a little originality would have been nice.  Not to say the Bible isn’t great and all, but it would’ve been nice.

Modern Religion's Foremost Christian Theologian Now Talks To Your Kids!

So now, as the pattern continues, we’ve got “Every Young Man’s Battle” spinning off “Every Young Woman’s Battle,” “Every Late-Twenties to Middle-Aged Man’s Battle,” “Every German Shepherd’s Battle,” and the like.  Or “Wild at Heart 2: The Testosterone Testament,” for instance. (Now With Even More Braveheart References!!!)

Just take the first, wildly successful book you already wrote, change one element of it, and– Presto!  New book.  Change all those “he’s” and “him’s” to “she’s” and “her’s” (easily done through Microsoft Word’s handy “Find and Replace” feature) and suddenly you’ve got yourself a full-fledged franchise and doubled your fame (and your paycheck) in the process.

Perhaps in the same vein as the book spin-off is the “companion workbook.”  No book is complete without another book telling you how to read it, and said book usually retails at around $14.95.  In this case, there’s not even a new book, there’s just a book that walks you through the original book asking questions like “what do you think the author meant by such-and-such?” and “how does such-and-such relate to your personal circumstances?”, certainly the kind of questions we wouldn’t be able to ask ourselves independent of the tremendously helpful workbook.  In many cases, these workbooks also contain “notes” pages (not to be confused with plain old blank paper) which serve as helpful places to jot notes when the overwhelming inspiration you receive while reading overflows the margins of the actual book, this assuming of course that you don’t have any paper of your own.

Through this process, authors can essentially write only one book, and yet still take up three and a half feet of shelf space in your local Christian bookstore.  It’s only a matter of time before these books get so categorized and personalized that they begin to single us out individually. (“Every Young Man’s Steve Cunningham’s Battle”).  And heck, I’m no publisher, but I know any book that’s got my actual name on it’s got to be worth eighteen, maybe twenty bucks.  At least.

#16 Video Montages

Given that you are reading this page, let us assume that you have been to church enough times to find common threads throughout Christendom. Let us also assume that you make it to church in time for the morning announcements, which usually go something like this:

“Good Morning, everyone. I have a few brief announcements before we move on to Worship;

First, a very special thanks to Mary Mandala for all her hard work on the Women’s Brunch last week. I heard the ladies had a great time, so thanks, Mary.

Next, we have a little video for you about the

upcoming VBS for our little ones, so have a look.”

What follows will probably be something falling into one of two categories:

1. Professionally choreographed video and audio footage with smooth transitions and a peppy theme song using words like “Awesome” and “Blast” while encouraging kids to “go on a fantastic ride with Jesus“. (Don’t watch the whole link; it’s 21 minutes and you’ll get the idea in about 21 seconds.)
2. Something thrown together on iMovie the day before by the Associate Pastor’s 13-year-old son, featuring a poppy worship song, fancy photo fades, and cinematography fit to induce a seizure or a bout of seasickness.

Typically, one wants to land somewhere in the middle, where it’s not too spiritual, but not too lame, either. These are the ones made by the Music pastor, who has a Mac but is also 47 years old. The entire goal of showing a video montage in church is to induce interest in the event. The congregation is supposed to think, “Hm, that could be fun. I’ll check it out next time it comes around.”

Though, every once in a while, there’s an even where the average churchgoer thinks silently, “I’d sooner have diarrhea in the baptismal than go to any event like that.”

Someday, we Christians will figure out the key to any successful video montage:

Fight Scenes

#15 Email Forwards

Christians, ever the innovative souls, have been constantly searching for new ways to spread the good news since the beginning of human existence. The apostles started the trend, using good old fashioned conversations, letters, and stump speeches to tell everyone they encountered about JC. Then, back in the 1400’s, Johann Gutenberg devised his printing press, and we had a new way of transporting the message (not to be confused with ‘The Message’, which wouldn’t be completed until 2002). Come the turn of the century, and Henry Ford provided us with yet another platform for sharing our faith. Now clothes, music, television- every cultural avenue has its Christian counterpart. Including perhaps the greatest cultural development since ol’ Joe Gutenberg’s press: the internet.

