SCL

WOW! Does this hold the record for most comments posted on an SCL topic?

Makes me wonder – why do we pretend so much? To avoid hurting others? To be “cool”? To sound better than we are? Probably all of the above, depending on the situation.

Mine are all listed already. The biggest one is LADIES RETREATS. Blech. I like being in a small group of women for discussion or Bible study or random fun. But a whole roomful… *shiver*

just to point something out to all those who are disappointed or dislike Christian music… there are actually SOME bands that have true musical ability, and good lyrics. But you do have to search a bit.

And Cami,you mentioned Eric Clapton… but have you ever heard PHIL KEAGGY? Because Clapton called Keaggy the best guitar player in the world. He’s pretty amazing just to watch.

Karen Kingsbury novels..(not my cup of tea)..I cleverly skated the topic while working in a Christian bookstore (”Did you see the Purpose Driven Life on sale for $9.97? It’s right beside the Prayer of Jabez grill and potholder set.”)

I’m a preacher’s kid first and now am a youth guy’s wife.

Therefore, I have pretended to like everything having anything to do with church, God, faith…all of it.

I’ve had times in my life when I’ve been in love with Christ and times when I was really pissed off at him.

I’ve had worshipful moments through prayer, song, a message – and I’ve had moments when any and all of these things have made my stomach sick.

So, why have I pretended in the those times?

Others.

Every PK “knows” that the needs, thoughts, opinion of others supersede my own. We’re taught, usually by the words/actions of the “righteous” church members that everything we do/say/think affects church members’ faith (and ultimately dad’s/husband’s job).

So, I’m guilty. I’ve faked the snot outta stuff.

I try to be a little more real these days. I’m older and wiser. or maybe just tired.

I now consistently use sarcasm to survive. That’s how I get through the times when I refuse to jump on the bandwagon of the latest “Christian members only” product, song, movie, book.
I get to say what I really thin – but b/c it made people laugh – I don’t get the “but-you’re-married to-a-minister-how-could-you-ever-think-that-you’re-going-to-cause-believers-to-stumble-and-condemn-the-lost-to-eternal-damnation” look from people.

I’ve always been sarcastic -a trait that usually planted next to the meanest old lady in church while dad preached and mom sang in the choir.

But these days – it’s pretty much a way of life. I’m convinced it’s why I love SCL so much.

I secretly despise the music of Casting Crowns. I know the people in the band are great, but I just don’t like their music.
Also, solos on Sunday morning. Usually, it means that someone (at least in the south) is going to take some country song and change the lyrics to be about God. I’ve also heard this done with Avril Lavigne, Creed, and Mariah Carey’s “Hero” where it is changed to “then the Lord comes along”. GAG! And then I always dread the part afterwards where I feel like I have to tell the soloist they did a good job.

This is truly, truly beautiful!

I was trying to think of my own, and honestly… I don’t really know if I have any.
Which, I assume, is why I have the occassional “typical Christian” who likes “typical Christian stuff” questioning either my sanity or my salvation… or both at once.

I had A LOT in high school, going to a small Christian High School:
Contemporary Christian music,
girly bible study books,
certain types of worship music,
etc…

But around the time of my senior year, I started realizing that my lack of sincerity was the problem… not my difference in taste.
So I started being honest.
And have tried my best to maintain that since.

Funny thing is… all those good Christian folks didn’t really like me as much when they found out I didn’t like their stuff.

Weird.

Good thing Jesus told me it was okay.
And told me to love them anyway (which I failed at many many times HA!).
(:

Brothers and sisters, your honesty is lovely and makes me excited for unity within the body!

I secretly despise Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, and Laura Story. Anytime their songs come on, I change the channel. Sad but true. Since I sing in the worship band, this has presented some “challenges” from time to time. Ew.

There I admitted it. Bring on the flogging.

I consider myself a student of both Lewis and Tolkien. I have read just about everything written by them or about them, many more then once.

