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 The ever-brilliant (and most widely-read man I know) John Wilson over at Books & Culture, reflects on the pre-conversion writing of Anne Rice (especially Interview with the Vampire) and concludes with a comment on her conversion (see: “The Vampire and the Cross”). John’s take on Rice’s writing is succinct and spot-on:
“I finished the novel with the sense of moral contamination that some books leave us with.”
 But he doesn’t end there. He concludes his analyses by recounting a review of the 1997 anthology, The Anne Rice Reader: Writers Explore the Universe of Anne Rice, edited by Katharine Ramsland. In his review (never published, unfortunately), Wilson writes, presciently:
In short, there was a profound contradiction at the heart of Rice's work. And so I
 For years I've bemoaned the lack of serious, thoughtful, theologically rich lyrics in the praise songs and worship choruses I'm subjected to at church. Some of the recent praise and worship music remedies that, but I'm still occasionally struck silent by vacuous, empty lyrics using clichés to resonate with worshipers and the time-tested trick of singing a single chorus line over and over until we all fall into a trance-like worship state.
:: sigh ::
I miss scripture in my worship. I miss theology in my worship. I miss the hymns.
But what I don’t necessarily miss are the hymn’s melodies and forms. As my wife and I have discussed this, I’ve often wondered aloud why church worship directors don’t apply their musical talents to translate older hymns into contemporary sounds. Okay, maybe most church worship and music directors really aren’t that good at creating
Christianity Today finally got around to covering a story that caught my attention back in August (I wrote, “Separation of God and science?”). If you’re interested, read it here: “Admissions: Rejected: Christian school sues University of California over requirements.”
Here's an excerpt:
"The question the university must confront in reviewing these texts is not whether they have religious content," the university said, "but whether they provide a comprehensive view of the relevant subject matter, reflecting knowledge generally accepted in the scientific and educational communities and with which a student at the university level should be conversant."
For example, the university said it rejected the literature course for using an anthology as the only required text.
"It's not that we're not allowing a particular viewpoint," UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said. "We're saying that we require certain disciplines that in these cases are not there."
Doesn’t seem
Earlier this week (November 1), Tim Morgan at Christianity Today posted a story about the South to South Encounter of top Anglican delegates in Egypt. Morgan’s story is an excellent overview of the current issues threatening to tear apart the Anglican world. It’s worth the read:
Anglicans ‘Severely Wounded’
At a top summit in Egypt, conservatives call for a Scripture-affirming covenant.
by Timothy C. Morgan in Ain Sukhna, Suez, Egypt
Following are some key quotes from the story:
Gay ordinations, same-sex unions, and acceptance of the homosexual bishop, V. Gene Robinson, have sharply increased tensions among Anglicans worldwide. Talk of schism is no longer speculation.
From an eight-page statement released after the meeting:
“We [in the Global South] reject the expectation that our lives in Christ should conform to the misguided theological, cultural, and sociological norms associated with sections of the West.”
Regarding the growth
 There's a rash of fishy news stories on Google lately about a minor skirmish between a 300-member Assembly of God church and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA—not to be confused with “People for the Eating of Tasty Animals”).
The score: PETA 1, People 0, Comet Goldfish -12.
Look, it’s common knowledge that youth pastors have crazy ideas and are compelled to pull stunts. Even when it’s accidental, it’s still a big hit (see my post about young Blake Bergstrom, the “tent pitching” youth pastor—that post more than doubled the traffic to this lonely blog!). The crazier the idea and the more outrageous the stunt, the more hopped-up the kids get. And it’s a fundamental truth that hopped-up chirren is exactly what Jesus needs more of.
So, young, unsuspecting, youth pastor, Anthony Martin, over at the First Assembly
 Okay, I stopped by Border’s on the way home from a medical followup today, and I picked up Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I’ll soon be diving into it. Already I’m concerned. A phrase from the back of the book jacket caught my eye: the young Jesus Christ is described as a “nature mystic.” Maybe I misread that.
 I will follow up with a review as soon as I can make it through the book. Assuming it’s not so laborious that it worsens my illness, that is.
So far, the reviews on Amazon are lightweight and glowing.
