brick-a-brack

• While away, I missed this storm in a tea cup.
• I'm very excited about this book
• More on the social damage caused by pornography from Gail Dines, HT
• Three posts on homosexuality, one statistical, another emotional, and one cautional.
• A reading list from some fairly respectable theologians, 
• or if you are more historically minded, one on the crusades.

Burning the Q'ran, a theological T-shirt for you, a worship test, etc

[Pic by ASBO Jesus]

Well I really didn't want to weigh in on all the hullaballoo about that unregenerate fundamentalist moron Terry Jones, because all I'll do is get angry and be rude, and I try to keep blogging a positive experience.  James does better and suggests a positive alternative to burning books, while Jim just goes on and on (but he's dead right, apart from the first link, which is just wrong on so many levels).

In Europe, however, this

is just one of a number of fasinating Christian T-shirts exegeted by TSK, well worth studying them all.

And in the UK, Alex proposes a new way of testing if people in your church are really paying attention or just going through the motions:

Other posts worthy of note

• Richard Beck thinks nudity might be the best way to fight pornography
• Jim West makes a pithy case for Biblical Historical Minimalism (I'm not convinced, but I'm listening)
• Clayboy wonders what to call the Old Testament, a problem I've also experienced
• And NZ's building minister makes some lame jokes about Islam, but hey being a goofball isn't the same as being a racist

Let me know what you think, :-)

The Truth About Porn

There is a brilliant Guardian article on Porn here (HT Rich Walker):

One thought provoking suggestion is that association with the prudishness of the religious right has stigmatised the anti-porn movement as being against freedom of speech and expression.  For Gail Dines porn is not about art or expression at all, but the hatred of women.  She chillingly describes the statistical links between porn use and rape, and paedophilia.  So how do we draw the line between liberty for authentic expression of art and censorship for dehumanising depictions of females?  The truth is, even in regular media the line has been drawn far over into the latter, meaning women are degraded in front of our eyes everyday on TV, in Magazines, and on Billboards, let alone the sub-mainstream of the porn industry.

A second interesting suggestion is her comparison with the ideological battle against slavery:

She says the blueprint for her aims is the eradication of slavery in the US, which was achieved despite the fact that every single institution was geared to uphold and perpetuate it. "What is at stake is the nature of the world that we live in," says Dines. "We have to wrestle it back."

The question for me is, in the light of those two things, would such a fight today be helped or hindered by the participation of Christian organisations? There can be no doubt that this is the sort of thing Christians should be behind, but how would we avoid getting in the way?