I love thoughtful questions and graceful challenges. Reader Barbara asked a really good question in response to my recent article about the marketing campaign by Washington DC atheists. Here is her note to me. Help me out here, Dave. I, too, believe we shouldn’t spew hate and should “proceed cautiously and with grace” but am not always sure what that looks like in being Christian living in a secular world.. e.g. As I remember, last year, the city of Ft. Lauderdale was reportedly going to deny Christians the right to place Christmas trees or mangers in a city park but said it was ok to install other religious symbols like a Jewish menorah. Because of a public (Christian) outcry, the city fathers backed down. Should the Christians not have spoken up? Should there not have been a public outcry? If that was all true, and we know there are similar happenings all over the country, how do we proceed cautiously
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In our last humble rambling we looked at a hard hitting bus advertising campaign in the United Kingdom that boldly proclaimed there “probably” is no God. The humanists in the good ole US of A are ratcheting up the faith advertising campaigns with a new series of ads in Washington D.C. This story ran on Foxnews.com (just lost some readers right there) recently. Ads proclaiming, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake,” will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas. “We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you,” said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the
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A recent advertising campaign in the United Kingdom caught my attention. A comedy writer in London noticed that the local buses often carried messages for faith in God. Ariane Sherine came up with the idea after seeing a series of Christian posters on London buses. She said she visited the Web site promoted on one ad and found it told nonbelievers they would spend eternity in torment in hell. I wrote about that very topic in my most recent post. I was first exposed to a faith that created fear of damnation instead of grace and relationship. Ms.Sherine continues: “I thought it would be a really positive thing to counter that by putting forward a much happier and more upbeat advert, saying ‘Don’t worry, you’re not going to hell,’” said Sherine, 28. “Atheists believe this is the only life we have, and we should enjoy it.” First of all, with all due respect to Ms Sherine’s intellect I cannot fully trust her assurance
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Yesterday I had the privilege of spending the day with the guys behind the curtain at Leadership Catalyst. LCI is the mothership for the TrueFaced resources that I yammer so much about. The cool thing was when you pull back the curtain on these “wizards” there is no hiddenness or deception. It was a day of energizing and honest conversation that flowed without judgment, posturing and pride. What a joy! Do you think there has been a meeting with those dynamics in Washington in the past 50 years or so? I pondered on the dynamic in that room as I jetted back to scenic Garland today. If only more Christians would trust these truths of identity, protective love and grace what difference would it make? When I was a kid the preachers used to bellow about revival. We need REVIVAL! Lord, give us revival! They would have week long revival meetings badgering us to sell out. We got yelled at about our sin. We heard clearly
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This last election has shown that associations can be held against you. Last week John Lynch of the TrueFaced group wrote a blog about your humble rambler and confessed that I am a guy in his grace neighborhood. Since I am not above liking others saying nice things about me I give my space to John today. And check out his blog at TrueFaced.com. Enjoy John’s blog about the message of grace. Several weeks ago I was on facebook, instant messaging with a really funny and great guy named Dave Burchett.  He’s a writer, blogger and television producer for the Texas Rangers baseball games. Anyway, in the middle of our conversation he wrote these words: “Hey John, my 1-year Grace Anniversary was this week.” I stopped typing, took my hands off the keyboard and just smiled. My friend gets it. An incredibly gifted communicator and writer, Dave cannot stop talking and writing about grace these days. It flows out of every
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Billy Graham celebrated his 90th birthday on Friday, November 7th. Over these nine decades he has preached, by some estimates, to over 200 million people. Only God knows how many thousands of people trusted Jesus because of his preaching. Our family did not attend church on any sort of regular basis. But we watched Billy’s “crusades” on our black and white Sylvania television every time he was on. I was influenced by Graham’s passion and by his simple message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe Billy Graham’s messages were planted seeds that God would later harvest in my life. I still remember the familiar cadence and distinctive accent of Billy Graham as he pleaded with sinners to come forward to the strains of “Just As I Am”. “I’m going to ask hundreds of you to come forward. If you’re with a group, don’t worry. They’ll wait…” For some reason I loved that line. I know people personally who became followers
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I am sure that I have read this particular passage dozens of times over the years. Today God’s Word jumped off the pages and especially resonated after my “bad Christian” confession written before the results of the election were counted. Here is a snippet of that article written on election day. No matter who wins I am making a commitment today. I am going to pray for the leaders that are chosen. I may not agree with the choice. But I learned a valuable lesson earlier in my journey with Jesus. When President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 I was extremely unhappy. I did not pray for Bill Clinton during most of his Presidency. I did not respect him as the authority my sovereign God allowed to be in power. I said ugly things about him. In short, I sinned in my spirit and with my speech. During that time I put my trust in politics and not in God. I will not make that mistake again. I have
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