I have a couple of favorite worship maneuvers. One, like the video instructs, when someone adopts a pained expression to show everyone else just how serious they are about the song at hand. Though, often I think that it may be more appropriate to describe the person as on the verge of an orgasm: this is creepy when a worship leader does it while they moan into a phallus like object.

Second, the person that raises one hand, adopts painful or sexual expression, and moves that one hand back and forth as if they are high-fiving an angel. Equally creepy and distracting if done from the stage.

In total, the more you look like a dog trying to crap out a peach pit sideways the more you love Jesus.

Which is why I always do interpretive dances during worship in my tongues-of-fire-unitard with a pained expression and both hands raised moving back and forth high-fiving two angels.

Let that roll around in the old brain imaging area for awhile.

Sorry to be a stumbling block.

HT for the video: LovingYourDominatrix

Sometimes the only thing more total than some people’s depravity is their stupidity. Case in point: this Christian book store worker

A 28-year-old clerk at the “Family Christian Book Store” was arrested Sunday after authorities found a hidden camera in the store’s restroom.

Joseph David Ramon Moreaux of Lancaster was arrested on charges of peeping with a recording device and issued a citation. He was later released.

Investigators say a female patron of the bookstore contacted the Simi Valley Police Department after she noticed what appeared to be a camera in the woman’s bathroom.

Officers found a camera hidden in between boxes in the corner of the restroom, which was used by both men and women, police said.

OK. So he’s a perv who likes to watch people to their bidness. Definitely not my thing, and hopefully not yours. Unfortunately, the story takes a turn that makes me wonder: can someone really be that stupid?

When the police took the camera

They also found video on the recorder that showed Moreaux hiding the device.

He inadvertently recorded himself positioning the device, police said.

It is hard to imagine doing something more inept during a criminal act. He wasn’t caught by a hidden camera or a security camera.

He videotaped himself!

When you videotape yourself committing a crime by accident you have officially become one of the most inept, useless criminals ever.

Full story HERE

I just can’t imagine the unfamiliarity you would have to have with modern technology to screw up this badly.

A priest in the Diocese of Scranton has been removed as administrator of three Throop parishes after he inadvertently displayed four photos of what a diocese spokesman called “minimally attired adult males” before the 8 a.m. Mass at St. Bridget’s Church on Oct. 25.

The Rev. Edward P. Lyman was using his personal computer to project an informational DVD about the diocesan Annual Appeal fundraiser when he accidentally showed the “inappropriate personal photographs” that were stored on his computer, according to a diocesan statement read at the Throop Masses on Sunday.

Don’t you just hate it when you hit the “porn” button instead of play?

Have you ever been giving a presentation and something is not going right? Seriously, seconds can seem like hours. Your body goes numb. It’s horrible. How slow would time be going for this guy when he realized he put up his man pictures instead of the DVD?

But what the Sheol was this guy thinking? I mean everyone knows that you split your hard-drive and bury your porn in a password protected folder before giving a presentation…

I mean…

Uhhhh…

That’s what I’ve heard… from other bibliobloggers… yeah… other bibliobloggers who I have been counseling through their addiction, and shall have to remain anonymous to respect their process.

So anyways, back to the story:

Another priest, who in this case we will identify as Rev. Obvious, commented, “This event was greatly disturbing to those who were present at St. Bridget’s.”

Gee, you don’t say.

Full story: HERE

On the heels of Scotteriology’s shocking expose on the different costumes of this year’s biblioblogging community it seems some misinformation was being spread around the internet by the Man of the Lie and the Counsel of Belial claiming that this was a picture of me in my Halloween costume:

Now I don’t want to be a stumbling block to any of the ladies out there but I thought I would put up a picture my wife took before I went out trick-or-treating. Just to clear the air, and make sure the truth be known… because I’m all about the truth:

So there you have it: my real costume!

Over the weekend the crack investigative journalism staff at Scotteriology were stationed around North America to take pictures of different bibliobloggers before they went out candy hunting.

Here they are in all of their… ummm… glory?

Doug Chaplin

It is hard to ruin Spiderman and Tigger in one fell swoop, but somehow Doug manages to do just that…

Rodney Thomas

See above comment but replace “Spiderman” and “Tigger” with “Beach Toys” and “Summer”.

