Fish Oil pills. Not a bad idea, just not a miracle cure for everything from gas to Cancer.

If James 5:14 were written today…

“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the local naturopath and let them employ a holistic approach. Partake of the fish oils and shun the gluten and the hydrogenated oils. Let no unclean preservative enter your body and purge the toxins out with the Chiropractor’s footbath. Trust neither the doctors nor the FDA, as they are the devil’s spokesmen. Conduct your grocery shopping only at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, for in these places healing begins. Forsake all common sense and reason, for these represent the wisdom of this world. Scoff loudly and passionately at all doctors, proven medical treatments and legitimate research. It is only by becoming a complete whackjob that one can dispense of earthly toxins and achieve a glorified body here on Earth.”

photo credit: funkypancake

If you’re like me, it happened one innocent Saturday while attempting to assemble a piece of furniture. Before your conscience has a chance to stop it, your tongue has already condemned a piece of wood to eternal damnation. Then, the realization hits and the guilt rushes in as you realize, “I’ve just broken one of the ten commandments. I’ve used the name of God in vain.”

Maybe not. Maybe you’re a Sunday School teacher and a nominee for sainthood. You probably don’t understand how a guy like me could be singing praise songs and hanging a picture frame one minute and then in the same breath misuse the name of the Almighty.

But I bet you’ve done it too— without knowing it. We all have. Forget boycotting Hollywood because we perceive they are the worst offenders of breaking the the third. The truth is, they aren’t. We are. Let’s go to confession.

I break the third commandment and use the Lord’s name in vain when I who am called a Christian:

• Ignore the plight of the poor and tell them their condition is their fault.
• Use the words Lord, Father and Jesus instead of “uh” and “um” when I can’t think of what to say in a prayer and don’t want my brothers and sisters to think I’m not spiritual enough.
• Insult and offend someone in a moment of anger because I was frustrated at a situation and couldn’t control my tongue.
• Have a vengeful, lustful or racist thought.
• Any time I don’t love someone as Christ would.
• Whenever I fail to treat someone the way Christ would treat them.
• When I put my pride over another’s dignity.
• Every time I take credit for something God has done.

… This list could go on, but I’ve made my point. Like so many other sins, this one isn’t about a single word or act. It is about the condition of the heart. Any time we, who are called by Christ’s name do something that is counter to Christ’s heart or mission we are guilty of using His name in vain.

“You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.”

I know this verse is usually applied to swearing and making oaths, but it did get me thinking about some of the frivolous religious phrases we use in the Church. It seems so often we cloak our feelings in spiritual platitudes and wonder why the world views us as inauthentic. In the spirit of truth and authenticity, here are a few such phrases we should cut from our conversations.

