What's Lauryn Hill up to?

It's been six years since her debut album "The Miseducation of..." came out and now she's working on her second studio album. Oh guess who she's working with? Give up?

Kanye West.

Her last release was a two CD set of her live MTV Unplugged performance and it was all about her personal spiritual journey. She spent lots of time just talking to the audience about the things that were on her heart. So for her second studio album it seems natural for her to pair up with Kanye (another rap artist who is outspoken on issues of faith).

Is this the long overdue backlash against sex, drugs and violence in rap music? Have it's artists discovered that the things of this earth are a vapor? It seems that as the genre matures more and more rappers are turning to God for deeper fulfillment.

Xtreme Worship

300 youth are packed into our worship center tonight.

Archives... working?

That's right! I know that the scads of adoring "just Greg" blog fans out there have been checking in hourly just to see if I've posted anything new. But many of you haven't been here since the beginning. Many of you haven't seen my historic first post "Wireless" which appeared on December 7, 2004 and the rest of you have been longing to read it again.

But alas, the archives never worked right. You probably wondered if classics like "New Web Host" and "The Doggie Dilemma" had been lost forever. Fear not!

OK, enough of that. I fixed the archive thing and you can read my old posts now... if you're interested... which I doubt.

JibJab does it again!

I'm sure we all remember the little cartoon with Bush and Kerry singing "This Land is My Land."

Well the guys that made that cartoon are back with another political parody just in time W's inauguration. Look closely as Bush's BBQ apron it says "Commander in Chef."

Click here to watch "Second Term."

It Starts!

The cast of "Survivor: Palau" has been announced:

Meet the Survivors: CBS.com

The cast includes a Christian who refers to his biceps as "M60s" and a Mormon girl who says that being a "sex symbol" is a good thing. It seems like Mark Burnett has done a good job of putting together a combustible combination of personalities and it will be fun to watch the season play out.

An interesting side-plot may turn out to be how much of a factor religion is in the game this season.

Theories and Laws

In science there are "laws" and "theories." Laws are provable and unquestionably true. The "Law of Gravity" for instance. Theories are tested may be found true enough in most instances to be widely accepted as fact but they fall short of the invariable nature of laws. The "Theory of Evolution" for instance.

Law: A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met
Theory: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Source: Dictionary.com

In scientific testing there is also condition known as confirmation bias. This is where a scientist will tend to lean towards the testing results that confirm his theory. That's why we have "double-blind" testing. It seperates the scientist from the test subjects and removes the influence of confirmation bias on the results.

So why the science lesson today? Well, I've always thought that in the case of the theory of evolution scientists have always had a bad case of confirmation bias. But if I were a school teacher I couldn't say so. Because, if a government agency or official criticized evolution then that would be an unconstitutional establishment of a religion. Or at least that is the interpretation of one Atlanta judge who ruled that Cobb County must take their stickers off of all their science text books. Here's what those stickers say:

"This text book contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
Source: MSNBC

One of the parent's suing over the stickers called them religious dogma. Huh? I think the bickering over the stickers is silly but what they say is true. Evolution is a theory, and in no way does the sticker indicate a preference for any alternative theory.

The bottom line is that it takes faith to claim evolution or creationism as fact. Neither one can be completely proven true. But my personal experience with God has proven His scripture true enough that I'll take His word on the origins of life.

Christian Artists?

It seems that most performing arts have found their place in the modern church. Music, Drama and even dance are all a normal part of worship services.

But what about visual artists? In the past some of the World's most outstanding works of art were commissioned by churches. Do painters, craftspeople and graphic designers have an outlet to express their God-given talents in worship today?

I found an organization called "Christians in the Visual Arts" which organizes travelling gallery showings of Christian works of art. It's an interesting concept but I'd like to see a local group whose purpose was to help bring visual arts into the normal flow of a worship service.

A few years ago Jimmy Abegg painted a large canvas on stage at the Dove Awards while dc Talk played. And my father-in-law was known for doing "chalk talks" where he would sketch out scenes in colored chalk as a song played or a poem was read. These examples border on performance art but would be a step in the right direction. I think that an artist's work could easily be incorporated into Powerpoint to enhance a service for instance.