If you never read another book you need to read “The Great Divorce” by CS Lewis. It’s not long, way better then Mere Christianity and it will change your life forever.

Hillsong, to answer your question of what you have to “like” to seem Christian. EVERYONE in church world loves Hillsong. I do like some of it but…

I can’t stand Thomas Kincaid. I don’t even PRETEND to like him among my Christian friends.

Ever tried G.K. Chesterton? He’s way better than Lewis.

Although I do love Lewis’s fiction…but I think his nonfiction is BORING…!

I’m with Sara like 200 comments back: The Shack was… crapish. Didn’t get through it, but nod like a bobble head doll when someone asks if it’s crossed my reading list lately…

Also, in no particular order, I do a poor job at pretending I like: Michael W. Smith (or much Christian music prior to 2005), most Christian broadcasting (including radio and TV), and Sunday School. I’m ready for my church to out-grow tired ole Sunday School. Only… please don’t tell the class I teach.

Brin, You are right on!

i pretended not to like christian romantic fiction in college. haha. my friends wouldn’t have cared, but i had a feeling they would think less of me intellectually.

the problem with C.S. Lewis is that he wrote so many different kinds of books. They’re almost all different, but what’s great is that there’s something for everyone (if you stick with it long enough to find a book you like).
Personally: loved Screwtape and thought Till We Have Faces was stupid.

I HATED the whole WWJD craze. Seriously, do we all really need to walk around in our WWJD shirts with a matching bracelet, necklace, and baseball cap?!? Why don’t we just DO what Jesus would do and let our lives speak louder than our t-shirts! And I do like Lewis and have made it through about half his books….very slowly

I know I’m late to this post, but I feel compelled to confess – I am a music snob and cannot stomach Christian radio. Hearing adults tell me I’m listening to “Positive, Encouraging” radio in a voice that makes me feel as though I’m 5 years old is enough to make me shoot spit balls at the radio.

The other day, I had a conversation with a (conservative Christian) guy about politics and I pretended that I agreed with him because he was (oh so very!) cute. Please, please forgive me!

I also hate books by John (or Staci) Eldredge. But I don’t keep that a secret. Can I say sexist?

Things I admit I don't like that Christians seem to LOVE.

1)Veggie Tales
2)The Newsboys (they basically make bad club music)
3)CCM Magaize
4) the terms Xtreme,Remix,and Radical
5)"clever" T-shirts based on popular culture
6)The acoustic guitar (chords G, C, & D)
7)Sparkle Angel graphics in my myspace comments!

That was a weight off my shoulders.

Hmmmm… pretending to like stuff/do stuff without it actually being true…

I pretend sometimes like I’ve read all the comments on one of Jon’s posts… when I haven’t really.

Kinda like this one… Coming in 3 days after it’s been posted, it’s up to 218 comments. I can’t read all those!

I love Lewis. Narnia, Perlandra, Mere Christianity, (The first book I ever bought in a Christian Bookstore), because I liked the word Mere, and I had a limited budget. I loved it, and I had never heard of Lewis before. But “The Abolition of Man” is his best work. “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”, snuck up on me, thrilled me, surprised me, and made me want to be good.

I've read a few books by Lewis, including the L, W & W, Mere Christianity, & Screwtape Letters. The L, W & W was a little too fictional for my taste and dragged on a little, but the symbolsm was intriguing. Mere Christianity works better as a reference- has insightful quotes, but really boring to read cover to cover. The Screwtape Letters was in a class all in it's own, disturbing at times but amazingly accurate.
I don't like to pretend I like something when I really don't, like
I'm lying, it makes me feel bad inside.

John.Piper.

Just not that impressed…

There, I feel better now.

Wow, lots of awesome posts. Amazing how much we pretend when Christ doesn’t want us to. But understandable why we do.

For me, there are a lot of things I used to pretend liking until I got real with myself and others in the past few years:

1) Going to church. I don’t like it; haven’t for a long time. It’s a combo of getting burned in the past, feeling pressured into doing other things I don’t like while I’m there (singing, standing, greeting people, etc.), and subjecting myself to a message I’ve heard tons of times before with very little new info. I’m not comfortable with the notion of eradicating it from my life for good, but I think skipping a few weeks at a time would be no problem.