• “Quiet Time:” If you were praying, say you were praying. If you were reading the Bible, say so. If you were singing at the top of your lungs and it wasn’t so quiet, let others know about it in those words. Why have we turned our time with God into a ritual with an obscure and silly name. In Heaven, we’re going to be raising hands and voices to God and it will be everything but quiet, why make it that way on Earth?
• “The Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart:” Sounds painful. You might want to go the hospital immediately and make sure that’s not a tumor. First of all, before you make a statement like that, you need to make sure you’re not blaming your personal anxiety on God. Second, just be clear. Say you think God wants you to do it, or that God is showing you the importance of something. Why all this weirdness with laying a heavy burden on your heart of hearts?
• “My walk with The Lord:” Where did we get this one? If you have a relationship with Christ, call it a relationship. If you’re struggling, instead of saying your walk is bad, say you don’t feel close to God anymore. If you’re getting better, say you’re praying more and getting to know Christ more. Don’t say, “My walk is improving.” Your walk should only be improving if you recently broke your leg and are recovering.
• “Ask Jesus into your heart:” Again with the hearts. Aside from the fact that this oft-repeated phrase is found nowhere in the Bible, it’s kind of confusing to an outside observer. Why cloak it? If you want Jesus to take control of your life, then say that. If you realize that you are completely deficient and that you need the life-changing love of God in your life then say it. Instead of saying “I asked Jesus into my heart when I was a teenager” tell your story. You’re missing an opportunity to be real with someone just so you can sound like you know the right words.
• “Prayer Life:” You have your real life, and then you have a prayer life? Is that kind of like Second Life? How about being honest. “I’m having a hard time praying lately” or, “I’ve started getting better about praying and it is really helping me.” Pray throughout your life, in good times and bad. Don’t make some loony separation like prayer isn’t real.
• “I’ve been so blessed:” I’m sure you have. But let’s not use this to talk about your new car, or your $400,000 house. Jesus says the meek, mournful and spiritually poor are blessed. If you’re thinking that new yacht of yours is a blessing, you wouldn’t want to be truly blessed by God, because His blessings tend to have eternal benefit, not monetary or material benefit.
• “Love Offering:” As opposed to a hate offering? Or did you want a giant group hug instead of money?
• “Spiritual Journey:” Again, we’re compartmentalizing. Christ did not come to change one aspect of our lives, but our whole lives. There is no such thing as a spiritual journey, the phrase you’re looking for is, “my life.”
• Small Group: Is it a Bible study? Call it that. is it a Sunday school class? Call it that. Are you hanging out with a group of friends discussing your shared faith? Call it that. “Small Group” is vague and connotes shame.
• Being Fed: Someone once asked my wife and I how we were being fed. Knowing my wife was not familiar with the term, I quickly answered the question and talked about the church we were attending and the role it was playing in improving our relationship with God. I wanted to say, “Well, we’re still in college, so the food is pretty cheap. If we eat at all, it is of prison quality.”
• Intentional: To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember what we mean by “being intentional” anymore. I suspect it has something to do with making every move and comment relate somehow to “witnessing.”

Honerable Mentions:

• Saved
• “Take every thought captive”
• “Held in His hand”
• Hedge of protection

Got anymore? Add them by commenting.

• “Damn scientists teachin’ all that evolution crap. They don’t know nothin’.”
• “Damn journalists. They’re just all puppets of the liberal media. They’re just ignorant.”
• “Damn doctors. Who needs their voodoo medicine. God made natural herbs and treatments. We don’t need medication. We have prayer and if you have enough faith, you’ll be healed miraculously.”
• “Damn college professors. They don’t know nothin’ despite all their purty little degrees they got on that there wall.”
• “Damn politicians. They wouldn’t know how to run a government if King David himself came and taught ‘em how to. All they want to do is raise our taxes, steal our guns and keep us from buyin’ Jordan Rubin’s latest miracle remedy. What they need to focus on is Sunday alcohol sales. It’s an abomination, I tell ya.
• Now, that Pastor Billy-Bob fella out there at First Righteous Church, he’s got it together. He really knows his stuff. If Pastor Billy-Bob ran for president, he’d have my vote. Granted, he has no political experience and he didn’t go to no fancy seminary, but gulldarnit, God called him and he answered.”

Conservative Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of open borders, universal healthcare and embryonic stem-cell research, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?

Liberal Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of traditional marriage, denied global warming and was pro-life, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?

Both sides: What is really the most important aspect of your belief system? Are those hills you are willing to die on as important to Christ as they are to you? Are they more important to you than He is?

Anyone want to guess where the phrase actually comes from? Benjamin Franklin. The idea that God helps those who help themselves is an American one, but it isn’t a Biblical one. Yet, we’ve allowed this incorrect commentary on the nature of God to creep into our theology. It has gripped our belief system so much that it overtakes actual Scripture.

We would rather believe God helps the independent and the self-sufficient than to believe that Christ loves the helpless and calls us to feed the hungry. I’m not sure about your church, but I know at mine there are people who actually believe that the poor are poor by choice and that if they wanted to be rich, they would simply make money.

