New Jesus Movie

And you can be a producer!

Check out this site to find out how you can become a contributor to a new Jesus movie being produced by Hollywood professionals.

Parenting Research

Ed Stetzer is the head of Lifeway Research, the research arm of Lifeway publications. He posted the following announcement on his blog today:

"We recently contracted to do an analysis of successful parenting from a biblical perspective. As a researcher, this interests me. As a father, this has my full attention.

With the overwhelming amount of information and advice out there relating to raising children parents don't always know who's offering real wisdom. And as Christian parents we want to to raise children to become gospel-believing, Christ-centered, mission-focused, young adults. But, to whom do we listen?

Well, what we decided to do was to ask parents who have reared children who meet those characteristics. As such, we plan to survey 1000 parents of young adults who are following Christ. And, we want to ask them one simple question: what did you do?

In other words, we want to ask the parents of young adults who are following Jesus how they reared their children.

It is our plan to do these surveys over the next year. Our client will then write a book on the research and I will present the data first at the D6 Conference in Dallas next fall.

Here are some of the categories / questions we are planning to address:

Click here to read the rest.

Also, Dr. Stetzer is asking for feedback from parents regarding any additional topics that they feel would be beneficial from a statistical analysis perspective. So go check out the rest of the announcement and post a comment to encourage Dr. Stetzer and his team to research something that you have an interest in.

Midweek Markdowns at CBD

Jesus: The Greatest Life Of All, by Chuck Swindoll for $7.99

The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, by Tim Keller for $11.99

You can see all the Midweek Markdowns here.

The Case For Life

A new pro-life website has been published and it looks really solid. The book that was published recently by the same name, The Case For Life, has been expanded into this website. The site describes the pro-life issue in terms of only one issue:

"The abortion controversy is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. It's not about privacy or trusting women. To the contrary, the debate turns on one key question: What is the Unborn?"

The site includes pages detailing the scientific case, the philosophical case, the human value of life, what happens after abortion, and a discussion of mistakes that pro-life advocates frequently make. The site also has a helpful Q&A page and links to other pro-life sites.

Highly recommended! Check the new site out here at www.caseforlife.com.

Tech addiction 'harms learning'

Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned.

Their report concluded that modern gadgets worsened pupils' spelling and concentration, encouraged plagiarism and disrupted lessons.

The study of 267 pupils aged 11 to 18 found 63% felt addicted to the internet and 53% to their mobile phones.

The research said technology drove a social lifestyle that involved a strong desire to keep in touch with friends.

The study - Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology - was carried out by researchers at Cranfield School of Management, Northampton Business School and academic consultancy AJM Associates.

They used a written questionnaire to examine the nature and the volume of mobile phone calls and text messaging as well as computer use including e-mail, instant messaging and accessing social networking sites.

Three hours on the mobile

They found 62% first used or owned a computer before the age of eight, 80% first used the internet between the ages of five and 10, 58% first used a mobile phone between the ages of eight and 10 and 58% have had access to a social networking sites between the ages of eleven and 13.

Read the rest here.

Movie Trailer Bait and Switch

Sucker-punched at the theater

Most parents are careful about checking MPAA ratings before taking their children to the movies. But thanks to an unannounced change, they might be noticing some unpleasant surprises at the Cineplex. Since April 2009, movie previews are no longer approved for all audiences.

The Motion Picture Association of America's Classification and Ratings Board substantially changed its policy earlier this year so that promotional clips from upcoming films no longer need to be suitable for "general" audiences. The change went into effect without any announcement or opportunity to comment.

An unannounced switch

Before the policy switch in April, any trailer displaying a "green band" (the green screen that shows before the preview starts) in theory couldn't include anything inappropriate for general audiences. A green-band trailer could, at the most, imply that the movie it was promoting had violence, strong language, nudity, drug use, or other mature content.

Now the green-band trailer language has been switched from "approved for all audiences" to the much vaguer "approved for appropriate audiences." But there's no indication of who the appropriate audience might be.

In addition, the MPAA's new policy is misleading. The trailer for the comedy Extract (rated R for "language, sexual references and some drug use") inexplicably still carries the original green-band "approved for all audiences" language, even though the promo clip includes references to the male anatomy, marital sexual frustration, and marijuana smoking.

