I recently came across this article in Newsweek (January 8, 2007, Jerry Adler) - here’s an excerpt,

‘Hi my name is Lindy and I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit and you should too.’

With that five-second submission to YouTube, a 24-year-old who uses the name “menotsimple” has either condemned herself to an eternity of punishment in the afterlife or struck a courageous blow against superstition. She’s one of more than 400 mostly young people who have joined a campaign by the Web site BlasphemyChallenge.com to stake their souls against the existence of God. That, of course, is the ultimate no-win wager, as the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated?it can’t be settled until you’re dead, and if you lose, you go to hell.

I went and visited the site and discovered that the “blasphemy challenge” offers an incentive for those who would do what Lindy did. Guess what the incentive is? People who take up the challenge and follow the instructions (which include the requirement to explicitly say, “I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit” in their video) will receive a free copy of “The God Who Wasn’t There”.

Call it getting up on the wrong side of the bed - or maybe I am just a little bit grouchy this morning - but there are times when the Christian Marketing machine just makes me sick! I’m reading through my copy of Outreach magazine (great magazine by the way) and I came across one of the many ads found in there for various Christian ministries etc. This ad has this tagline:

Ever wonder if your sermons are connecting? Try the translation that speaks to the heart.

and goes on to say:

As a pastor, you want your messages to connect on the deepest possible level. Thankfully, the New Living Translation delivers living language that hits the target every time. Scripture comes to life. People pay attention. The message gets through. It’s the translation you can count on to connect, and that you can depend on for precise scholarship. Speak God’s Word to your congregation in language that they understand - and watch them wrap their hearts around God’s message.

And finally at the bottom of the ad they advertise that Pastor’s can get a free 4-week sermon series at pastorport.com - when I clicked to check it out I couldn’t find it.

Today I went with my mother to her lawyer’s appointment. My Dad died about a year and a half ago and his life insurance company denied my mom’s claim for the insurance. To make a long story short she (with the support of us!) has decided to sue the insurance company as the advice we received suggested we have a case. Anyway, with the court systems the way they are it’ll be a while until we get to trial. I said all this to say this… My mom has had a lot on her mind in the last while (no wonder!) and she’s really finding it difficult to just let go and leave things in the lawyers hands. But this post isn’t really about my mom - it’s about the the observation going through my head that worrying really puts a damper on life. While this may be an obvious one for most people it’s surprising how many of us “non-worryers” still get caught in the trap of nail-biting, ulcer creating hyper-anxiety syndrome once and a while. The funny thing is - all our worrying really doesn’t accomplish anything. There’s a favorite scripture of mine in Matthew 6 where Jesus basically tells people ‘Don’t worry!’ The conclusion of Jesus’ thought as he goes through some of the things we humans worry about is that there’s really only one thing that matters