Michael Halcomb

Mike dressed as the author of the gospel of Mark. Not very surprising. Fortunately there were no signs stationed anywhere reading “Must Be This Tall To Trick-or-Treat.”

Michael Whitenton

Putting the “homo” in Ecce Homo.

Dr. Jim Linville

Dr. Jim also dressed his cat up this year:

LOLcat sez “dat messed up!”

Bryan Lee

Bryan didn’t dress up this year. He just kept lying on his bed demanding that our photographer take pictures of him. Unfortunately, he then posted them to the net before we could destroy the evidence. Humanity weeps.

John Hobbins

“Parse this, bub!”

Jim West

“Does this dress make me look fat Zwingers?”

James McGrath

Unfortunately, all of the Lost and BG costumes were taken so James had to rock the Pokemon. Fortunately for him he already had the boots in his closet to go with some of his… uhhhh… “alternative” clothing options.

Chris Tilling

Who knew that Chris had such an amazing six-pack?

Anyways, all in all a fairly strange year for bibliobloggers and their costumes. Hopefully next year will find most of them wearing a lot more clothing or I will make every single one of them read the entire corpus of Chick Publications Halloween material. Twice.

JC has always been at the shallow end of the theological pool for the “special” children. Don’t know JC? Well, allow me to introduce you to him: JC is Jack Chick.

For years Chick Publications has been producing evangelistic tracts from a certain “perspective”. The problem is that in describing Chick’s perspective, and his efforts with his tracts, the word dilettante hardly begins to describe what he does to theology, the Bible, philosophy, et cetera.

He’s always been bad, but with Halloween approaching, for some reason, Chick opts for irrelavant nut-job instead of his usual irrelevant whack-job. There is a subtle difference. Trust me.

These are the questions Chick Publications asks about trick-or-treaters on their website concerning Halloween: Do you run off to church or hide back in the TV room with the front lights off? Or could you use this golden opportunity to share His love with her?

The answer to these questions, of course, is:  use the moment and share his love by dropping a Chick Tract in a child’s treat bag, because by doing this you will be fulfilling Jesus’ commission to “preach the gospel to every living creature.”

Here’s the important part: This “Obedience opens the door to God’s blessing in your life!” Handing out a Chick tract is what opens the door for God’s blessing? Did Chick Publications hire Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn as a consultant recently? The intentionality and theology behind such thinking is so arrogant and stupid it shocks the rational mind: You will receive God’s blessing by handing out Chick tracts?

That someone could have this overinflated sense of “their ministry” is hard to fathom when it is such dilettantish, bigoted,  and theologically infantile drivel.

Unfortunately, the insanity and stupidity does not stop there. Chick Publications suggests a variety of ways that you can use their comic books to ruin any child’s Halloween.

Halloween Chick Tract Usage Ideas

I’d rather take a Chick tract, turn it sideways, and repeatedly give myself paper cuts to my eyes than to do this to any poor, unsuspecting child. A tray stocked with different Chick tracts… it beggars the imagination. It mocks incredulity.

I hereby give any child under the age of thirteen permission to punch any adult in the junk if they come to the front door with a tray of Chick Publications instead of candy. Hard.

Chick’s WWJD version of ministering and serving people, thereby reflecting God’s love, is handing out comic book tracts. Unfortunately, one of the tracts he thinks will communicate the J in WWJD is this horrible travesty.

I’m sorry to do this to you, but it is  so bad I simply have to share my psychological agony with others.

Click HERE to read tract and watch Super Jesus Powers Activate!

How was that for you? I experienced something along the lines of this in the first five minutes after reading the tract:

I mean… Really?… I just… *brain cramp*… Really? But I… *feverishly scratching forehead trying to claw mind’s eye out*… Ummmm??… *crying*… Really?… But the Bible says… *in fetal position weeping and rocking*… This is a joke right… *sigh*…

There simply are no words to describe the travesty… I dare anyone to go flip through some of these other “suggested Halloween titles” and see if they can walk away without losing at least five IQ points, or have their theological perceptions partially retarded.

Ok…

Are you ready?

Put on your surprise faces:

Believe it or not…

Alcohol is involved!