What you can do

To express your concerns about this change and ask that trailers reveal their rating, contact:

Chairman/CEO Dan Glickman

MPAA

1600 Eye St., NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 293-1966 (main)

(202) 296-7410 (fax)

Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License

From Denny Burk's blog:

The Associated Press reports that a Justice of the Peace in Hammond, Louisiana has denied a marriage license to an interracial couple. The Judge says that he is not a racist, but that he has good reason for withholding the license:

“I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house… My main concern is for the children… I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves… In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer… I try to treat everyone equally.”

The ACLU is already all over this case, and I think it’s fair to say that there will be legal ramifications for this judge’s stupid decision. What interests me, however, is not so much the law but the morality of the whole affair. There is much that could be said, but let me offer here just a couple of quick thoughts.

The Bible teaches that Christ is reconciling into one body every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 10:34-35; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:16; Col 3:11; Rev 5:9). That means that all the old racial differences that divide the rest of humanity are not supposed to divide Christians. In other words, the Christian gospel obliterates racism of every form. In the current case, the judge’s decision is at best an accommodation to the very racism that the gospel forbids. [See John Piper's 2005 sermon on interracial marriage for a fuller treatment of this topic.]

One final thing. A prediction, actually. If this story has legs, then you can expect for some people to draw comparisons between it and current debates over the definition of marriage. Critics will argue that the same bigotry driving the case in Louisiana is what motivates people to oppose same-sex “marriage.” The comparison, however, does not hold up. The Bible celebrates the diversity of human races. It does not, however, celebrate homosexual behavior. In fact, it emphatically condemns it (Lev 18:22; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10).

I’m certain that we haven’t heard the end of the story in Louisiana. We’ll be paying close attention to this one.

Time to Separate Church and Sports? A New Agenda Takes Shape

Sam Cook has had enough. A sports columnist for theFort Myers [FL] News-Press, Cook recently referred to quarterback Tim Tebow of the University of Florida Gators and told his readers: "I don't know how many more 'God bless' comments I can stand from the 2007 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback." Tebow, Cook argued, should play football and forget about his religious beliefs while he is wearing the Gator uniform.

"Somehow, we'll survive without him displaying a 'John 3:16' Bible verse under his eyes," Cook wrote. "We separate church and state. Why not church and sports?"

Sam Cook's column was prompted by a far more prominent essay published in Monday's edition of USA Today. In "And I'd Like to Thank God Almighty," Tom Krattenmaker leveled a comprehensive critique of the evangelical Christian message that, as he laments, permeates so much of the sporting world at both the college and professional levels.

The Bible verses painted in eye-black, fingers pointed heavenward, and expressions of thankfulness to God at the conclusion of a big game amount, Krattenmaker argues, to "a faith surge that has made big-time sports one of the most outwardly religious sectors of American culture."

Read the rest here.

Christian College Students and Social Networking

Christian college students are big into social media. A new study done by professors at Gordon College, a Christian Liberal Arts college in Boston, MA, shows that over 30% of Christian college students spend 1-2 hours a day on Facebook alone, with 12% percent going at it for 2-4 hours each day. If you add in Twitter, email, texting, and popular websites we're looking at a significant investment in the internet in general and social media in particular. But what does it all mean? That's what Bryan C. Auday, professor of psychology, and Sybil Coleman, professor of social work wanted to find out.

The study, "Pulling Off the Mask: The Impact of Social Networking Activities on Evangelical Christian College Students . . . A Self-Reported Study" was released last month and is the only one of its kind to target and give voice specifically to evangelical Christian college students and their relationship to social media usage.

"We'd received enough anecdotal evidence from college students to raise some red flags about these issues," said Coleman. "But we felt it was crucial to gather scientific data from students about both the benefits and concerns (of usage) if we were going to get a clearer picture about how we could best respond."

Read the rest here.

Generational Perspectives on Scripture

"Kids these days."

The Barna Group has released a new study that explores the how different generations of American adults view and use the Bible. And guess what - it turns out perspectives are different!

Barna groups those surveyed into four generations, broken down as follows: the Mosaic generation refers to adults who are currently ages 18 to 25; Busters are those ages 26 to 44; Boomers are 45 to 63; and Elders are 64-plus.

Not everything is wildly different between these generations. In fact "a majority of each of the four generations believes that the Bible is a sacred or holy book." Shocking. Ok, not really. But another commonality is that "millions within each of the generations report reading the pages of Scripture in the last week." That is more interesting to me.