The internet, as we all know, took the world by storm. All it took was three words and the face of communication was changed forever. So it only seems right for the Christian to put their footprint on the face of email, forwarding ridiculous things left and right in the name of prosthelization.

You know what I’m talking about. We all have the aunt, the uncle, the co-worker or the church friend, who thinks that “this one’s just too good to delete without sharing.” Since the true Christian should be able to properly identify email forwards without hesitation, here is a guide to a few of the different kind of Christian email forwards that are in existence:

1. The Guilt Trip: This one has a simple formula, and it sticks with it. It describes a terrible story about a sick child whose parents have exhausted every last option to heal their kid of Cystle Meninpoliosigitiskemia, or whatever, and the only, repeat, only way to cure the poor tyke is for you to forward the very email you’re reading to twelve other sympathetic people, because each time the email is forwarded, a shiny copper penny gets donated to little Tommy’s health fund.

2. The Conspiracy: Often having to do with government, this one explains how a group of evil, Satanic politicians are working behind the scenes to stamp God out of everyday life. This includes, but is not limited to unacceptable actions such as: taking “In God We Trust” off of currency, taking “one nation, under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, banning prayer (Christian prayer, that is) pretty much anywhere, or voting something other than Republican. This email typically goes on to explain that the only thing that can stop these evils is the further passing of this electronic message.

3. The Pick-Me-Up: Designed to inspire or improve upon a less-than-great day, this email often tells a story or shows a picture of people or animals fighting against incredible odds and ultimately succeeding through the power of prayer, or worship, or John 3:16. It typically ends with a moral that essentially says, “If the duck can get over the curb, then you can conquer your metaphorical curbs, because you’ve got Jesus on your side, and the duck is just a stupid duck.”

4. The Creation Slide Show (Requires Microsoft Powerpoint 2000 or later): A series of slides of landscapes from stock photography sites with Bible verses from Genesis at the bottom, i.e. this.

5. The ‘Love Thy Neighbor’: This one tells a story of honest to goodness love in the strangest of circumstances, or a situation in which someone who is really hard to love is loved by a Christian, and their life changes forever, for example, parents who become missionaries to a group of cannibals that ate their daughter in a stew. There’s always a moral about how love conquers all, or friendship exists where God exists, or love finds you where you least expect it. Pictures are also popular.

And there you have it. Granted, this only begins to scrape the surface of the depth of the Christian email forward, but these five are a good start. Be on the lookout, though. More can pop up at any time, and usually do without any advance notice.

#14 Predicting the Rapture

Popular among the more extreme conservative-leaning Christians is the idea that not only is the rapture a realistic, potential event, but it’s also likely to hit within the next, oh, say… three months or so. For the uninformed, here’s a number of resources and explanations to enhance the Christian’s knowledge on just when Jesus will be returning:

1) RaptureReady.com: Here you can find, among other things, the Rapture Index, which calculates exactly how close we as a planet are to the coming Armageddon. It takes a number of the signs of the end times listed in Revelation, and compares those signs to actual things happening in the world today, and comes to a total for each day that tells us the exact potential for impending rapture. For example, today’s reading notes that “Unemployment” is at a score of 5, “Crime Rate” scores a 4, and “Beast Government” also scores a solid 4. All told, when RaptureReady totals up the numbers from all 45 of its categories, today, April 22nd’s rating is a 167. What does that mean? Well, according to the site, 100 and below signifies “slow prophetic activity”, 100-130 means “moderate prophetic activity”, 130-160 equates to “heavy prophetic activity,” and 160 and above, where we are now, gives us the stern, yet comical warning to “Buckle your seatbelts.”

2) Jack Van Impe: This conservative television personality, who gives himself the title of Dr. Jack despite his lack of any kind of legitimate doctoral degree, claims to be an expert on the second coming of Christ and the impending rapture, and declares his website “The Bible Prophecy Portal of the Internet.” Several times during his career as a televangelist he has pointed to dates (including January 1st, 2000, or Y2K) as being the exact moment that Christ will return. Jesus has yet to show up and prove him right. Most recently, Dr. Jack has reset his official Rapture Clock for some point in 2012, so as to give himself four more years to not be wrong yet.

