“If a Muslim liked your sermon, you didn’t preach a Christian sermon. If a Jewish person likes your sermon, you didn’t preach a Christian sermon. Meaning, if you take any text, New or Old Testament, and preach a moral, or an inspiring story… and people of various religions would say ‘I feel inspired by that’. You’ve really blown it. [This] was deeply convicting to me, and has made me… more Christo-centric and Cross-centric, as opposed to Theo-centric.”

—

John Piper (via real-lifemusic)

Uh… Say what now, Mr Piper?

(via featherfall)

don’t worry pipes, I doubt you will be inspiring anyone outside of your little tribe, anything short of repulsing them probably is far from what you need to worry about. Which is the goal right? If you are turning off a majority of the population, you know you are doing something right… (via ferretdokhtar)

(via ferretical)

I can never take devout john piper fans seriouslyquotes like this are exactly whythe gospels are filled with jesus demolishing us vs them walls the pharisees had set up and going u mad?so why are we attempting to embrace those same walls now?the cross is for everyone. that is cross-centric. that is christo-centric.this has been a rantamerican christianityyou're doing it wrong
6 months ago 159 notes

“There are actually two vaginas in the book: One is an anatomical reference to a woman raped in the Congo, which no one in the publishing process had a problem with. The troublesome instance is from a passage about a 16-year-old Evans signing an abstinence pledge card at a youth rally at church, where, she writes, she signed “my promise to God and my vagina.”

—

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: Rachel Held Evans followed the Bible and wrote about it, but now Christian chain LifeWay won’t sell her book. - Slate Magazine

Vagina: filthy word since 2012.

(via jennyjennybobenny)

Maybe use a nickname. Poon. Pompom. Vag. Pink taco…

WHAT ARE WE 12?

(via pumpkin-tart)

The article goes on to state, that “vagina” isn’t why Lifeway won’t carry it—the insider who told Evans didn’t tell her the actual reason, though. And his is coming from a chain that put “read with discernment” warning labels up around books by Rob Bell, Brian McLauren and Donald Miller in store and online for four years. They had the same label on The Shack and banned The Blind Side because of the language. they got called out for it and only recently parted with the “warning” signs. 
And there’s this,

[Evans] rattles off several recent books written by men that include less-than-clinical usages of boobs and testicles. LifeWay carries powerful pastor Mark Driscoll’s recent advice book Real Marriage, which includes approving descriptions of anal sex, role playing, and sex toys within a conservative theological framework. (Driscoll wrote the book with his wife, Grace.)

Yes, it seems that male authors are allowed to get away with more than female authors, but it also seems that who who fit the “evangelical”, or at least aren’t labeled controversial/~~OMG Universalist!!~~/etc, get more leeway as well. Maybe it’s because the demographic of Lifeway would be up in arms more over these authors than the others, and from a business standpoint, that makes sense. But it doesn’t make it fair. And it certainly doesn’t make sense that someone who would find The Blind Side or the word “vagina” offensive would be a-ok with Mark Driscoll’s  book, or that his book doesn’t require discernment when authors who disagree with him apparently write books that do. It’s just a crazy system of censorship and choosing which reading Christian demographic(s) is ‘right’ and offend the other(s).

(via sandraandra)

american christianityyou're doing it wrongchristian cultureughhhh
7 months ago 16 notes

“The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.”

—

Rev. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (via touchoftea)

(Source: ineedmymorningtea, via somuchdependsupon)

this this thisamerican christianityyou're doing it wrong
11 months ago 4,424 notes

“Many in North Carolina — many around the country — are swimming against the tide of human freedom and blaming God for it. Again, this is not a new thing. We saw it back when God was for segregation and against women’s suffrage. How convenient it must be to lay your own narrowness and smallness off on God, to accept no responsibility for the niggardly nature of your own soul.”

— Leonard Pitts Jr. (via azspot)

(via azspot)

american christianityyou're doing it wrongfor God and the gayspolitics
1 year ago 237 notes

“Jesus never mentioned homosexuality once. How has it become such an issue? Strange. Strange how all the things that Jesus actually did talk about fail to become issues. I mean, you start talking about war, and conservative Christians say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be political and protest the war.’ Or you talk about poverty and the causes of poverty. ‘Oh, that’s a political issue; Jesus wasn’t political.’ Why don’t these people deal with the issues that Jesus did? It shouldn’t surprise me. If you look at the Gospels, the most respected religious people were the furtherest from the spirit of what Jesus was saying. It’s just the same thing all over again. But I am surprised. I really do continually expect Christians to be the most willing to accept pacifism, peacemaking, or redistribution of wealth, and care for the poor, and rethinking our prison systems and all that. But we end up being the most belligerent and self-righteous and all the rest. Scary.”

— Aaron Weiss (via sketchmedesire)

(Source: thiswillworkfornow, via somethingsecure)

american christianityyou're doing it wrongaaron weisslove this manmewithoutyou
1 year ago 885 notes

“I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” A bumper sticker read, “God will judge evildoers; we just have to get them to him.” I saw a T-shirt on a soldier that said, “US Air Force… we don’t die; we just go to hell to regroup.” Others were less dramatic- red, white, and blue billboards saying, “God bless our troops.” “God Bless America” became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, “God bless America—$1 burgers.” Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles. This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy… September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community- for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear. But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallies around the drums of war. Liberal Christian took to the streets. The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound. A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God…The tragedy of the church’s reaction to September 11th is not that we rallied around the families in New York and D.C. but that our love simply reflected the borders and allegiances of the world. We mourned the deaths of each soldier, as we should, but we did not feel the same anger and pain for each Iraqi death, or for the folks abused in the Abu Ghraib prison incident. We got farther and farther from Jesus’ vision, which extends beyond our rational love and the boundaries we have established. There is no doubt that we must mourn those lives on September 11th. We must mourn the lives of the soldiers. But with the same passion and outrage, we must mourn the lives of every Iraqi who is lost. They are just as precious, no more, no less. In our rebirth, every life lost in Iraq is just as tragic as a life lost in New York or D.C. And the lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like six September 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.”

— Shane Claiborne  (via comeupfromthewilderness)

(Source: dillondean, via katybeehey)

shane claibornepatriotismamerican christianitythis this this
1 year ago 45 notes

“It seems to me that it is a minority that gets the true and full gospel. We just keep worshiping Jesus and arguing over the right way to do it. The amazing thing is that Jesus never once says “worship me!” He says, “follow me” (e.g., Matthew 4:19). Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a clever “religion,” in order to avoid the lifestyle itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their “personal Lord and Savior.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

—

Richard Rohr (via azspot)

I loooooooove thissss!!!!!

(via sandraandra)

(via mikegarycole)

american christianityyou're doing it wrongjesusthis so much
1 year ago 130 notes