Gospel.com Blog

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

Hollywood must know what its doing. We have a long holiday weekend coming up, which would sure seem like a good bet for boffo boxoffice; but ticket sales are as low right now as they’ve been all summer. So maybe it makes sense that the studios haven’t given us anything to get excited about this weekend.

(more…)

This is a repost of a Gospel For Asia update on the situation in Orissa. Head over to their site find out ways in which to pray for them.

Click on the play button to hear a message from Gospel for Asia Founder and President K.P. Yohannan.

Increasing attacks on Gospel for Asia-related work in Orissa have resulted in the deaths of at least six local believers since radical mobs went on a rampage after the murder of a leading anti-Christian activist.

Saturday night, Swami Laxamanananda Saraswati, a top leader of the VHP (World Hindu Council), was killed in an attack by 20 men suspected of being Maoist rebels. The Maosts had earlier warned the swami to leave the area. The attack, which included gunfire and a hand grenade, also killed four other people.

GFA President K.P. Yohannan strongly condemned the gruesome killing of Swami Laxamanananda and demanded that those who were guilty should be punished.

Because the swami was a leading opponent of Christian work in India, his followers in the ultra-fundamentalist VHP have used his murder to incite hundreds of their followers to go on a rampage of death and destruction across several districts in India’s Orissa state.

According to the latest reports, at least six Christians who attended GFA-related churches have been killed.

The latest detailed reports list more than 15 GFA-related church buildings destroyed and at least 110 church members’ homes burned to the ground. Other Christian groups have also suffered, with many deaths reported and attacks on ministers and missionaries being widespread. There are even reports of Catholic nuns being gang raped and murdered by the extremists.

“We are also deeply shocked and anguished to hear of the atrocities and violence meted out to the innocent Christians and churches in Orissa as a backlash of the sorrowful event,” Dr. Yohannan said, “and we are praying for an immediate halt to the violence.”

Dozens of pastors and their families have been attacked by roving mobs, and many have fled with their congregations into the surrounding forests. Some children and their parents have been in hiding, without food or water, since the rioting began on Sunday.

One GFA Bible college is under police protection, while a GFA Bridge of Hope children’s center was closed when a mob threatened to attack. They threatened to kidnap one of the workers, so the staff and 120 children left the area. It is not known what has happened to the center property.

“What is most disturbing is that these attacks seem to be well organized and orchestrated,” Dr. Yohannan said. “We have reports that the VHP have actually held strategy meetings in order to plan and coordinate this campaign of violence against peaceful Christian families and churches.”

Pamphlets have been printed and widely distributed accusing the Christians of the swami’s murder, even though most authorities indicate it was most likely Maoist rebels who were responsible.

“We thank God that the government officials are protecting our Bible college campus and trying to protect our people,” K.P. added. “That is a true blessing.”

But as the violence has increased, many fear the government’s actions are not enough.

Reports note that the mobs are using firebombs to attack homes and churches, and there is little evidence of police or other government intervention.

There are more than 295 GFA-related churches in Orissa. GFA has dozens of missionaries in the state, and the people have been very receptive to the message of Christ’s love for them.

“But the fundamentalist groups have always opposed us,” noted one GFA worker, “and now there is great tension prevailing, and Christians are running away for their lives.”

“My heart goes out to the missionaries and believers,” Dr. Yohannan said. “We must pray with all earnestness for the suffering church in Orissa at this time.”

Those who wish to help meet the needs of the suffering believers in Orissa may give to GFA’s Persecution Relief Fund.

Ever wondered why you are here on earth, or what the purpose of your life is? According to a new essay by media expert Al Menconi, you’re searching for answers to life’s four basic questions—questions that every person asks at some point in their life. What are they? Menconi lists them in the article:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going? and
4. What is true?

In his essay, Menconi outlines the Bible’s answers to those four questions—and using a recent example from his life, he explains how seemingly innocuous things like the entertainment we imbibe can lead us astray as we look for those answers. Read the full article, and if you find it helpful, take a look through the Al Menconi Ministries website and read hundreds of other essays about faith, everyday life, and the messages (good and bad) that we absorb from the culture around us.

The Intersect Community provides training for church leaders. Recently, on their blog, Steve Argue wrote about the drinking age and how it relates to youth ministry in the United States.

Here’s an excerpt in which he writes about how the current drinking age has made a new way for people to transition between childhood and adulthood:

Historically, adolescences has shifted from a time of “transition” from child to adult, to a significant life stage that some experience well into one’s mid-twenties. There are many developmental and sociological reasons for this phenomenon.

It has been perpetuated, not the least, by youth ministry that has (on plus side) responded to the needs of this population but may also be (on the negative side) perpeduated a delayed entry into adulthood.

More broadly, it might be said that the road from childhood to adulthood has lost its way as adolescence is desired, worshiped, and longed to be preserved.

The lack of “signposts” toward adulthood have left gaps for other rites to be adapted. I wonder if the 21 year-old drinking age has become one of these rites. Maybe this rite has had to take on a flood of meaning that, on the surface, shows itself as binge drinking, but underneath calls for something more.

