Who are you really worshipping?

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This tune so very much sums up one of the aspects of Protestantism that always left me knowing I was serving the right God, but the wrong church. The somewhat insincere , and very self-pleasing, "praise and worship" in a lot Evangelical churches (and sadly trying to invade Christ's church), that was always more vain and repetitive than any Catholic prayer.....and often ended with applause for the band (a "show" that made me almost physically ill).

If we go to church for the music, who are we going for?
If we go for a good "feeling", who are we worshiping?

Jon Foreman "Instead of a Show"

"I hate all your shows and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stomp on my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show"

Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show

Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show

Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show

The question - the answer . . .in song

K-LOVE - JJ Heller "Love Me" LIVE from K-LOVE Radio on Vimeo.

"Who will love me for me

Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me
'Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means"
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Saints or Salesman?

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"What the Church needs,
which is what the world needs,
is more Saints
and less Salesmen
and especially less of salesmen
who have never tried the product"
D'art
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Seeds of Moral Relativism

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"But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore."

Martin Luther

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Cranky Convert Humour #27

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Answer: a mega-group of chickens runnin' around with their head cut off?

Question: What's the another way to describe the theology(s)of the Protestant Reformation?
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Go Ask Alice

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"Drinking beer is easy.
Trashing your hotel room is easy.
But being a Christian,
that's a tough call.
That's real rebellion!"
Vincent Furnier
(Alice Cooper)

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So Slow the Fast

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"If the appetite alone hath sinned, let it alone fast, and
it sufficeth. But if the other members also have sinned, why
should they not fast, too?

... Let the eye fast from strange
sights and from every wantonness, so that that which roamed in
freedom in fault-doing may, abundantly humbled, be checked by
penitence.

Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumours, and from whatsoever is of idle import, and tendeth least to salvation.

Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings, and from useless, vain, and scurrilous words,
and sometimes also, in the seriousness of silence, even from
things which may seem of essential import.

Let the hand abstain from ... all toils which are not imperatively necessary.

But also let the soul herself abstain from all evils and from
acting out her own will.

For without such abstinence the other
things find no favour with the Lord".

St. Bernard of Clairvaux
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