See my previous post: “Anne Rice channels the Jesus you never knew…” [tags]A-N-Roquelaure, Anne-Rampling, Anne-Rice, Howard-Allen-OBrien, Christ-the-Lord, Christopher-Rice, Evangelical, Howard-Allen-Frances-OBrien, jesus, christ, Jesus-Christ, Out-of-Egypt, Vampire-Lestat, literature, fiction, homosexuality, novel, Pentecostal, religious-fiction, review, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375412018[/tags]
So, the word is out: On November 1, 325,000 copies of Anne Rice’s latest literary offering will be hitting the shelves. Big deal, right? Yes. When the main character is no longer a blood-sucking vampire but is, instead, the seven-year old, blood-shedding savior: Jesus Christ. (Listen to an audio excerpt at MSNBC.)
I was clued-in to this only a few hours ago (October 25), but already the blogosphere is heating up over her latest book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and the print media is not far behind. Sadly, the print outlets are exploring neither Rice’s 1998 conversion (“return”) to Catholic Christianity, nor the depths of her change—if any. If you’re up to the lackluster press, check out Newsweek|MSNBC’s “The Gospel According to Anne,” Canada.com’s review, “
As I shared Blake Bergstrom’s “pitch his tents” experience with coworkers at Christianity Today (especially Preaching Today, where they got a big vicarious and empathetic kick out of it) I jokingly bemoaned the lack of well-known and well-salted preachers who had the grace to let their verbal gaffes get out there in wider distribution. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I fancied, “If we could collect a range of gaffes and Freudian slips like this from preachers we all know and love? I would buy that CD faster than Lot could pitch his tents!”
Well, we’re no closer to that pipe-dream today, but I did stumble across a verbal slips you might like.
 The first made by one of America’s foremost preachers, John Ortberg (teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church). And he personally recounts the tale in his book
 There’s an essential irony in all the talk about the emergent church vs. the old-style church and where they intersect. Or, maybe—to be charitable—there’s an essential paradox. To wit: how is it possible to decry and denounce all the old structures and forms as being irrelevant without falling into the same trap of culturally-bound irrelevance yourself? Didn’t the Jesus People try this experiment? Didn’t the Quakers do this? Hasn’t the patient gone through the same exploratory surgery time and time again?
And yet, the patient still lives, the church and Christ’s ministry continue on, and the revolutionaries represent small pockets of like-minded individuals that have become all but footnotes in church history.
I’m not emergent. I’m not postmodern; but, then, I’m not modern. I’m not fundamentalistic. I’m a mongrel. While there’s much in my Fellowship I can be critical about, there’s much more
 Okay, I wasn’t going to post merely frivolous stuff here, but this is far too precious to pass up.
You who preach … well. If you gotta slip up, go big.
Here’s a clip below of poor high school pastor Blake Bergstrom, who tried to work his way around a bit of a tongue twister as he introduced a sermon that might have already been doomed, based on his unusual use of metaphors. As you listen, just wait. No: the “light ourselves on fire so they can watch us burn” is not the gaffe you are listening for, surprisingly, but that imagery is bad enough that he might actually have improved his sermon with an extreme Freudian slip!
Here’s the audio:
[audio:http://tatumweb.com/blog/wp-content/mp3/blake-bergstrom-mistake.mp3]
(Here's the link if the flash player doesn't load.)
And Bergstrom has been good enough to actually release the video, which Kevin Rossen
I’ve been adding a few links here and there when I find them. So, check back to see what’s new. Also, I’ve updated the ordering of the list so that the newest items float to the top of the list.
PneumaBlog: Pentecostal & Charismatic & Assembly of God Blogs
[tags]BlogRodent, assemblies-of-god, assembly-of-god, blog, bloggers, charisma, charismatic, chi-alpha, church-of-god, division-of-foreign-missions, division-of-home-missions, evangelical, foursquare, gifts-of-the-spirit, glossolallia, holy-spirit, pastors, pentecostal, pentecostals, pneuma, pneumablog, pneumablogs, pneumatology, spirit, tongues, viral-blogs, weblog[/tags]
 My employer, Christianity Today, posted an interesting and important editorial: “Deadening the Heart: Killer video games are no 'safety valve'—quite the opposite.” Here’s an excerpt:
Good teachers know three things that contribute to effective learning: active participation, rehearsing behavioral sequences rather than discrete acts, and repetition, repetition, repetition. Video games employ all three. In addition, the vast majority of the gaming scenarios (like the random killing of prostitutes) fail to show the real-life consequences of violence. Perpetrators go unpunished. In short, violent games can deaden us to the horror of violence and stimulate our native sinfulness. It shouldn't surprise us that all media shape us, which is one reason Paul exhorts us to think on things that are true, honorable, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent (Phil. 4).
Some say these are just games, and that we shouldn't take them
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