This philosophy is greed, not God. The God of the Bible is the savior of the helpless. He brought a group of helpless slaves out of captivity, rescued a prophet from a den of Lions, and gave His life for a world too lost in sin to find its way out. Jesus healed lepers and forgave prostitutes. These are not stories of the self-sufficient being aided by the Almighty.

But we’d rather help ourselves. We prefer to confuse our financial shrewdness with a blessing, and we call what we have earned through greed “God’s favor.” We’ve been helping ourselves for so long in this country, we don’t even remember that Jesus told us to look out for “the least of these.” Here’s a brief list of some of the things that have been going on while we’ve been helping ourselves.

• 39.5 percent of Americans now live below the poverty line, and this is according to the Census Bureau, statistics that were calculated before the recession.
• In 2004, 20 percent of requests for emergency food assistance went unmet. These are real people who were allowed to go hungry. How much food did we let spoil in 2004?
• 9.6 million people in the U.S. experience hunger. 3 million of these are children.
• In 2001, over 23 million Americans turned to food banks. 40 percent of these were working families.
• The majority of those below the poverty line are working families. Two out of three impoverished families include one or more workers.
• Almost half of all Americans will have experienced poverty at some point in their lives by the time they reach age 60.

Poverty is a real problem. There are no excuses. Jesus commands His followers to have compassion for those who are in need. They are not deadbeats. They are not lazy. They are people in need of Christ-like love. These are people who cannot help themselves, but whom God has called His people to help.

This is not a political issue. It is not a debate about whether or not government should provide aid. That is irrelevant if we call ourselves Christians. Regardless of what you believe about the role of government in fighting poverty, as a follower of Christ, you are commanded by the One who’s name you claim to do something about this problem.

“God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.”

-Joel Osteen

“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.”

-Isaiah 45:7

“It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It’s God’s will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.”

-Joel Osteen

“Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?”

-Amos 3:6

The differences in these sets of quotes is striking. I picked Joel Osteen quotes, not because I have a particular problem with him, but because he happens to be one of the most popular preachers in America right now. He is also one of the leading teachers of what many people are calling “the prosperity gospel.” The gist of it is that God wants to bless you financially, and if you live a good life, do good, and think positive thoughts, God will show you favor. You will find yourself wealthy and influential because this is what God wants for you.

Well, doesn’t he? I’m certainly not going to say that God doesn’t want to bless us. And as for prosperity, the Bible does mention it: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” -Jeremiah 29:11. This verse has gotten quite a bit of play lately. What these prosperity pastors don’t tell you is that just prior to this verse, God has told Israel of His intent to bring the world to its knees so they will realize their great need for a Holy and eternal God.

The point of this often misquoted jewel is not to tell us that God has a particular interest in fattening our wallets, but that His plans are always good. His plans may bring us through struggle and calamity, but they will always make us prosper in the big picture. That means we may have a prosperous faith and a life that makes a difference, but an empty bank account. God is quite literally the only blessing human beings ever need and He knows that even if we don’t. That means that in His economy, “prosperity” has a different definition. True prosperity is anything that brings us closer to the God we desperately need. We need a relationship with our creator more than we need air. We don’t always want that, but God is concerned with what we need, not what we want.

If your child had a deep desire for a new video game system, but they were making C’s in school, you probably would decide not to give them what they so deeply desire because it would distract them from their deeper need. In the short term, they might hate you or think you don’t love them. You know that in the long-term, your decision is right and good and will benefit your child more than the instant gratification they were chasing after. God does the same with us.

First century Jews had a hard time identifying Jesus as the Messiah. He wasn’t what they expected. Their interpretation of Scriptures left them expecting a King who would come with a conquering army, destroy the Romans and set up a new kingdom on this earth. They were looking for a conquering warrior who would solve their momentary struggle and improve their political situation.

In some ways, a lot of Christians who believe this prosperity gospel are doing the exact same thing. They are expecting a God who will make them financially successful and meet their short- term needs for money and property. The problem is, when bad things happen, we want to deny that God is responsible. We’ll go and blame the devil or society or our boss or our spouse for our predicament.

