Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Cleveland Leader]

Peekaboo Pole Dancing, the company behind Carmen Electra’s pole dancing kit, announced a few weeks ago that they were seeking a partner to license a pole dancing game for the Nintendo Wii. Since then people around the world have been asking the same question: “Why?”

MTV caught up with the Peekaboo people, and spoke with a company rep who said:

“Peekaboo will be all about fun and fitness for a new generation. Peekaboo wants to make the fitness benefits of aerobic pole dancing accessible to millions of Wii users. The goal is to encourage men and women of all shapes and sizes to improve their pole dancing skills while having fun, toning up and burning calories. Ultimately Peekaboo and AT New Media want to do for pole dancing what ‘Guitar Hero‘ did for rock n roll!”

As for the pole peripheral development, the game’s ESRB rating and how the game would actually work (we imagine you’d need hands on the pole as well as on controllers), he declined to disclose those details. Kay did claim that the company is already in talks with developers and publishers for the Wii title, though they “will still entertain other third parties.”

Peekaboo also said that they were looking for a mobile phone partner to bring a similar game to mobile devices.

Source here.

[From me]

What’s next?  How about just Wii for prostitution?  Why not a game to teach the art of strip tease?  Why not just virtual sex?  Even unbelievers should see the dangers of something this stupid.  But I doubt it.

What do you think?

What’s up with this?  I nowhere near 50.   They even put my name on it.  Maybe I can leverage this for something.  What benefits can I get?

[These are my thoughts and not those of Campus Crusade or my parents]

 Here are the facts about religion and chaplains in the military:

1. In the military, there are Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic  etc chaplains.
2. Each chaplain is free to share his faith beliefs all he wants within the military guidelines given him. They are not muzzled.
3. Each chaplain is responsible for providing for the spiritual needs of all the soldiers under him or her. Therefore they provide and announce:

• On Sundays, on many bases, there are different services available for Roman Catholic and Islamic and for any chaplain who chose to provide his.
• Buses pick up some to go off post to Synagogues, Mormon temples, Greek Orthodox etc.
• Even Wiccans can meet as a group as long as the meeting is open to anyone.
• No one is compelled to attend any meeting but can attend any if they choose.

4. Any chaplain can use volunteers to teach classes on Sunday morning as long as that volunteer teaches under his or her supervision.

• Chaplains can recruit their volunteers from the community.

5. All belief groups want to share their beliefs to the world. In the America, they are free to do this as long as they do it by the rules.

For some reason those who are not followers of Jesus have problems with Christian groups ministering to the military.  Here is what I want to know:

• I want to know if there are Pagan, Wiccan,  Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jewish and other groups who send missionaries to the military who raise their own financial support?
• Are their atheist groups who raise their own financial support to assist the military in their emotional and educational needs?
• Show me where the Military Ministry of Campus Crusade has violated the Constitution?   The Separation of Church and State was to protect the Church from the State not the other way around.
• What harm is being done to our military?
• Do those who have a beef really care about the military personnel or are they trying to make a political statement?

These are questions I want answered.  I’m tired of being called a “right-winged bigot” and a “fundamentalist” and every form of profanity in the book.  Personally I’m ready for the US to leave Iraq but I support or military and our leaders.  I’m a follower of Jesus who wants to fulfill the calling God has given me.  I follow the laws and I’m tolerant of other’s beliefs.  It’s time the “other” beliefs showed a little tolerance of Christ followers too.

What do you think?

[Charlotte Observer]

A church-state separation group this week asked two South Carolina school districts to halt a church-run program that gives needy students new shoes and socks because the youths engage in ritual foot-washing as part of the giveaway. School officials said Tuesday the claim is off base and overblown.

Laces4Love, a program run by the First Baptist Church of North Augusta, distributes new shoes and socks before the holidays each year to students identified by school officials as in need of the new footwear.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent letters Monday to school officials in Aiken and Edgefield counties, asking that they put a stop to the program that “subjects disadvantaged students to ritual foot-washing as part of a shoe giveaway.”

“I have never heard of any program remotely like this anywhere in the country,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based group, said Tuesday. “This is clearly an attempt to evangelize public schools students and even allowing a religious group to come in to perform what it sees as a religious ritual violates the Constitution.”

The Rev. Gary Redding, pastor of the First Baptist Church of North Augusta, referred comment on the program to the districts. Laces4Love’s Web site says children in the program are brought to a school lunch room, where “the volunteers carefully remove their old shoes and socks if they have them. Then wash their feet with warm towelettes and put the new socks and shoes on their feet checking for the correct size as they go.”

David Mathis, associate superintendent for administration in Aiken County, said it’s the children, and not church officials or volunteers, who decide if they want to clean their feet before putting on their new shoes and socks.

“It’s in no way seen as a ritual. It’s an effort to help these kids, they’re in need,” Mathis said. “If they want to put on their new socks and shoes with clean feet, they can make that choice. … It’s not a Biblical representation of washing feet.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

I guess the Americans United for Separation of Church and State are being Scrooges!  What ritual is there in washing someone’s feet?  I know Jesus washed feet but this church isn’t preaching to these children.  They are providing them with brand new shoes and socks what are the Americans United for Separation of Church and State people doing for these poor children?  Quit being Scrooges and give the kids some shoes!

What do you think?

[Fox News]

A Christian student group’s latest attempt to show middle school students how fun the group could be was too much for school administrators to swallow.

Last week the Campus Life group allowed students to bob for live goldfish. Two students and one Campus Life volunteer swallowed fish. No student was harmed or forced to participate, but some parents complained, and district officials weren’t pleased.

“We just felt like that type of action was distracting to the students and interfered with the learning process,” Virgil Horne, assistant to the superintendent, told the Lincoln Journal Star.

So Campus Life will be allowed to meet only at Lincoln’s Scott Middle School one more time this school year. The group’s executive director, Bryan Carlson, said he would tell students the news at Wednesday’s meeting.

Read about it here.

[From me]

PLEASE! I grew up in Campus Life–literally. Campus Life is the student ministry of Youth for Christ. My father was a Campus Life Director for over 30 years in Kansas City, Iowa, Indiana, Alabama and South Carolina. Bobbing for a goldfish is tame compared to some of the things we did when I was in Campus Life.

What does the school district want? Kids selling pot, having illicit sex, having babies out of wedlock, crime, etc…? Campus Life, Young Life, Youth Dynamics and other groups like it are making a difference in kids who don’t go to church. I have seen thousands of students lives changed by the ministry of YFC/Campus Life. This school board needs to get a clue.

What do you think?