Lawsuit against Zondervan complains about Bible statements on homosexuality
“Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan, based in Cascade Township, and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing in the lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.”
“Fowler alleges Zondervan’s Bibles referring to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of ‘demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.’ “
I’m sure alot of people have already heard about this. Is this insane or what? Maybe not! To me it is because let’s face it. I’m offended by the bible everyday. That’s what draws me closer to it.
But this guy… Wow! I mean I thought the coffee lady at McDonald’s had gone loopy. Or people suing gun manufacturers because someone killed their loved one. But I about fell out of my chair when I heard about this one. Just another stunt for the homosexual agenda.
Let me say, that if I were a homosexual, this would be the exact thing I would do. Where do we get our authority to say it’s wrong? From the bible. And since I can’t sue God, I would sue the next best thing. The very manufacturer that keeps reprinting His word. Smart move.
I am however in somewhat of fear because this country is leaning heavily to punish people for hate speech. Like I said before. The bible is full of hate speech. The hatred of sin that is. (Psalm 97:10) And there sure s alot of it here in America.
But thank God for our protection in the first amendment that says we have the right to free speech and that it says no law can be made to prohibit free exercise of religion. BAM!!!!! The problem with this is nowhere in the bible at least in the original format does it use the phrase “homosexual”. So it may come down to the Supreme Court translating the bible for us to decide what exactly it means by “sexual immorality”. God help us there.
So where do we go from here. We cn only hope since this guy is defending himself that it misses the mark by a mile. But the one mark it will hit is cheering on othere to follow in his steps to close up the holes and succeed with the agenda of saying religion is hate speech.
I just read this on my AFA email.
In response to the boycott, McDonald’s spokesman Bill Whitman suggested to the Washington Post that those who oppose SSM are motivated by hate, saying “…hatred has no place in our culture.”
The battle is on people. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s but render unto God what is God. If they want to make this about hate. It may very well come down to it. they think we hate them. We just hate the evil in them for man does not war against flesh and blood but with powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places.
What good is a blog if I don’t write. I guess I’m going through a season of not writing. I have been pretty busy with “church” stuff and and been sick the last three months and trying to get better. Writing hasn’t been a desire lately. Especially when I look at the stats and every bit of 6 people read my rants and ravings anyway!
SO!!!! Pray that God would give me a writing desire to keep up the fun in my life. How about a little inspiration!
These are the moments when you ask God, “Are You fer real?” Honestly guys. Lets get on a real level here. No fantasy god-escapes. No McDreamy fantastical lives. How many of us truly ask God persistently to manifest in situations to see no fruition of mercy?
Really !! This is where I stand. Almost 3 months of sinus problems after 30 years of no sinus problems and there seems to be no end in site. And I’m sure by far that God is tired of hearing about it at 4:00 in the morning when my nose seems to gasp for breath which is a feat within itself taking in consideration the magnitude of the size of my nose.
No answered prayers so far so it seems. Misery loves company and it has made me it’s new best friend. I’m tired. Tired of asking God to help. Tired of medications. Tired of not being able to breathe. Tired of nasaly singing. I’m tired guys.
I stand here with the purest of adoration for my maker. I stand here with the most honest of inquisitions to say why won’t you heal if you are the “ultimate healer”? I stand here on my knees with the most humble of all beggars to ask “what is your purpose and why won’t you reveal it to me”?
You want honesty from a rooted christian who sometimes doubts his faith and his maker? You got it. I am as transparent as it comes. Vulnerable with my heart on my sleeve. Where is God when it seems that I’m hurting and He’s not listening? I believe He’s here. I believe He’s hurting as much as I am. I believe it hurts to see me (his child) hurt. I believe He has great motives for allowing suffering in our lives.
He hurts. I hurt. Thank God for a God who is far more smarter than I.Thank God for a God who know what I need more than I do, yet it hurts to allow me to have some things I need to make my faith grow. Funny how He allows things to happen so that they may have an opposite yet altering affect on you.
I’ve told God that if I’m suffering for a cause greater than I, I would appreciate it if He’d let me in on the plan. But I don’t guess that’s gonna happen. I’m miserable. And my joy… It seems to be fading. But maybe… just maybe somewhere deep in the middle of my suffering, I can find a new and rewarding moment to boost my joy factor. I still praise Him. I still love Him. I still adore Him. I’m just joyless at the moment. Has it been stolen. Slightly! I know that soon or later, it will return to me.
Till then I will boast in a God that blows my imagination, consumes my inquiries, baffles my mind, gives me peace that I can’t understand.
I think I have come to realize through much deliberation with myself about many things in my life that I am truly aggressively passive when it comes to most things, mainly Christianity. I don’t like to push Jesus on people. Most people around here know who He is and are pretty aware of His happenings. I don’t see the point of force feeding someone the gospel if they’re not up to hearing about it.