What if God’s primary concern isn’t our happiness? What if He is trying to teach us something? What if He is giving us a challenging situation to mold us and to build us into the person He wants us to be? What if our definition of prosperity is entirely different than His? ]]> http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/god-is-not-santa-claus/feed 0 http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/ye-olde-sacred-calf http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/ye-olde-sacred-calf#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 Uncle Luther http://first-hand.org/realfaith/?p=17

Some fundamentalists believe the King James Version of the Bible is the only accurate version and the only one inspired by God.

Imagine you arrive late to church one morning and quickly slipping into a pew next to a friend in the back. You notice fairly quickly that something is strange. You can’t understand a word the preacher is saying and it isn’t because you’re in the back of the church. He is speaking passionately, and hammering a point home, but he’s speaking in another language – and he isn’t stopping.

After about 10 minutes you lean over to your friend and whisper, “What is this all about?” Your friend whispers back, “Before the sermon started, he announced that from now on he would be delivering all of his sermons in Aramaic, because that’s the language Jesus spoke.”

That’s well and good, but last you checked, nobody in the congregation spoke Aramaic. You bear with it for a while because you want to be obedient to your pastor and be a good Christian, but after about three weeks of going to church and not understanding a single word, you give up and sleep in on Sundays. Afterall, if the point of the sermon is to communicate God’s truths, your pastor certainly isn’t meeting anybody’s needs by speaking a nearly dead language.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But there are a considerable handful of churches that do this week in and week out. I say considerable handful because this is a relatively small group, but not an insignificant group, particularly in the South. These are the folks who believe the King James version is the only valid English translation. In fact, some members of this group even go as far as to say the King James version is divinely inspired, even above the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

If ever there was a sacred cow in need of becoming a hamburger, this one is premium quality. This is a subject that has much debate surrounding it and both sides of the issue have a wide array of arguments. Being that this is a blog post about sacred cows and not a dissertation on translation techniques, I’ll spare the details relating to how the King James was translated, printed, and the textual arguments for and against. I want to focus on the obvious, or at least what seems obvious to me and why I am calling the King James version a sacred cow.

Do you know anyone who speaks 15th century English? When you are at work conducting business, has a client or colleague ever uttered these words: “This selfsame day, we shall hasten to make ready our covenant with one another.” Probably not. It isn’t completely unrecognizable, but it is archaic. It is not effective communication.

What makes the King James only view problematic is that people are putting an old translation on a pedestal that is, in my opinion, higher than God. The New Testament, for example, was written mostly in common Greek – the vernacular used by the average Roman citizen. If God didn’t desire to deliver His message in an archaic form, it is incredibly doubtful that He would choose to preserve His message in an archaic form. Also, if God wanted it in 15th century English, why not just send Jesus during the 15th century and have Him speak English?

Instead, the timing of Christ’s coming was perfect. He came when the Romans had colonized and established a common language for commerce. He came at a time when the Romans had built roads connecting the entire empire. He came at a time that would be perfect to reach the maximum number of people in a world- changing manner. It would appear from what we see in the Bible that God’s primary concern was healing a broken world and communicating His message to all people.

Yet despite that, we have a group of Christians today who would like to obscure a message Christ and His disciples died to deliver. As I said in a previous blog post, the intent of the Bible was to communicate God’s message. When that communication begins to fall on deaf ears because the audience doesn’t understand the language, it is time to deliver the message in an intelligible form. Paul said to the Jews he became a Jew and to the Greeks he became a Greek. Being able to relate to the surrounding culture was paramount at the time of Christ. To uphold a middle-English translation as the only one that can be used flies in the face of what the Scripture inside the leather binding actually says. They probably don’t realize that because they can’t understand what they are reading.

Some of you might be asking, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a few thee’s and thy’s.” Is it? Let’s take a look at some obscurity you might find a bit amusing. This is from 1 Corinthians 6 in the King James.