2) Julie R. said it: Christian culture. I have an ample amount of saved and unsaved friends, and I’ll defend my saved friends to the death, but many of them contribute to a culture that I find buffoonish and out-of-touch most of the time. I don’t like it and am honest about it, but I used to force myself into acting like a foam-finger-waving fan.

3) Not swearing. I’ve accepted that I’m in the minority on this one and probably will be till the judgment. I see no problem with swearing so long as it’s not a blue streak, in front of kids, or otherwise in front of audiences that wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t think it’s unbiblical to swear, but when the topic comes up I feel I unintentionally give the appearance of not approving.

4) Caring to hear about ministries you care about. It’s great you want to be a missionary, and if it’s somewhere I want to visit (Germany, Italy, England, etc.), I’m all ears. If it’s Africa or South America or the Philippines, et al, then meh. My eyes become donuts with the glaze they secrete. Ditto for most other ministries; I’m simply not interested.

5) I hate having to pretend it’s okay when a Christian is passive. Christ called us to be bold, and when the overwhelming majority of my Christian friends act like cowering mice it irritates me. I want to call them out on it, then charge headlong into the problem they’re too afraid to tackle. Don’t get me wrong: For some of them, their response truly is the way God has asked them to respond. But I suspect many of them are simply too scared of confrontation yet sleight-of-hand such behavior under the guise of Christianity. I’m better at not pretending my feelings about this, but many times out of respect I’ll let it pass without a peep.

Jon:

I’ve been working for several months on “Jabez-The Musical,” but now I’m discouraged.

Great post, great comments.

Love the Incarnation. Hate the Christmas.

Junior Church. And yes I teach, so I feel like a hypocrite. But I just think junior church is just another “babysitter”, right up there with Playstation and Veggie Tales. Actually, the kids might learn more from Veggie Tales than in junior church. The main reason I pretend to like it but I really don’t is that parents should teach their kids how to sit still during the church service like my parents did! Sure, we fell asleep in the pew, drew pictures on the bulletin, and I snickered with my brother at least once during a service, but my 3 and 4 year old body learned that I don’t have to be entertained every single moment of my life. It taught me patience and respect. It taught me that maybe the guy up there has something worth listening to. And it encouraged the pastor to incorporate child applications into the sermons. Fun for the WHOLE family! (Sans the nursery folk.) Amen?

I’m a believer who doesn’t like Christians. I can’t stand ll the Holier-ThaN-Thou, nose in the air, bull that dealing with this bunch entails. Just look at all these posts of people prentending to be someone they are not just to fit in with a group of other people who are pretending the very same things. No thanks. I will enjoy my democratic, pro-choice, God-loving life without all that if you don’t mind.

I think it is funny that you didn’t finish the movie on his life. In high school (I went to a christian school) they forced me to watch it in my english class and all I could think was, “this is a really boring, slow movie.. and that was a long time ago- so I hope she still doesn’t make kids watch it. The movie just made me think that he wasn’t a good christian.He only married a women so she could stay in the country… hum…

I live in the Orlando area and the big christian radio station is Z88.3 Apparently, to seem like a good christian you must have this on your radio when other christ-ians get in the car. I HATE this station. They play the same 90’s twila paris songs over and over throughout the day. I never ever listen to them, but feel like I frantically have to change the station when others get in the car. It feels so good to get that off my chest.
Great post by the way

I pretend to like “The Shack”

I pretend to enjoy christian radio.

I lived in Orange County, and definitely walked a fine line whilst talking about Saddleback.

