The problem I have with most Jesus movies

I find most of these movies (and a good many sermons) tend to reduce the difficulties of Jesus, he’s too likable. We too easily are attracted to him for being a cool, nice guy and we too easily hate his oppressors. Most of his “fans” had a misguided projection that they were cheering about thinking he’d resolve the problem of the Roman occupation. The crowd dissolved when he let himself be crucified. What kind of savior would let the Romans win. None of his own disciples thought about heading to the tomb “just in case”. Only the women, loving, dutiful, came to do the dirty work of honoring an already decaying corpse. These movies put us on Jesus’ side too early and conveniently in the narrative and don’t do the real evangelistic work which is to help us to realize that in all likelihood if we were first century Jews we would have either though to use Jesus to try to solve our own problems (the crowds) or opposed him for the kinds of things he said that were betraying our culture war against the Romans (Pharisees).

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Against Heterosexuality

First Things

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I am coming soon (to a theater near you)

http://youtu.be/oRytyAwydCo

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How The World Lost Its Story

First Things

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Is the Universe a Simulation?

NYT

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Richard Dawkins on Unbelievable

Link

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The Dish: Becoming a Moral Minority

The Dish

from LA Review of Books: The Great Evangelical Recession

TGC Interview with John Dickerson

Dickerson, whose op-eds have appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, and elsewhere, does not hesitate to lay blame where he thinks it belongs. He condemns evangelicals’ foray into national politics as an unqualified disaster: it divided churches, won scant political gains, and earned Christians a hard-to-shake reputation as hypocritical, hard-hearted bigots. He is withering about megachurch pastors’ embrace of corporate-style growth strategies, which he asserts squandered their moral authority and deprived worshippers of essential pastoral care and faith formation. It’s no surprise, he writes, that Christians are abandoning such a shallow, divisive faith: “Somewhere along the way, our focus on programs and techniques, dollars, ministry size, and perhaps even powerful worship distracted us from the basics. […] [W]e have failed to take care of Christ’s sheep. Now we are losing them.”

 

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Notes from “In the Beginning” by Tim Keller

Preached by Tim Keller January 5 2014

Passage is the Prologue of the Gospel of John

It begins with a claim

  1. The word is personal
  2. The word is divine
  3. This person was never created
  4. the source of all life
  5. That this is Jesus Christ

Continue reading →

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No matter how the wind may blow it cannot shake the sun

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The Economics of Sex

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