Read the rest of the report.

Perspectives

Pretty sweet video on what God can do right here.

Counterfeit Gods

Tim Keller is one of my favorite authors, and his new book, Counterfeit Gods, is now available. You can watch a brief (1:40) video of Keller explaining why he wrote the book and who he wrote it for here. The book is available for purchase here and here.

How Much Do You Have to Hate Somebody to Not Proselytize?

I found this in Kevin Harney’s new book, Organic Outreach for Ordinary People: Sharing Good News Naturally (pages 54-55). It’s a great reminder of why we should not be embarrassed to say we are interested in conversions and why there is no shame, but love, in a winsome effort to win someone to Christ.

*****

If we believe there is a real heaven and a real hell, we should be moved to evangelize and to reach out in the name of Jesus. If we love people, our hearts should propel us. I heard one of the most convincing arguments for this from an atheist. His name is Penn, the well-known illusionist in the duo Penn and Teller. On his video blog, Penn Says, he tells about a man who came to him after a show and gave him a Bible and tried to proselytize him [Note: you can watch the video on YouTube, but the embedding was disabled so I couldn't post it]. Here is a portion of his response to that encounter [the rest is Penn telling the story]:

He said, “I’m a businessman. I’m sane; I’m not crazy.” And he looked me right in the eye and did all this. And it was really wonderful. I believe he knew that I was an atheist.

But he was not defensive and he looked me right in the eyes and he was truly complimentary. It did not seem like empty flattery. He was really kind, and nice, and sane, and looked me in the eyes and talked to me. Then he gave me this Bible.

I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward–and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me along and keep your religion to yourself–how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.

Parents, Obey Your Children

Literary critic Lionel Trilling once referred to "the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet." In reality, almost all literature is political in some sense. Oddly enough, the most explicitly subversive literature is often presented to the very youngest among us -- our children. Far too many parents seem not to notice.

In "The Defiant Ones," a recent essay published in the New Yorker, Daniel Zalewski argues that picture books for children now reflect a world turned upside down in terms of the relationship between parent and child. As he explains, in the newest picture books for children, the kids are solidly in charge.

In this sense, the books we read to our children reflect the cultural values of our age. Inescapably, these narratives for children reveal far more than a storyline. Indeed, the books tell us more than we may want to know about the tenor of our times.

Continue reading here...

While Adolescents May Reason As Well As Adults, Their Emotional Maturity Lags, Says New Research

"Adolescents likely possess the necessary intellectual skills to make informed choices about terminating a pregnancy but may lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses, resist peer pressure and fully appreciate the riskiness of dangerous decisions," said Laurence Steinberg, PhD, a professor of developmental psychology at Temple University and lead author of the study. "This immaturity mitigates their criminal responsibility."

The findings appear in the October issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.

Steinberg and his co-authors address this seeming contradiction in a study showing that cognitive and emotional abilities mature at different rates. They recruited 935 10- to 30- year-olds to examine age differences in a variety of cognitive and psychosocial capacities.

Continue reading here...

Winter Trip

Hey guys- just wanted to throw out another reminder that the deadline for Winter Trip sign up and $75 deposit is this Sunday, October 18.

Students need to have a parent or legal guardian sign the financial agreement form and turn that in along with the $75 deposit.

What is ‘success’ in parenting teens?

What sort of goals should a parent have as their children reach the teenage years?

Unfortunately, western culture has had a terribly cynical view of the teen years. It’s a view that is largely biologically based. People tend to see teenagers as a collection of raging, rebel hormones encased in skin. Of course, the idea is that you can’t talk to a hormone. I read someone who put it very well. He said that if you add the word “teenage” to any other word, it becomes a negative. Take “teenage driver.” That’s a simple instance of how this particular age group attracts cynicism.

The problem with this way of looking at teens is that it’s a subtle denial of the Gospel. Actually, what we’re really saying is that there’s a class of people for whom the Gospel won’t work. That’s a devastating theology. My experience is that when parents buy into that view of the Gospel for their teenagers, it begins to bleed over into other relationships. They begin to have doubts about whether Christ can reach all sorts of people.

That means that simply surviving your teens is not enough of a goal. In a sense, having survival as a goal is selfish because it’s focused simply on getting yourself through a difficult time. The other problem with having survival as a goal is that, as parents, we tend to settle for external, behaviorist sorts of goals.

Read the rest of the post here...