Six worldviews you are competing against

The folks in the pew come with assumptions. Best to know what they are. From Rick Warren.

Worst news of the day in popular culture - Veggie Tales losing faith...

This from Brent Bozell via WashTimes:

Maybe you're familiar with the computer-animated cartoon "Veggie Tales," a video series targeted at children ages 2 to 8, and which features moral and religious tales hosted by Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. Beginning in 1993, the series was distributed on VHS tapes, telling biblical stories like the Battle of Jericho, David and Goliath and the tale of the Good Samaritan. Each show ended with a Bible verse.

And it's been a marketing phenomenon. Without any broadcasting or syndication on television, "Veggie Tales" has sold more than 50 million "Veggie Tales" DVDs and videotapes -- primarily, but quietly, through big chain stores like Target, Wal-Mart and Family Christian Stores. As their popularity spread, so did "Veggie Tales" T-shirts, plush toys and other products.

Eventually, someone in Tinseltown saw the commercial possibilities. Now, the news breaks that NBC (as well as NBC-owned Telemundo) will begin showing "Veggie Tales" cartoons on Saturday mornings for the new fall season....

But here is what should be news. The early word from producers is that NBC has grown increasingly fierce about editing something out of "Veggie Tales" -- those apparently unacceptable, insensitive references to God and the Bible.

So NBC has taken the very essence of "Veggie Tales" -- and ripped it out. It's like "Gunsmoke" without the guns, or "Monday Night Football" without the football.

Maybe somewhere in the near future Christians who want to make it big have to decide not to make it big. Keep your product and maintain integrity.

The Church and culture: Never give up!

My latest from AgapePress.

Give up on the culture...for Jesus?

Great article by Stan Guthrie in CT. Do we give up on culture, or not? He highlights some recent writers.

• Likening culture to the weather, Frederica Mathewes-Green (March) counsels: "God has not called us to change the weather. Our primary task as believers, and our best hope for lasting success, is to care for individuals caught up in the pounding storm."

• Columnist Philip Yancey (November 2005) worries about "how tempting it can be—and how distracting from our primary mission—to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.)"

• In July, Yancey warns of a "harsh fundamentalism" spreading not among Muslims, but among politically minded Christians.

Guthrie says, "Certainly these writers are making a perennially important point that evangelism and social ministry must never take a back seat to political activism. But we must also beware of going to the opposite extreme of a privatized faith. Christians are to be salt and light in all spheres of human life—even at the risk of occasionally offending our neighbors." (emphasis, mine)

Guthrie gives us this quotable (that we all ought to memorize): "Carl Henry, the first editor of Christianity Today, said as much almost six decades ago in his classic book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. 'The battle against evil in all its forms must be pressed unsparingly,' Henry said. '[W]e must pursue the enemy in politics, in economics, in science, in ethics—everywhere, in every field, we must pursue relentlessly.'" (emphasis, mine)

Well, yes. Yes!

Guthrie concludes: "As we seek concrete ways to love our neighbors, Christians are right to fight sex trafficking, genocide, and aids. But doesn't Christ's love also compel us to speak compassionately against the new eugenics, gay marriage, and other attempts to redefine bedrock Judeo-Christian understandings of human nature and family life? We must fight evil in the public square—whether we are the political flavor of the month or not."