Monthly Archives: August 2010

I’ve always been intrigued by musical artists who make professions of faith or start out in “christian bands” doing “Christian music” only to abandon anything that even resembles biblical Christianity. I can’t quite describe why. Anyway…I came across this post on my old Greek profs blog.  Katy Perry still has some semblance of faith, but by her own admission she’s pretty fuzzy on biblical Christianity. Check it out.

The Faith of Katy Perry

originally posted at:

http://www.dennyburk.com/the-faith-of-katy-perry/#more-9302)

The most recent issue of Rolling Stone has an interview with pop music sensation Katy Perry. I’ve written about Perry before and have noted her past life as Katy Hudson—a Christian music star and the daughter of two charismatic youth pastors. What I found interesting about this interview in Rolling Stone was her remarks about her current spiritual state and practices. She describes it this way:

“Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as ‘Pass the salt.’ A lot of religions use meditation or chanting as a subliminal prayer language, and speaking in tongues isn’t that different–it’s a secret, direct prayer language to God. If I felt intuitively that I had to pray for some situation, but I didn’t rationally understand it, I just let my spirit pray for me.”

Perry tells Rolling Stone that she still gets offended at blasphemy, even when her own fiancé is the culprit. She doesn’t want anyone taking God’s name in vain. The interviewer is astonished at Perry’s residual Christian scruples:

“It’s surprising to hear Perry talk about God in this way, because one would think her religious past is behind her, but she says she still considers herself a Christian. She shows me the tattoo of the word JESUS that she got on her wrist, just like her dad. ‘God is very much still a part of my life,’ she says. ‘But the way the details are told in the Bible—that’s very fuzzy for me. And I want to throw up when I say that. But that’s the truth.’

“‘I still believe that Jesus is the son of God… But I also believe in extraterrestrials, and that there are people who are sent from God to be messengers, and all sorts of crazy stuff… Every time I look up, I know that I’m nothing and there’s something way beyond me. I don’t think it’s as simple as heaven and hell.’”

The article also reveals why Perry has departed from Christian music and the strict charismatic faith of her parents.

“Perry started to question the path she was on. Her Christian label shut down, and, she says, ‘My gospel career was going nowhere.’ She started to write songs about love—and boys—on her guitar. And those weren’t gospel songs. ‘Letting go was a process,’ she says. ‘Meeting gay people, or Jewish people, and realizing that they were fine was a big part of it. Once I stopped being chaperoned, and realized I had a choice in life, I was like, “Wow, there are a lot of choices.” I began to become a sponge for all that I had missed—the music, the movies. I was as curious as the cat.’”

The article is as sad as it is revealing. I hope and pray that perhaps there is a flicker of gospel still alive in Perry and that she will heed it soon. Pray for her. The Lord’s arm is not too short to save (Isaiah 59:1).

———————–

Source: “Sex, God & Katy,” Rolling Stone (August 19, 2010)

Yesterday marked the beginning of Ramadan. I found this post on Justin Taylor’s Blog. As a pastor in a church located in a neighborhood with a sizable Muslim population, I thought this was worth bringing to people’s attention.

[posted August 11th]

“Today is the beginning of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, the time of year they believe that Allah revealed the first verses of the Qur’an to his Prophet Mohammed. This year it goes from August 11 to September 9.

A friend writes:

It is a holy time for Muslims as they abstain from food, drink, and sex from sunrise to sunset in hopes of purifying themselves and earning reward from God. Unfortunately no amount of fasting can accomplish that. It was during Ramadan in 1997 that God worked so powerfully to give me a love for Muslim peoples. A friend asked me to pray through the 30 Days of Prayer for Muslims. I did. When I started Muslims were no different to me than any other lost peoples. But 30 days later my heart was on fire to see Jesus Christ glorified among Muslim peoples and especially Arabs. Please be praying for Muslims this month (Aug 11 – Sept 9). Pray that God will help them see that they can never earn their way to him, that they need a Savior and that his name is Jesus. You can find great resources to pray (and download this year’s prayer booklet) online at http://30-days.net.

You can download the booklet directly below:

http://www.xodigo.com/30days/2010_ebook_30days_pray.pdf

Here’s a quote about the necessity of preaching Christ taken from a sermon preached by Charles Spurgeon. It’s from a series of quotes originally posted on Justin Taylor’s blog “Between Two Worlds” http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/. I hope it offers encouragement to pastors to resolve to always preach Christ…and for congregants to not be satisfied unless they here him preached.