Hop on over to enter into the discussion on this topic.

Are you a pastor or church leader looking for a bit of inspiration to start off your Monday? The Online Pulpit is a semi-regular column that shares thoughts from working pastors, covering a wide range of topics relevant to church leaders.

The most recent column is about a serious topic, but one that pastors are called to address frequently in the course of their ministry: death and mortality. Gerry Koning uses an unusual metaphor to paint the human journey through life and death in a new light, casting the process of life not just as a morbid approach to death, but as a unique journey back toward our true spiritual home with God. If you’re a pastor who deals with this issue often, it might help you to comfort people grieving the loss of a loved one, or facing death themselves.

If that’s too heavy a topic for a Monday morning, there are plenty more columns to explore in the Online Pulpit archives, which go all the way back to 1995. For starters, you might take a look at The iPodization of Our Culture, about our increasing tendency to focus inward on ourselves; Ministry or Management?, which addresses the delicate balance between “running a church” and shepherding a congregation; or The Church in Exile, about how to address the church’s slide into cultural and intellectual exile from the world.

If you hear the name “Gil Cates” and think it sounds familiar, it’s probably because Gil Cates, Sr. has produced the Academy Awards umpteen times over the last couple of decades. He was also the dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television from 1990 to 1997, and is the Artistic Director of UCLA’s Geffen Playhouse. He’s the uncle of actress Phoebe Cates… and he’s the father of director Gil Cates, Jr.

Cates, Jr. has been producing and directing his own films for nearly a decade now, and his latest film—Deal, set in the world of high-stakes televised poker and co-starring Hollywood legends Burt Reynolds and Charles Durning—was just released on DVD this week after a disappointing limited release in theaters earlier this year.

Past the Popcorn Managing Editor Greg Wright talks with Cates about studios, critics, and the “narcotic” effect of filmmaking.

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

The gloves appear to be off as the studios dump the last of their summer fare on us at the tail end of August.

The lone bright spot in wide release is, somewhat surprisingly, an adult-oriented Hitchcockian thriller starring Woody Harrelson. Jeff Walls calls Transsiberian “a terrific thriller. Anderson and co-screenwriter Will Conroy kept me on my toes and I was never quite sure where the film was taking me next. The snow-covered, barren landscape is photographed beautifully, reminding me a bit of Fargo“—as does the rating. Even the best film this week is rated R. (more…)

If you watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, you witnessed a small but upsetting detail that has prompted discussion and debate in the media since: the nine-year-old girl out on stage singing “Ode to the Motherland” was not, in fact, actually singing it: she was lip-synching the song while the real singer, a seven-year-old, was concealed behind stage after officials decided that her physical imperfections (crooked teeth) rendered her unfit for a public performance.

The subjects of beauty, femininity, and living as an image-bearer of God are often explored over at Jonalyn Grace Fincher’s blog, and she tackles the Olympics incident—and what it says about our ideas of beauty and physical perfection—in a recent post. Here’s a short excerpt:

…this substitution perpetuates the myth that flawless (read Hollywoodesque) people are also good at everything else. For a few days we all believed the nine year old Miaoke was flawlessly singing. In the days that followed we compared her face to Peiyi’s. What’s interesting is that no on has actually heard Miaoke sing. Wouldn’t that be interesting to compare her voice to Peiyi’s?

We have to shoulder on against this myth that beauty means goodness, beauty means talent, beauty means perfection. We must face the actuality that people with perfectly straight teeth are just as deceptive, ashamed, broken, manipulative, confused as people with crooked teeth.

It’s an insightful post, and just one of many that touches on issues of femininity and human-ness; see Jonalyn’s recent interview with Molly Aley for more discussion about aging and beauty.

While the Olympics are underway, plenty of ministry and outreach is taking place on the streets of Beijing, and at least one Gospel.com community member is taking the opportunity to partner with Olympic evangelists in China. Answers in Genesis is distributing Chinese-language evangelistic DVDs and books in Beijing. Among the items they’re distributing is a brand-new Chinese translation of their Creation Miniseries:

These DVDs were recorded in 2007 on the Pacific island of Saipan before a Chinese audience and then edited and produced this year. A video crew traveled with the AiG team and filmed the live-translation, and AiG has produced them for global use. As they are being provided, people are told that they can duplicate them as often as they like in China.

As part of these efforts, AiG has put online several videos of a Ken Ham presentation (with a Chinese translation) on their website. You can watch the videos online as they add them at the AiG site. As you watch the Games, take a few minutes to pray for those out on the streets of Beijing with the Gospel message!

If you haven’t heard yet, one of our gospel.com community members, Sports Spectrum, is blogging about the Olympics over at More Than Gold News. They’ve been doing short audio updates on the US team and providing rundowns of the medal results as well as upcoming events.

Head over to this post to hear an audio update from August 14th.

They also have a newsreel widget you can add to your website. Click on the play buttons next to the posts to listen to their broadcasts.