If I’m being honest, I love it all–the fiction and the non-fiction. My favorite is Till We Have Faces, which is a re-telling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. I know this sounds like the kind of thing that makes me a real geek, but . . . I went to Wheaton College, which I think is one of those things that Christians really like. When I say it in Christian company, I can feel the great impression I’m making. Forget that I was a solid B student. Discard that I never went on a mission trip. Ignore that I quit inner-city tutoring because it was chaos and took up a whole evening. Going to Wheaton is enough. And when you’re at Wheaton, you read Lewis, lots and lots of Lewis. Then you casually tell your friends that you’re going to hang out in the archives, which are housed there. But I couldn’t get through Velvet Elvis, not for the life of me. And the Left Behind series left me wanting. So, when people tell me how great they are, I smile and nod my approval.

I’m sort of the opposite. I pretend not to like things. For example, I don’t like Christian music. It’s awful, unoriginal, and it overuses the same scripture references and cliched images like magnetic poetry.

But secretly, I listen to “Shout to the Lord” from time to time, and I actually find myself enjoying Michael W. Smith’s older music. I bring earplugs to church and wear them during all the music because my church is louder than a firing range, but deep inside, I’m actually listening to the music and trying to figure out how it makes sense.

My turn to confess: I only read about half the comments here. There were just too many to read them all. But I agree with those who said you should give Lewis another chance, Jon, and especially with those who suggested you start with “The Great Divorce.” Wonderful, wonderful book. And not hard to read at all, I think. (Though I find Lewis a delight to read and have devoured many of his books, I admit I haven’t made it all the way through “The Abolition of Man” yet!)

I genuinely LIKE C.S. Lewis. Can’t relate.

Jazz, not so much.

I love CS Lewis,
And I’ve read many of his books.
but I’ve never even attempted to read Mere Christianity.

Also, I’d have to apologize for bolstering the CS Lewis christian craze. Me and my friend always are talking about him. I’m sorry!

From this southern baptist:

When I was a child: AWANA club
When I was a teenager: youth group meetings, retreats (gag), especially “girl’s only” (retch).
When I got older: women’s retreats (projectile vomiting)
I now happily refuse to attend any such functions and am consequently believed to be “on the wrong track” by many well-meaning church matrons. I’m not married (at age 30) yet either.

Others:
altar calls
99% of worship songs
Rearranging perfectly good songs to make them sound worse solely for the purpose of changing it up
Worship leaders who don’t shave or comb their hair and wear an old t-shirt and sandals to Sunday morning service
Christian drama in church
Most “special music” in church

I could go on for years…

SnwNavy said…
“I secretly despise Michael W. Smith”
Granted, but if you lump him in with Tomlin, you’re probably only familiar with his stuff from this decade. Make sure you’ve heard everything from “Big Picture” to “Freedom” before you make a final decision. It’s like night and day in my opinion.

Dude! You’re writing a post about how you don’t really like CS Lewis when you HAVEN’T EVEN READ MERE CHRISTIANITY?? Don’t judge him as a Christian author by his fiction; read MC and then I think you’ll have some appreciation for him, even if you still don’t love him as much as you feel you’re supposed to.

Okay, here it goes…

John Eldredge
I know his hit men may hunt me down now, but that’s a chance I am willing to take. A lot of what he says is great, but the 1000+ references to Braveheart, Matrix, and other “man” movies gets to me. I liked the first book I read, but the others seemed like a cut and paste from all the others.

Bands I used to listen to in High School
Bands such as Supertones, MXPX, Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline. I kinda hate to admit that I have fallen out of “love” with these bands. I still tell people that they rock, but I have to admit it’s only half-hearted.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent a bit. Off to read some Piper and listen to U2.

it took me nearly a year to get through the first chapter of mere christianity. twelve whole months. i’d read a paragraph or half a page and be exhausted. i just couldn’t get into it.

but after i got through that, i read the rest of the book in mere (har har) days. alas, it’s the only c.s. lewis book i’ve ever made it all the way through, even though no less than five of them adorn my bookshelf (plus one colossal that has four of his books inside of it).

but seriously, mere christianity did change my life. maybe just don’t read the first chapter. dive right in the middle.