Dr. Jack’s theory that the rapture is nearly upon us has much to do with a Hardy Boy-esque code he devised, giving an increasing number value to each letter of the alphabet based on multiples of six (i.e. A=6, B=12, C=18 and so on) and then adding up the values of certain words to equal 666, the number of the beast. So far, Jack and the tireless interns that work for him have come up with such words and phrases as “COMPUTER,” “CALCULATION,” “NEW YORK,” and “ARAB SUICIDES” as signs that our current technologically reliant, post 9/11 society is ripe for the raptural plucking. I did some calculations of my own, and it turns out that (despite the poor grammar) the phrase “JACK IS A IDIOT” equals 666, too.

3) Left Behind II: Tribulation Force: According to this doctrine, once the rapture occurs, those left on earth will band together behind the star of “Growing Pains” (and host of “The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy”) to create a defiant team of truth-spreading do-gooders who will inform the world of the evils of Nicolae Carpathia, UN secretary-general and foretold Antichrist. Soon after, it will be realized that while the view is wildly popular among some, this version of end-times theology is ultimately not profitable enough to merit film adaptations of books three through sixteen.

So now, armed with this knowledge, you should have everything you need in order to develop your very own personal Rapture theory. Once developed, make sure to spread the word of your theory to as many friends, church members, and soapbox preachers as you possibly can, and whatever you do, don’t forget to mark your calendars.

# 13- Pop/Worship Music

Modern day Christians can be separated into two groups:

On Side A, we have my mother-in-law, who listens exclusively to Christian radio and Worship CD’s. Radio stations such as KLOVE and WMBI bring you “wholesome tunes for the whole family”, which is a nice way of saying “songs featuring I-IV-V in the key of G“. These Christians from Side A are either in full stride toward Holiness or deathly afraid of pop culture. Or both.

Into Side B falls most college students, youth pastors, and Relevant Magazine. This is a divided group; while big fans of Yeshua, they also get bored of “wholesome tunes for the whole family” and would like to hear a minor key now and then. Side B, thus, tries to bridge the gap by using in church songs that might be talking about God. If that fails, a Christian band can always rewrite the words to a “secular” song into “wholesome tuns for the whole family”.

Christians have always been separated in a like manner. Since the Middle Ages, Christians have sought to make popular music slightly less cool by playing it in church. Even when Bach and Beethoven where tearing up the charts of NOW volume 2, Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas were writing comparable tunes so the locals could tap their toes in church.

“A some-thing never fai-a-a-ling…”

As the culture has changed, so has the face of Christian music. With the hippie movement of the 60’s and 70’s came Young Life Sing-a-long songs for the campfire. You may remember such smash hits as “I am the Resurrection and the Life” and “Pharoah Pharoah” (which was purified from the explicitly-versed “Louie Louie”).

As the years go by, Christians bridge the gap between pop culture and Christendom, eventually bringing drums, long hair, and women onto the stage, things that had previously been …. well, not quite sins, but definitely iffy enough to get you assigned “casserole” at the church potluck.

Most recently, Christians have been blessed with songs that sound Christian, but actually might not be. Any readers in their teens, 20’s or 30’s may recall singing “Take Me Higher” with the arrival of the band Creed (see upcoming post on “The 90’s”). We later found out that, despite the cross tattoo and long hair, alas, Scott Stapp is no more a Christian than Axl Rose (and also equally unreliable as a lead singer during a live performance). Younger readers may recall pleading with Evanescence to “Save Me” or resonated with Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” [I need you so much closer]. The dance team at my own high school youth group featured songs by Linkin Park and Coldplay. The church, to the untrained eye, has become a haven for the “secular”.

Truth be told, I’m quite glad that Christendom is becoming less afraid of popular music, here’s why: Within any small sect or sub-culture, a sort of monopoly is held on the products produced within that culture for its members. This is why Christian T-shirts, Thomas Kincade, and some boring musical artists are so readily accepted; there’s nothing better out there. The concerned Christian parent thinks, “well, I don’t want my kid reading the novels that’re out there in the smut bin of Barnes and Noble. I’ll stick them with reading the Left Behind series, just to be safe.”

Lock your doors, Christians. Songs in the key of sin sound a lot like worship. You’re safer staying with wholesome tunes for the whole family.

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