Last Sunday, my Pastor had a great sermon on Offensive Christianity. In other words, he was saying we need to quit being on the defense and start moving towards the enemy and getting on the offense and score rather than defending the gospel and defending our right to exercise our faith. For the most part, I agree. But like the bible says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12. These are the things to get on the offense for. Unfortunately, these rulers of darkness tends to use our friend and family to do their work.
So here am I. Aggressively passive about the whole thing. I live my life out in front of others and if someone tells a dirty joke, I don’t laugh. If someone wants to involve themselves in mind altering substances, I don’t participate. If the principalities become offensive, I defend. But being offensive, I am not. When I have the ball, I sit on it. I won’t shoot. I won’t swing the bat. I won’t pass.
So where does this leave me? I believe it leaves me not being a salesman of the gospel, yet a giver to those who ask. I choose not to hold a for sale sign behind my coat and show the price when the homeowner opens the door, and begin to say, “Just $5.99 and you too can have the saving grace of Jesus Christ if you’ll just give your last dime to the church and bid yourself to the work of the Lord!!!!!”
I believe there is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more to the gospel that cannot be communicated in a brief conversation in a waiting line. The gospel means suffering. The gospel means servant hood. The gospel means giving up oneself. The gospel is more complicated than the gospel my grandparents tried to teach me. The gospel is bigger, more grandeur than our imagination. The gospel is inexplicable. The gospel is deeper than the bible. Yet, the gospel is the good news. The gospel is worth more than the paper it’s written on. The gospel is more beautiful than any eyes have ever seen. The gospel is more celebratory than salvation itself.
Is it me or does it seem that this parable has been one of the most preached parables EVER? We had to go through this parable last night during small groups and yes, I sighed when I found this out.
I’ve heard just about every way you can preach this parable: from the dad’s pov, from the eldest son’s pov, from the prodigal son’s pov, from the pig’s pov, from the pig owner’s pov, from the prodigal’s mom’s pov, from the servant’s pov, from the dog-gone fattened calf’s pov!
You’ve all heard the story: a kid wants his inheritance because he’s for some reason or another decided to get the heck outta dodge. He then moves off to a far-away town and blows it all partying. After he realizes he has no more, his friends leave him and his wallet left him with no choice than to work. So he goes and gets a job feeding pigs and he’s so hungry that he wishes he could feed himself with the food that came in the pods he’s feeding those pigs.
After he’s had enough, he starts to think about what he could do to get outta there. So the thought crosses his mind that he could go back home and work as one of his father’s servants. They’re getting fed better than he is. So that’s just what he does. He tells the pig farmer, “Take this job and shove it,” and head’s back home.
When he gets there, his dad has some kind of spidey senses and can see his boy from afar off. Dropping everything, he runs out to receive him with all his servant’s behind him because they want to know what all the fuss is. He tells his servant’s put a ring on his finger, clothe him and kill the fattened calf, we’re gonna have a feast in his honor for my son had left but has came back.
So this is where my mind caught something, unbelievably, I have never seen before in this story. When the father realizes something is wrong with the older brother, he goes to him to see what was wrong. The older brother tells him that he’s been working and been faithful for all these years and never once got a goat. As soon as this heathen child (This son of yours) comes home after blowing all you gave him, you throw him a party? That is so not right!
His father comes back with something I thought was cool. He says, “This brother of yours was dead and is now alive, was lost but is now found!”
POINT—- The older brother tried to deny relations to his younger brother because of his shamefulness. He wanted nothing to do with him. (You ever thought that way about a sibling?) Yet his father reassures him, no matter of your brother’s ignorance, you will always be family. You can’t deny him. He is your brother.
Tough!
We are family
I got all my brothers with me
We are family
Get up ev’rybody and sing
I live just south of Nashville TN. Franklin is somewhat know as the Christian music capitol of the world. The local Christian radio station is WAY-FM 88.7. Great station to a point and that point is they can’t quit playing the same top 10 songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I think they have energizers in their station keeping it going like that.
Someone PLEASE call the program director and tell him/her to STOP the madness.
I have figured that over the past year, “Flood” gets played every day at least once. I like Jars of Clay just as much as the next guy. Dan Haseltine has got to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time. It’s obviously proven from this very song. But yesterday, it came on and I had had enough and turned it. Just today, it came on and once again I flipped the station and later… IT CAME ON AGAIN!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!
Is it that they can’t find any other song to play or does Jars of Clay give like a load of money to the station so they feel like they have to play this song? Jars has a lot of good songs. Why do they have to keep playing this one. I mean come on, it’s a classic song now. It has a copyright of 1995. That’s over ten years and it’s being rotated like it came out yesterday.
If you can personally communicate to the program director of the station, please refer him to my blog. I will more that happy discuss my disgust in the radio station that will not give anyone and opportunity unless they have a record deal with the biggest labels around. There is a lot of good music, but will never see the light of the day on radio cause they keep playing “FLOOD”!
To consider an experience with God as wonderful is an understatement to say the least. But to not experience a moment with God is tragic nonetheless. Today’s church service, though not life altering, was a wonderful experience with my God. So what happened that I may boast in a blog to others? It’s quite simple really.