Hahahahaha…

Lewis is such an honest author, and he knew there were plenty of people likethis. Here's a quote from the preface to the 1961 edition of Screwtape Letters (written by Lewis, referring to Screwtape):

Of course, sales do not always mean what authors hope. If you gauged the amount of Bible reading in England by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray. Sales of The Screwtape Letters, in their own little way, suffer from a similar ambiguity. It is the sort of book that gets given to godchildren, the sort that gets read aloud at retreats. It is even, as I have noticed with a chastened smile, the sort that gravitates towards spare bedrooms, there to live a life of undisturbed tranquility in company with The Road Mender, John Inglesant, and The Life of the Bee.

I couldn't help but think of that when I read this. Hilarious.

smallgroups (lifegroups, sharegroups). any gathering of diminutive size desperately trying to call itself something other than "bible study." i don't like sitting in a circle pretending to care about something i wasn't even thinking about 20 minutes ago. i get enough of that at company training events. if i hear someone say "let's go around the circle…" one more time i'll barf. i don't want to go around the circle, ok?!

Nooma videos – Bell tries to distance himself from the "stodgy" traditional church with his hipness before bringing the hurricane of judgment (TM-SCL) down on their traditionalist doors for being judgmental. Half the time, I feel like he's positioning himself with the hip unsaved against the church.

chrisitian singers' ongoing feud with enunciation – Matthew West's "The Motions" where the phrase "passion inside of me" sounds like "passionate sodomy."

The Shack – the writing is disjointedly awful and "Sophia" is the name of one god from the "femaledivine" movement based in a couple of old pagan religions that has been bolstered by some fringe movements since. Weird coincidence.

The Left Behind series.

worship songs that last forever. I want to sit down.

Bono. Half of his fans are just toeing the party line. His songs are noteworthy mostly for their inoffensivness.

Fake swear words. Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart as unto the Lord. Either swear with a passion or clean it up like a christian rap artist.

The Purpose Driven Life – says "its not about you" then manages to make it all about you anyway.

The Message. Quoting this as real scripture is like quoting SNL's parody of the president as proof that the real president said something.

John Eldridge's "Captivating" – way to pigeonhole about 3 million people you've never met, chief.

Women's conferences.

Secular songs re-recorded by Christian artists. If it's only the singer that makes it godly, could someone get Tony Hawk on a cover of the Thong Song?

Worship leaders on stage making "O" face, closing their eyes, slapping their chest, and wheezing into the mic to demonstrate how moved they are. If you're doing four performances every Sunday, "How Great is Our God" isn't rocking your socks off THAT much the fourth time around. Please just sing it straight – I don't know you well enough to see your face look like that.

An emphasis on service (good) and feelings instead of Biblical learning. I recently met and got PWNED by an atheist at my new job. She had fully researched the Bible, theology, history, etc. and
knew Lewis/Stroebel/Edwards, etc. backwards and forwards (and had grown up in the church, so knew all its quirks). It wasn't my friends at my super-hip church (who's pastor is on a few lists here, btw) who helped. It was the "stodgy" friends who went to little traditional churches where they had to bring Bibles to service and tear apart chapters in James that gave me counterpoints, Bible references, recommended good books with alternative theological approaches and provide history/anthropology/Hebrew/Greek lessons. Eye opening.

Seriously, though, C.S. Lewis's books can be mind-blowing. The middle of Mere Christianity is its best part. Also, "Til We have Faces" is a stunning book – it's based on old mythology and has jealousy, blood and guts, fights, deception. A Grief Observed is also easier reading and good stuff.

Thankfully, I'm rebel enuf not to pretend to like things. I do make a concession to people to not blurt my loathing out in public (most of the time). So here are the things I don't pretend to like:
Hillsong
Singing
Christian radio
Gone with the Wind
Princess Bride
Avatar
Right wing politics
Dogs
Other people's babies/kids (mine is fine)
God-is-your-sugar-daddy theology
Knick-knacks at christian bookstores