Marshall Brain also challenges Christian leaders to read 30 embarrassing Bible verses on national television. Of course, they’re hand-picked by the atheist and they’re out of context.

So, in the spirit of good fun and fair play, here are some sentences from that atheist website, hand-picked by me and out of context:

The Bible is the book that contains the Ten Commandments, the revelation that Jesus is our resurrected savior and the story of our creation. This is God’s holy word to his children.

God seems to be interacting with our world and answering millions of prayers on planet Earth every day.

God’s power often can be quite dramatic.

Jesus is actually in our midst and God answers our prayers.

God is ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small.

“Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight.”

When a person says, “ask anything in my name, and I will do it,” what does he mean? Presumably, Jesus means that if you ask for anything, he will do it. What else could he possibly mean…?

If you are having a problem with unproductive behaviors, what you need to do is either educate or rehabilitate yourself. You would do that by talking with a counselor or seeing a therapist.

That is about as clear as mud, isn’t it?

Every biologist will tell you with certainty that all of life is a chemical reaction.

God has never taken over all the TV and radio stations and broadcast a message to mankind.

Every Christian should jump at the chance to spread God’s word on national television.

If God is real and if God inspired the Bible, then we should worship God as the Bible demands. We should certainly post the Ten Commandments in our courthouses and shopping centers, put “In God We Trust” on the money and pray in our schools. We should focus our society on God and his infallible Word because our everlasting souls hang in the balance.

I wish I was. It would explains why I don’t pay enough attention when people engage me in conversation, including other bloggers. Maybe it’s humility, but I don’t think so. Because I was very interested when I read Leaving Munster (finally) and noticed favorable comments about my post on Islam and Christianity.

One comment said, “it was a real crackerjack. i saw it coming and loved every nanosecond. it reminded me of a keith drury post.”

Okay, so let’s take a look at some Keith Drury posts. A Wesleyan writer, backpacker, and professor with a historically Mennonite beard. Do you like? I do.

I wonder if books on ethical relativism are stolen more often than books on Biblical ethics. I hope so.

For thirty years Paul Kuritz was a respected (and atheistic) theater professor. Then, faced with personal crises and divine interventions, he found himself praying that God wouldn’t make him a born-again evangelical Christian. God did anyway, and Kuritz wrote more about his new perspective in the Porpoise Diving Life.

I wouldn’t agree with everything in the book The Fiery Serpent, which I haven’t read. For example, the email refers to the supposedly “undeniable truth: that Christian filmmaking and theatre… are having global impact on our world today.” I’ve already summarized my disappointing first-hand experience with imaginative conversions and Christian theater here. There really is a difference between drama and real life. You might also wonder how he can use Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Kazan’s On the Waterfront as examples in a book on Christian film and theater. But Kuritz is no wooly-minded, starry-eyed artiste. He doesn’t baptize the status-quo so much as he is calling for it to change. And he is calling for filmmakers and theater people to change.

What would Jesus listen to?

Richard Gillingham, a British Anabaptist Christian with a Pentecostal background, brings up very interesting historical parallels between the two traditions in his article, A Pentecostal drawn to Anabaptism.

In Historical and Theological Origins of Assemblies of God Pacifism, Paul Alexander notes that in 1914, American’s leading Pentecostal denomination officially resolved that its members “cannot conscientiously participate in war.”

Some of the heirs of the Anabaptist movement, such as the Mennonite Central Committee, are outstanding influences for social justice. In Spirit Empowered Peacemaking: Toward A Pentecostal Peace Fellowship, Frank Bartleman, an early leader at Azusa Street, is quoted as writing in the context of American involvement in World War I, “We have stolen the land from the North American Indians. . . . Our wrong to the black people was avenged in blood. What will the next be?” William Seymour and other leaders of the first Pentecostal meetings at Azusa Street connected speaking in tongues with social justice. Bartleman marveled, “The color line is washed away in the blood.”

Not typical 21st century Pentecostal writing. Which may be why 21st century unchurched Americans don’t consider Pentecostals to be very relevant in their world.

“So many people believe that they have the Holy Spirit because they are Christians, and Christians are, by definition, those who have the Holy Spirit. This is backwards; it cannot be! The gift of the Holy Spirit is the only proof that Scripture gives us that all his promises will be fulfilled. ‘The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’ In some way then, the Holy Spirit must be experienced directly and not merely on the basis of some other party’s word.”

It’s true that, by definition, Christians have the Holy Spirit (or more accurately, the Holy Spirit has them). But it won’t work to argue circularly, to define the witness of the Holy Spirit as whatever we experience, and to define whatever we experience as the witness of the Holy Spirit. Or should I say, to limit the Holy Spirit to whatever I’ve experienced, and to define my experience as the limit of the Holy Spirit.

Your name is not written into the Bible. The Bible alone cannot assure you that you’re a Christian. The Bible says that assurance comes from the Holy Spirit.

* Church is something we are and something we do – Not something we attend.
* Regardless of the occasion, God is present and active whenever a few of us are together.
* Anything can be an idol.
* “Anything” includes money, power, status, and notoriety.
* “Anything” also includes safety, comfort, cleanliness, knowledge, talent, and good behavior.
* Using profanity is much less damaging than saying “You’re not worthy” or “I don’t care.”
* Weeping and saying “I’m sorry” to another adult is often both necessary and appropriate.
* Knowledge really does puff up.
* Everyone has issues – the most unfortunate among us just do a better job hiding them.
* God loves the abused and downtrodden… Our failure to do the same is sin.
* Having all the answers is not cool.
* The real heroes of the faith have no credentials.
* We can’t expect to do life together and never occasionally hurt each other in the process.
* All sin is sin against the body.
* If I don’t hurt when my brother hurts, something is clearly wrong.
* Pride can kill just about anything that is alive.
* There is a little racism in all of us.
* Real blessings often have nothing to do with health or wealth.
* True reconciliation under Christ is always the best outcome.
* Saying “I love you” on a regular basis is imperative.

He’s probably thinking of this Scripture:
“While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them… But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:34-35)

And I’m thinking of this Scripture:
“He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed” (Matthew 21:44).

And I want God to break me to pieces.

The old chieftain indulgently looked up from his Bible and told the young man, “Maybe so. But if it were not for that book of stories, we would have eaten you by now.”