Dumb

and…

Dumber

Suspects in an attempted burglary at a Carroll apartment Friday night weren’t too difficult to identify.

A resident of 1844 Randall Road called 911 to report two men with their faces painted black were trying to break into an apartment.

Moments later, Carroll police officers pulled over a car matching the suspects’ vehicle a couple blocks away and found the two occupants with faces blackened by a permanent marker. HERE

I would pay a great deal of money to hear the conversations that sluringly unfolded during that evening; to watch these two clowns draw on their faces with marker and try to convince each other how awesome their disguise was, and then drunkenly try to do something criminal. I can’t even imagine the stupidity. I would literally need them to act it out. There just seems no good rationale–even with alcohol involved–to think this is a good course of action.

Just when you think a new low has been set, and can never be broken, someone else comes out of nowhere and shatters any preconceptions as to just how dumb the human animal can be… especially in groups.

HT: ZwingliWasWrong.com

… or alternatively titled, “How to Destroy Your Career in One Essay” by Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya who claim that the Large Hadron Collider is being jinxed from the future to save the world… that or God. You know: one or the other. Take your pick.

Nielsen and Ninomiya claim in their paper The Search for Effect of Influence from Future in Large Hadron Collider that “the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather”.

They also conjecture whether God may have shut down the Collider to keep it from discovering the elusive Higg’s Boson, or “God particle”. Neilsen says, “It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck. [God] rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

This reminds me of a Karl Marx quote:

Philosophy is to reality as masturbation is to sex

Except in this case we can insert “Nielsen and Ninomiya’s thesis” for philosophy, and “ridiculous crap” for everything else in the sentence.

I wonder how well their methodology would play out in the biblical studies discipline?

What affected the Chronicler’s theology? A counter theology was so abhorrent it rippled through time causing him to change the story.

Why JEDP? All theories of one author shall have bad luck. God attempts to avoid them.

How many authors are there in Isaiah? There is only one, but he traveled back in time from after the exile to during the exile, and finally, to before the exile. His writings from these three time-traveling episodes is what makes it appear as if there is more than one author for the book.

Somehow I imagine that the time-traveler or God card wouldn’t get me very far in many of my academic papers, or would be rewarded with a favorable grade.

And that’s why you always have a peer review your work before submission… just in case something like this makes sense to you during a late-night writing session.

Or you could have a blog. You know: one or the other. Take your pick.

News articles on the silliness: HERE and HERE

Via: Naked Pastor

Earlier this week an unidentified man was caught on security camera footage praying with a woman before he robbed her [HERE]. Those familiar with the prosperity gospel see this all of the time when a wolf such as Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, or Benny Hinn pray with people before raping them for every dime they can get.

However, where this story takes an unfamiliar turn (especially to the High Priests of Mammonianity mentioned above) is that the man in the surveillance video was so overcome with guilt he turned himself in to the authorities.

Police said Smith apologized to the cashier for his actions but went ahead with his robbery even after praying with her.

“He said that he hated to have to do this, but times were hard and he had no choice,” cashier Angela Montez, 43, told police, according to a police report. Montez began crying when she realized the man’s intentions, she told police. She began to talk to the man about God, she said, telling him he still had a chance to refrain from committing the crime.

The man told Montez he had a 2-year-old child to support and then asked her to pray with him about overcoming his hardships. The two got down on their knees and prayed, remaining there for nearly 10 minutes, police said.

In response to the woman’s kindness, the man took a bullet out of his handgun and gave it to her, according to the report, telling the clerk it was his only bullet and promising not to hurt her. He then asked Montez for a hug.

Despite the heart-to-heart talk, the man was not dissuaded from his plans. He took the woman’s cell phone and told her to go into the restroom and to refrain from calling police for 20 minutes.

OK. I’m going to leave alone the fact that dude prayed with a woman before robbing her, gave her a bullet, and asked for a hug, because that’s so messed up it hardly needs commentary. And just how much supporting of a two-year-old can you do with 20 bucks?

However, I will dream that one day “pastors” like Dollar, Hinn, Copeland, and their ilk will either be outlawed or have heaping coals poured on their heads until they have a crisis of conscience so drastic that they repent in sackcloth and ashes for the many persons they have raped and pillaged for their “ministry” in the name of Jesus.