“O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.”

What is this saying? If we read it using our modern understanding of the words, the above passage might seem a bit perverse. Now let’s look at this same passage, in a more modern translation.

“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange — I speak as to my children — open wide your hearts also.“

The Bible deals with some very complex issues. At stake to the reader, is all that matters in life and death. When a reader either can’t understand the text at all or could easily misinterpret something because they can’t get around the language, it can be tragic, particularly when there are other translations out there, yet we have some Christians who would put a guilt trip on people for reading a different translation. For what?

Come off it. Seriously. There is no language of God. The text we have is written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. One would think that if God were concerned about the language, He would have had the original authors write in the same language. God’s concern wasn’t language though, it was content. It was communicating the message in the clearest form possible to the intended audience. If God can do it that way, we should as well.

A few thoughts for the KJV only crowd: When we send missionaries out into other countries, do they need to take a dictionary with them as well and teach the people 15th century English so that they will be able to understand the superior text of the King James Version? Also, you say that the KJV edition from 1611 is the true inspired version. How many have actually read it? Let me quote for you a familiar passage from that version. Read it and judge for yourself if it is an effective form of English to communicate God’s message to people in a modern setting.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among vs (& we beheld his glory, the glory as of the onely begotten of the Father) full of grace and trueth. Iohn bare witnesse of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that commeth after me, is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fulnesse haue all wee receiued, and grace for grace. For the Law was giuen by Moses, but grace and trueth came by Iesus Christ. No man hath seene God at any time: the onely begotten Sonne, which is in the bosome of the Father, he hath declared him.”

Let me close by telling you a couple of things I like about the King James. It’s free. That’s part of why we see so much of it. The copyright on this version expired a long time ago, so it is the one most likely to be freely distributed. It is also fairly close to being a word for word translation, which can be extremely helpful sometimes when studying the Bible. As translations go, it isn’t bad. But it also isn’t a god unto itself.

photo credit: ahhyeah ]]> http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/ye-olde-sacred-calf/feed 2 http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/let-your-life-be-the-praise http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/let-your-life-be-the-praise#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 Uncle Luther http://first-hand.org/realfaith/?p=18

I’m getting a little tired of worship leaders. Not everything about them, mind you. They serve a valuable position in the modern church. It’s just that, singing and making music is their thing and they are passionate about it and like with anything else that folks go getting passionate about, they can take it a little far.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been in a church service and in a fit of excitement or inspiration or whatever you may choose to call it, the worship leader will remark, “We were created for worship. This is what Heaven is going to be like, a 24/7 worship service!”

I hope not. My throat is starting to parch just thinking about singing all day long.

I do have a point here. The worship movement has become another one of our sacred cows. We’ve narrowly defined it. We think of worship as a worship service, where there is singing, music, scripture reading and maybe a time of confession thrown in. We call that “worship” and then go on to say that this is what we were created to do. Really? The sole reason of our existence is to sing to God? That makes God sound kind of small.

Worship isn’t all about singing and offering verbal platitudes to God. Worship is anything and everything we do that gives glory to God. Every aspect of our lives should be a form of worship. You can worship God in your songs, but you can also worship God in your work, in your recreation, in what you say to your friends and loved ones, in the way you listen, in the outlook you have on life.

I wouldn’t dare speak for God, but based on my understanding of Scripture, I think it is this type of worship that really counts. It isn’t about how hard you sing or pray on Sunday morning. True worship is about the attitude of your heart.

When Jesus met the woman at the well, He told her that one day believers would worship in spirit and in truth, that true worship had nothing to do with geographic locations or times set aside for worship. A modern rendering of that conversation, might look like this.

“Teacher, your denomination says all worship services must include communion, but my church says worship doesn’t have to be confined to the church. What do you say?”

“Ma’am, the time is coming, and has in fact come, when all people will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Not in one church or another, but in all you think, say and do, day to day.”

