Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Littering for God!
Jon had an interesting post about an encounter at a Christian book store in which a guy told him the NIV translation is the "devil's bible".
This brought up all of the distaste I have for Christian book stores in general. I had to ask myself, why do I feel this way? I used to really like going to Berean (wow, they're online!). I remember being a new christian (and very young) and buying a bunch of tracts there. A friend and I actually took some of them down to the creek and put them on trees in an area we knew homeless people hung out. Littering for God!
It's so embarassing to think about now. I guess our rationale was "the word of God never comes back void", but I think we were awfully silly.
Anyway, we used to love going to Berean, spending hours looking through the CDs and buying special covers for our Bibles and books that simplisticly explained why evolution is wrong (WRONG!) and the earth is only a few thousand years old.
The last time I went there, about a year ago, I just wanted to get Erick a new compact Bible for his birthday. I was shocked that there was hardly anything under 80 bucks. I was also amused by the huge displays of books about why the DaVinci Code is wrong (WRONG!). "Buy this book and have ammunition when you talk to your non-beleiving friends!"
It just seemed, I don't know, so irrelevant. Is that the kind of Christian community Jesus had in mind? Somehow I don't think so.
Plus, there were all of these flowery decorations with scriptures in them, and Thomas Kinkade knockoff paintings, and Christian recipe books...
Just, bleaah.
Maybe I'm too jaded now, but I burned out on all that stuff. I guess after 14 years of being a Christian, and working at a Christian school for a couple of years, I got tired of the Christian ghetto mindset, where all your friends are Christians, and you only listen to Christian music, and only read Christian books.
And the Christian bookstore symbolizes that for me. ¶ 10:55 AM
Jon had an interesting post about an encounter at a Christian book store in which a guy told him the NIV translation is the "devil's bible".
This brought up all of the distaste I have for Christian book stores in general. I had to ask myself, why do I feel this way? I used to really like going to Berean (wow, they're online!). I remember being a new christian (and very young) and buying a bunch of tracts there. A friend and I actually took some of them down to the creek and put them on trees in an area we knew homeless people hung out. Littering for God!
It's so embarassing to think about now. I guess our rationale was "the word of God never comes back void", but I think we were awfully silly.
Anyway, we used to love going to Berean, spending hours looking through the CDs and buying special covers for our Bibles and books that simplisticly explained why evolution is wrong (WRONG!) and the earth is only a few thousand years old.
The last time I went there, about a year ago, I just wanted to get Erick a new compact Bible for his birthday. I was shocked that there was hardly anything under 80 bucks. I was also amused by the huge displays of books about why the DaVinci Code is wrong (WRONG!). "Buy this book and have ammunition when you talk to your non-beleiving friends!"
It just seemed, I don't know, so irrelevant. Is that the kind of Christian community Jesus had in mind? Somehow I don't think so.
Plus, there were all of these flowery decorations with scriptures in them, and Thomas Kinkade knockoff paintings, and Christian recipe books...
Just, bleaah.
Maybe I'm too jaded now, but I burned out on all that stuff. I guess after 14 years of being a Christian, and working at a Christian school for a couple of years, I got tired of the Christian ghetto mindset, where all your friends are Christians, and you only listen to Christian music, and only read Christian books.
And the Christian bookstore symbolizes that for me. ¶ 10:55 AM
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ugh, I can sooo relate...
A friend and I used to leave tracts with our tips in restuarants and annoy the waitstaff. She also used to put them in ATM machines, so when the little cash compartment opened and you could take your money, you'd end up grabbing a tract too.
I have the same bookstore-avoidance thing now too. They make me nuts!
A friend and I used to leave tracts with our tips in restuarants and annoy the waitstaff. She also used to put them in ATM machines, so when the little cash compartment opened and you could take your money, you'd end up grabbing a tract too.
I have the same bookstore-avoidance thing now too. They make me nuts!
Ditto here. It's funny how much I have changed in the last twenty years. I have really done a full 180 on some issues - and overall, I like myself a whole lot better now! I think I see a whole lot more gray these days instead of the simplistic black and white that there used to be...
That's a great way of putting it, Birgit. I'm seeing much more gray, too, and I KNOW I'm more pleasant to be around now than when everything was so black and white. I guess I needed to be that way for a while, it kept me focused, but I'm glad I'm not there anymore.
That's too funny because I can remember back to the very early 80's when I started going to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. My buddy would say, "I'm gonna go on down the street to Maranatha Village, participate in some consecrated consumerism and buy me some holy hardware!" Jesus saves but good christians spend, spend spend... ;)
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