I just bet that if a group of artists got together regularly for Bible study and art critique that a lot of good ideas would come out of it.

Link: Christians in the Visual Arts

Romanian Youth Choir

Here's a youth choir from Romania. They are performing right now. Hurry!

Go Upwards Go

Angel's first game as an Upward Cheerleader.

The Relationship between Christianity and Islam

Today I read a quote from the Koran that said...

"Nearest among men in love to the believers will you find those who say, ‘We are Christians’: because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant"

I'd I give you a reference to the exact passage but I'm not sure that I would get it right because I don't understand their notation. And, I will admit that I am taking the verse out of context because the next section goes on to describe how a true Christian will break down into tears when he hears the revelation of Muhammad and know that it is true and become a believer in Islam.

So anyway, the Koran calls Christians "devoted to learning," having "renounced the world" and "not arrogant." All of these are high compliments. The Koran also says that Christians are "nearest in love" to Muslims. So why does it seem like so many of them want to kill us?

Mustafa Akyol, writing in the December issue of "The American Enterprise" magazine says that it's not that Muslims despise Christianity, what they are trying to stop is the spread of modernism and secular western culture. In fact, he implies that if American's were more rooted in thier historic Christian values they probably wouldn't have been a target. America exports materialism, consumerism and humanism to the rest of the world. Our music, and films often ridicule God and religious principals. Is it any wonder they think most of us are selfish heathens and those of us that do claim to follow God are mostly putting on a superficial show of piety?

So the battle that Islam is fighting is the same "culture war" that most Christians in America are struggling against. They have thier radical fringe groups that go about it with violence. Compare those to the people here who call themselves Christians and bomb abortion clinics. It does seem to me that the radicals in Islam are more numerous, better organized and better funded than our home grown Christian terrorists.

Personally, I'd like to see more Muslims condemning acts of terrorism. To often, I hear "but Isreal..." "but Palestine..." Please stop making excuses for the murder of innocent people. If Islam is a religion of peace then prove it by your actions. There is evil in the World and it has to be confronted but how is it conquered by the murder of innocent people?

Ok, I can think of one example where evil was defeated by the shedding of innocent blood. That was one life and it was God's to give.

Terrorism is a campaign of murder and it is not justified and excused by a people who love the Lord. It would be hard for a Christian in America to say "nearest among men in love to Christians are the Muslims." I would like to think that it is true but the memory of 9/11, and videos of decapitations in Iraq are the face of Islam that I see every day.

Essence takes a stand!

"The most successful black women's magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance.

Essence is taking on the slut images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos."

Source: NY Daily News

Outstanding! I personally, love rap music but I have to choose the artists that I will listen to very carefully. The problem of violent and sexual content in rap music is not an issue just for the black community. The popularity of the genre spreads it's influence across all youth demographics. Since rap artists are primarily black, white people aren't allowed to comment on the content of the music because the assumption is that we are culturally "out of touch." That is why it is especially encouraging to see people like Bill Cosby and Essence Magazine addressing these issues.

Black and white people, especially Christians should work together to create a unified front the culture war. There are certainly cultural differences between races but we have a shared sense of decency and family.

Can Narnia Save Disney?

With the impending departure of Michael Eisner as CEO of Disney, will the film division find new vitality? Roy Disney certainly made replacing Eisner a centerpeice of his "Save Disney" campaign.

I knew that C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series of books were being made into a series of movies similar to the "Lord of the Rings." What I didn't know was that the Disney company was the one producing the films.

Most people who know me know that I'm a huge Disney fan. And, Disney has performed inconsistently at the box office over the last few years. Lilo and Stich was terrific. Home on the Range, I'm sorry to say, was not. There has been some live action hits in the teen girl market like the Princess Diaries but nothing like the long string of blockbusters in the 80's and early 90's that ended with "The Lion King." The only guaranteed hits in the Disney lineup now seem to be those that also carry the Pixar name.

But what better to bring Disney back as the king of fantasy than a live action retelling of the Narnia tales?

"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is still a year away but here's a featurette on the special effects in the Narnia films done by the same creature studio as the Rings series.
Apple.com