Christianity Today--November style

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy reading Christianity Today. It’s a good magazine, I would (usually) recommend it. But since I’m sort of poor, and frugal anyhow (though not a FCP, exactly—it’s in the urban dictionary, look it up), I get the subscription from the library, both to support the library, and also my money-saving habits.

Which means that by the time I’ve read the magazine, whatever it is saying is old news. Since it’s a magazine it’s technically sort of all old news, though, so I don’t feel too badly about it. Especially since most of the things in CT aren’t exactly time-sensitive anyhow. For instance, last month I finally read the November issue, and the cover story was on hunger, which is certainly a current issue (if you don’t believe me, read the article) but one that is just as current now as it was back in November.

Now, I usually really like to read this magazine. I usually go to the library on the second or third day of a month so that I can read last month’s issue once it has been shelved and is available. But for some reason, I could not STAND the November issue. I think I must have been having a bad day when I read it, or perhaps it was still too early in the morning (I’m not exactly a morning person), but whatever the cause, it was not a favorite of mine. A few reasons I disliked it follow.

1) Politics. Yes, okay, it was the November issue, elections were right around the corner (actually, elections pretty much were the corner that month) and it was historical and all that, but I was so tired of hearing about the elections, it wasn’t even funny. Not only that, but I’m one of those stodgy Earth-is-not-my-home Christians, and Christianity Today is decidedly not stodgy in that regard. In fact, they just ran an article about a year ago about how Heaven might be our home, but Earth is our stomping ground, and we should treat is as such, and do things like give it environmental makeovers and get into politics and the such. They were very convinced that Christians who didn’t join city council were in the wrong. Sorry, mister, I’m one of those ones.

2) Secondly (or maybe still firstly, because I’m still on a political kick here) they acted like they were all neutral in the elections, but they totally weren’t. You could see it all over the issue, that they were fervently hoping Obama would win. And I’m fine with that, because, well, I didn’t really care one way or the other. The Bible says that the basest of men are set up in government. Tru dat, Daniel. But really, if you’re going to have an opinion one way (which is what they had) then stop dancing around the bush. That’s what I say.

3) On that same subject, they reviewed a book called “Electing Not to Vote” and gave it a whopping one star. Just to give you a feel for how insane this is, I’ve seen them give morally inappropriate movies many more stars than that. Don’t quite remember how many stars (they base on a five-star system, so I don’t want to go too overboard with generalizations here) but whatever the case, they were not a fan of this book. I’ve never read the book in question, of course, but the author of the article says it’s the smuggest book he’s ever read. He compares the book’s ideology with that of a man being so against the government that he didn’t even get a driver’s license. Uh, last I checked, John Wilson, voting wasn’t a law. They do that in foreign countries, remember? They go so far as to “helpfully” fill out the ballot for the voters, so they still get to vote and the government still gets their person to win. That doesn’t sound very fun to me, sorry.

4) Two words. Ray Boltz. I almost threw up when I read that. What is the world coming to? And why do I expose myself to that sort of information? The magazine touches on that subject fairly often, but I just never learn. Honestly, I think that was what made me dislike the issue so much, now that I think of it.

5) This isn’t a dislike but an amused like. I have several friends who like Dave Ramsey, and I was amused to see him in the magazine. But I loved his point about living on less than you make. Amen, brother!

6) Oh, and Google finally let religious folk advertise stuff about abortion. I knew they were liberal, but I always pretend they secretly aren’t that liberal. Ah, the fake world I construct in my head.

7) I tried to figure out where Christianity Today stood on all that egalitarian stuff, but I can’t figure it out. Personally, I refer to Paul. Women should keep silence in the churches? Okey-dokey. Do women have an integral part in the body of Christ? Uh, yeah. Sounds fairly clear cut to me, fellows.

8) By this point in the magazine I skipped through a bunch of stuff. I skimmed the stuff about the KKK and Timothy McVeigh being Christian, pausing only to wonder if perhaps anyone had stopped to realize that it takes a personal relationship with Christ to qualify as “Christian.” It seems to make sense intuitively that to be a Christian you have to actually be a “Christ One” but I guess if you’re Timothy McVeigh and you say you’re a Christian, then you’re in the club. Sadly, I’m sure there were members of the KKK who were legitimately Christian, but delusional. Which should be a lesson to us: just because we claim we do things in the name of Christ doesn’t mean we can’t be simultaneously delusional.

9) I am so sick of Christianity Today’s movie and book reviews. I’ve already touched on their review of the Election book, but it’s a constant battle for me to not take a black marker to their reviews. They review movies based on talent and such, which is very important (and yes, they love art above all in their movie-reviewing cubicles) but the magazine is called Christianity Today, for crying out loud! Can’t we at least have thoughts on the moral content and the social implications of the movie? And I fall short: I watch some movies with questionable content, but in general, I’d prefer to stick to family-friendly Disney and Hallmark movies and let the Oscars keep their R-rated movies.

10) I like Switchfoot, I really do. I don’t know all their music, but what I have heard, I enjoy. But when Mark Moring (who wrote an article on Switchfoot, though he usually does movie reviews, I’m not a fan of his reviews, but I’m sure he’s a very nice person) referenced “JPMs” I very nearly hit the roof. Although Mark Moring didn’t straight-out say that having lots of “Jesuses Per Minute” was a bad thing, exactly, he did imply such. It made me feel like an inferior person for enjoying music that has a lot of JPMs. The truth of the matter is, as long as the music is clean (and I am insistent on this point, as my friends can attest to) I’m usually fine with it. But I enjoy decidedly Christian music, because, well, I am a Christian. It’s like shampoo. I’m a female, and there’s no rule about me needing to use “special girl shampoo” as opposed the regular stuff, but it smells good, is better for my hair, and since the shampoo is specially formulated for the health of my hair, and I have scads of hair, why not use the special kind? Well I’m a Christian the same way I am a female. Christian music talks about (sings about?) the things I want to be hearing, and it’s better for me than listening to Brad Paisley or Rihanna or whomever else there might be out there. Is there a moral problem with their music? Well, I have no idea, since I don’t really listen to them (though I have heard Brad Paisley songs I am not fond of, and I think I’ve heard a Rihanna song—something about umbrellas?), but providing there isn’t a moral dilemma, I’m sure there’s nothing innately wrong with listening to their music. But I’d just prefer to listen to the Christian stuff, since it usually helps lift up rather than maintain the same status or sink lower. Honestly, it’s like math: it’s not that complicated.

11) And finally, a word to Philip Yancey. He wrote the “Back Page” article in the issue, and discussed some church hopping he and his wife recently did. That’s fine, I mean, it sure did work for the characters in Ray Blackston’s Flabbergasted books, but I have just one question for him. In one of the most liberal churches he went to (complete with a PC Lord’s Prayer, as if the Lord’s goal was really to be PC) he found the most “energy.” I understand that you were looking for aliveness and all that, but if you had wanted to just find energy, try a rock concert, Mr. Yancey. Or maybe just a Switchfoot concert. I hear they have lots of energy, and almost no JPMs. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for.

Anyhow, after writing this entire list of things, I have to sit back and think: why do I read this magazine? I feel like with this issue, especially, I found a bevy of things I disliked, and not so many things I did. For now, I think I’ll continue to read the magazine (yeah, I’m a slow learner), but keep an eye out for further craziness. They don’t say anything overtly wrong (…) but the truth of the matter is, they say a lot of things I could do without.