Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[9News] After one of its organizers suffered an injury, a church was forced to cancel a gun giveaway at a weekend youth event.   The Windsor Hills Baptist Church planned the giveaway as a way to draw new participants to the church's annual youth conference. The gun in question: an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle. Windsor Hills cancelled the giveaway Friday evening after announcing that Pastor Emeritus Jim Vineyard, who was running the event, had suffered a foot injury and would be unable to attend. A video ... Read More

[Telegraph] John Lennon famously claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, even predicting that Christianity would "vanish and shrink". But 28 years after his death, in an interview being broadcast for the first time, he claims that on the contrary, he hoped to encourage people to focus on the Christian faith. Despite his familiar image as a hippy icon who invited us to imagine a world without religion, Lennon says he was "one of Christ's biggest fans" and felt emotional in church. In the interview, ... Read More

[Tennessean]   A man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head while at a Knoxville church. Now he wants Lakewind Church to pay $2.5 million for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering he says he's endured from his injuries. Read more here. [From me] Why doesn't he just sue the Holy Spirit? What do you think?    Read More

[Houston Chronicle] Grace Community Church is raising money to build two enormous crosses that its pastor says will mark the entrances to Houston on Interstate 45. The crosses will likely rank among the largest in the world. Counting their bases, the crosses would reach up to 200 feet. Each would dwarf I-45's current symbol of Texas largeness. "Big Sam" Houston, the colossal statue in Huntsville, stands 77 feet tall with its base. The symbols of Christianity would tower over Grace's freeway-hugging campuses: the south campus ... Read More

[Times Online] “It is not yours, it is God's, and you are not going to get it.” So saith Kenneth Copeland, the television evangelist, when asked to submit his ministry's private financial records to Washington. Mr Copeland is one of at least six American “televangelists” facing the scrutiny of a senate investigation for alleged financial wrongdoing. The Eagle Mountain International Church - otherwise known as the Kenneth Copeland Ministries - preaches a doctrine of financial prosperity, with the promise that God can make a ... Read More