“Christ not only supplies the necessities of his people, but he gives them abundant and superabundant joy in the luxuries of his grace. You do not really preach the gospel if you leave Christ out; if he be omitted, it is not the gospel. You may invite men to listen to your message, but you are only inviting them to gaze upon an empty table unless Christ is the very center and substance of all that you set before them.” [6/16/1878; sermon #2787]

Here’s another track that’s been on the heavy rotation at home and in the car. It’s called “Beautiful Church”. It’s from the Album: The Church: Called & Collected. You can find it at www.lampmode.com. Decided to post this track because it really resonates with my heart.

The LORD is doing an amazing thing in gathering people to himself for his glory, and this song has helped me to meditate more on that reality. By His grace, the Church truly is beautiful….

Here’s a quote from puritan author/ theologian Thomas Brooks about how Christians should view sin. I came across it on Thabiti Anyabwile’s blog, Pure Church http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/:

O look upon sin now as you must look upon it in eternity, and as God and conscience will present it to you! Consider that these very sins which Satan paints in virtue, also cost the blood of the Lord Jesus in sorrow and death. He who waved the sceptre of heaven was spit upon and nailed to the cross. Ah, how should it provoke our hearts to gain revenge on sin! Sin has murdered the Lord of glory. It was good counsel one gave: “Never let go out of your minds the thoughts of a crucified Christ.” Let this be meat and drink unto you; your sweetness and consolation, your honey and your desire, your reading and your meditation, your life, death, and resurrection.

Works, 1:16-18; quoted in Richard Rushing (ed.), Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Reading (Banner of Truth, 2009), p. 218.

I’ve never been a big Steven King fan, but I found this article interesting. It’s from Dr. Russell Moore’s Blog “Moore to the Point” which you can find at www.russellmoore.com.

What Stephen King Taught Me About Repentance

Before you start judging me, I don’t read Stephen King’s horror books, and never have (not that there’s anything wrong with that). In the past year, though, I did read, for the second time, King’s insightful little book on writing, called On Writing.

In the book I came across an anecdote I’d highlighted the first time around that I’d forgotten about. King writes about how he came to see that he had a drinking problem. He denied it at first, he writes, because he could continue to work and be productive, something, he thought, drunks can’t do. King continues:

“Then, in the early eighties, Maine’s legislature enacted a returnable-bottle-and-can law. Instead of going into the trash, my sixteen-ounce cans of Miller Lite started going into a plastic container in the garage. One Thursday night I went out there to toss in a few dead soldiers and saw that this container, which had been empty on Monday night, was now almost full. And since I was the only one in the house who drank Miller Lite…”

It suddenly dawned on King: “I’m an alcoholic, I thought, and there was no dissenting opinion from inside my head…I was, after all, the guy who had written The Shining without even realizing (at least until that night) that I was writing about myself.”

So far as I know King doesn’t claim to be a Christian, and his “recovery” isn’t exactly what the Bible presents as repentance. Nonetheless, the image of something as mundane as a recycling bin full of cans prompting a life-change prompted me to think about the goodness of God in such things, in my own life.

I’m finishing up writing a book on temptation right now, and have been thinking a lot about how hard it is for me to see my own temptations, much less my outright sins. They’re just too close so they seem “normal.”

Drunkenness isn’t my particular point of weakness, but I sure have lots of others. And this anecdote reminded me of how many times God has used something minor to arrest my attention. It usually isn’t a cross in the sky or a vision on the road. But I’ll hear someone speak and think, “Oh man, that sounds like me, and I don’t want to be like that.” Or a conversation will prompt me to think about some stupid parenting maneuver I’ve been attempting. Or my son will pretend to be “Daddy,” and I’ll think, “Hey, that’s not how I want to be remembered by my boys.” Or I’ll stop in the middle of my self-pity and whining to see a sunset that will remind me how good God is to let me view it. And so on.

I’d imagine you can think of similar things in your own life, uncanny little moments that turn you around, back toward the goal of Christ. That’s discipline, though not what we typically think of when we think of discipline. These moments are moments of gentle kindness. And God’s kindness is meant “to lead you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4).