We had communion. But what made this communion different from any other time we had communion? Nothing if you were to look at the setting of the service and the composure of the people. But if you were to look at the softness of my heart from the massage God had previously administered, things would look a bit different.
My wife whose the prayer minister at our church (this entails a long story in and of itself I should tell ya bout sometime) has been leading prayer before service for almost a year now. This gives the church an opportunity to pray over EVERYTHING that is about to take place during Sunday School and worship service. Before prayer, I notice the communion table was prepared and so I asked God to prepare my heart as well. (I tend to forget we have communion the first Sunday of each month)
So needless to say, my spirit was sensitive to the truth of the life and death of Jesus Christ as told in the communion story. Pastor Philip has started a tradition at our church where when we eat of the bread, we are to break the cracker before the partaking. If you have never heard this happen over a sanctuary big enough for 300 crackers being broken at once, it’s a sound to behold. This sound is supposed to resemble the sound of the breaking of Jesus’ body on the cross. It is a very humiliating sound.
After the communion portion, we had a baby dedication. I’m very scared of having a baby myself out of fear that a baby is a very HUGE responsibility (please don’t give me the fear is not from God speech) . One that I’m concerned I will never be ready for. Nonetheless, every time we have a baby dedication, I feel a small desire to raise a child so that I may take part in the beauty of growth in a child of my own. To say this is what my wife and I through the power of God have created and now I have the privilege to raise them up in the guidance and leadership of the Holy Spirit and watch them become a follower of Jesus Christ.
Baby dedications are special and they are three part. The first part is for the parents to make a covenant with God to raise the child in the right manner. The second part is for the Grandparents and family to make a covenant twith God to help raise that child in the right manner. The third part is for the church to make a covenant with God to hold the parents and the family accountable in raising the child in the right manner.
What nailed me today was when Pastor Rocky said a prayer over Canaan Lake Bennett. He said while anointing him with oil, “May you grow up to be a mighty servant of God, brother.” Notice, Pastor Rocky called a four month old baby, brother. That got to me. I thought it was great that Brother Rocky talked to this baby as if Canaan understood every word he said.
Now, I could speak on the sermon but I think that’s for another blog. The one thing I will mention is that Pastor Richard made a great point. He talked about the spirit of God being removed from us. You know how you can have a wonderful time at church, enjoying the message and getting those Holy Ghost bumps until your hair stands on end. Then you leave and go home and Monday morning you go back into the world you live in behaving like you always have.
He said if you want to continue communion with the Holy Spirit, you have to have two things. Time and place. You have to make time to spend with God and you have to have a place to do it. Without these, a person will easily slide back to doing things like the world and God’s Spirit will not dwell with them no longer.
Now there is more to it than that but that’s it in a nutshell.
Yes, it was a wonderful experience with God today. I hope if you went to church today, you had a wonderful experience too.
This is a great song by Hoobastank. I always thought it would be a good song to sing to God. Someone put a video to it and I want to share it with ya. So here it is. Enjoy!
We live in sunny southern TN. Today was predicted a small chance of snow. We received a small portion of snow. I usually tell everybody that I won’t believe it till I see it. I’ve seen it snow plenty of times but unfortunately, they (the meteorologists) miss it when they say chance of snow. But this time they got it right. A chance and a portion received.
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.
2He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.
So it’s been said that it says in the bible that when the end times get here that the seasons will not be distinguishable. The above context is what I have found for support of this theory. Let it be written that I can not stand in agreement with this theory, however, for the sake of argumentation I am going to use the theory for some fun commentary.
If the conclusion that the seasons will not be distinguishable in the end times, then I agree with this conclusion on the account of these matters.
1. Baseball season- April 1-October 28, Football season-September 6-February 3, Basketball season-October 31- April 16, Hockey season- October -June 6.
The seasons overlap and what puts my panties in a wad is when football season starts, baseball doesn’t even exist. (Maybe cause I live in Titan country) And when Baseball season starts all they can talk about is the Final Four and basketball crap. I want complete and total BASEBALL coverageon all networks and cable sport channels! Is that too much to ask. I mean c’mon. Even off season football trades take precedence over baseball! Aaaarrrgghhh!!!!
2. Deer season-
Archery: Sept. 15 - Dec. 15, 2008 (end dates may vary by WMU)
Muzzleloader: Nov. 1 - Nov. 11, 2008 (beginning dates may vary by WMU)
Firearms: Nov. 12 - Dec. 7, 2008 (end dates may vary by WMU)
God forgive us if we use a stinkin gun during bow season. I can’t get em straight. And Lord knows I don’t want to be out there during juvy weekend, but when does that take place again.
3 Actual Seasons (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer)-Who knows these days. It’s snowing in California and Iraq, drouts in the south and flooding in the mid-west. Record breaking highs in August and wearing shorts to Christmas parties, geez!