Worship is simply glorifying God. It is not a limited or singular act. We were created to glorify God, but that includes so much more than singing, dancing and strumming the guitar. ]]> http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/let-your-life-be-the-praise/feed 1 http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/god-is-not-a-librarian http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/god-is-not-a-librarian#comments Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000 Uncle Luther http://first-hand.org/realfaith/?p=20

For the next few weeks I will be sporadically devoting time to the slaughter of various and sundry sacred cows. (Read: This is a series of blogs that will be interrupted whenever something better comes up.) For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the term, a “sacred cow” is anything Christians elevate to an unhealthy level of significance, to the point where it almost becomes an idol. For example, music is a big one. Some people can’t worship without it, and there are others who will almost get into physical fights about whether or not to include contemporary music in a church service. People get pretty heated when you start attacking their sacred cows, so I’m a little uneasy about this, but I’m nothing if not honest.

Today’s cow is a very popular trend in Christian circles, commonly called “ quiet time.”

What is it?

Time spent alone with God, either worshiping, reading the Bible, praying, singing, or relating to God in some manner. It is a private affair done frequently for no set period of time.

Is it good?

Yes. Anything that involves relating to God, or spending time in His presence is a good thing when done with the proper motive and in such a way that gives glory to God. There is nothing wrong with this, in principle.

When is it dangerous?

The problem with “quiet time” isn’t it’s purpose or it’s practice. The problem is what people do with it. It has become a cheap, self-righteous act. People are actually going around feeling super-spiritual because they wake up at 4 o’clock every morning and spend 2 hours in prayer. Then, they go to church and lord it over other people. “Did you have your quiet time this morning?” “I spent 5 hours in the Word this morning, it was such a blessing.” “You really should have a quiet time.”

It seems ironic to me that people who are so big on something called “quiet time” have such a hard time being quiet about their expressions of personal worship. It’s not that big of a deal. If you want to talk about total depravity and self-righteousness for a second, let me lay it out for you real quick.

Jesus commanded his followers to “pray without ceasing.”

We beat our chests and are proud of ourselves for spending 20 minutes to 2 hours out of a 24 hour day in private worship. That’s 8 percent of the day. Pretty far from the “without ceasing” command. In fact, we’re actually penciling God in, fitting the God of the universe into our human schedules. My point is, we fall blatantly short and then turn around and boast about it.

To make matters even worse, we make Quiet Time into some sort of sacred rite or requirement, and we make other people feel guilty because they can’t be spiritual enough to have a “quiet time.”

Maybe she’s a single mother with four kids, who can’t find quiet, let alone any time to herself. Maybe things aren’t going well at work, and he stays up at night worrying about it, and wakes up late, hurried and grouchy. He could pray, but he isn’t sure God is listening. Maybe the doctor’s just told her she’s not going to get any better. She has questions, but she doesn’t want to approach a God who terrifies her.

Could all of these people be spending more time with God? Absolutely. But sometimes God seems far away. It’s a natural consequence of a fallen world. We draw our bridge diagrams and talk about the bridge between God and man, and then we make people feel guilty when they feel separated from God.

Go into your prayer closet, Jesus said, and pray to your father who hears you. Don’t pray in the public square to be seen by men. Don’t tell people about it either. Yes, time with God is a great experience and it may have meant the world to you this morning, but for some of us, who are struggling at the moment, you’re adding a heavy burden.

To those who are struggling right now, and who are having problems praying, don’t feel guilty for missing your quiet time or not praying as much as some of your super-righteous friends. Chances are, you are experiencing God in a more powerful and real way right now. You’ll bend your knees, but for now, cry your tears and ask your questions.

God isn’t a librarian. He doesn’t demand quiet and He isn’t going to slap your hand with a ruler for missing your prayer time. God loves you and he isn’t going to love you any less for skipping out on praying. He also isn’t going to love you more for praying harder. ]]> http://uncleluther.badasschristians.com/god-is-not-a-librarian/feed 0