Dr. Ransom,

Thanks for stopping by and for your encouraging words. You asked,

“What might a Christ-follower's reaction be to those artists who seek to set the standard style for popular worship? And what, if any, loopholes might there be if the artists aren't singing specifically God-directed hymns or psalms, but rather, mere spiritual songs about God or about Christianity?”

If I understand your questions, you're asking how the whole issue of modesty applies to Christians who are involved in public music ministry but not in a congregational worship setting.

I'd consider the question from two perspectives. If I'm commenting on Christian “worship artists,” I want to be careful not to judge their motives quickly or uncharitably. Certainly standards of modest dress differ. However, as I understand God's Word, the only “loopholes” for inappropriate clothing might be ignorance or poverty. Poverty's probably not the issue, but I can understand how someone might be ignorant of their heart or what actually tempts others.

If I'm a Christian musician of any type, I need to be aware of any ways my clothing might tempt or distract people from my mission, which is to point them to God's grace in Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter whether I'm in a congregation or not (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17). I don't wear my clothes simply to look good in the eyes of the world, but to honor God. Sometimes those two goals may intersect, but certainly not always. My question shouldn't be, “How far can I go?” but rather, “How can I be sure that no one stumbles because of my clothing?”

Does that answer your question?

While we may lack specifics, God has certainly given us guidelines both for what we wear on our bodies, and more importantly, what we wear in our hearts as we gather to worship Him.

There are at least two groups of people to address in this situation. First, the members of the team. We seek to make sure that our musicians know their role is to draw attention to the surpassing greatness of God’s glory in Jesus Christ. That means clothing that would draw attention to them is inappropriate. Categories include clothes that are immodest, tight, “loud,” dirty, or sloppy. Of course, those standards are variable in different cultures and to different people, but usually every church has a fairly defined idea as to what qualifies. Regarding modesty, we want to avoid anything that accentuates or reveals what could be sexually alluring.

At times, we have to follow up with musicians who wear something inappropriate. When we do, we expect them to respond humbly, as their role is to serve the congregation, not prove that they’re “free in Christ.” By the way, our pastors, who stand on the side of the stage as we sing, are dressed in a variety of styles. We purposefully want to communicate that we don’t believe a certain kind of dress equates to godliness. While we appreciate and respect the conviction some have that dressing up is a way of showing honor to God as we meet together, we’re convinced that God places the greater emphasis on the heart attitude behind what we wear, and that the church will always have a wide range of clothing (James 2:1-5).

Bob,

While you say you've been lax in posting, I've been lax in reading — I will try to keep up more with the excellent grounded-in-Scripture mini-essays you write here. It's beyond encouraging to know that a well-known someone is defending Biblical worship that does not revolve around, and draw attention to, the worshipers themselves, either in thought, appearance or even the words of the songs.

Your emphasis on modesty, like that of Harris, Mahaney, and all the Sovereign Grace folk — is particularly encouraging. Freedom in Christ is a wonderful thing, but that also means we should be seeking to honor Him in our bodies and what with what we clothe our bodies. I would almost prefer outlandishly casual clothing to “formal wear” so long as the former is actually modest — I've seen both extremes at different churches.

Meanwhile, 'tis odd that although modesty seems a requirement for most Christian artists and most CCM album covers, they often seem to find “loopholes.” If clothing covers all, for example, it will be tight, or, outlandishly trendy. Spiked, dyed hair and ostentatious earrings seem to be the norm for those kinds of artists and album covers as well.

What might a Christ-follower's reaction be to those artists who seek to set the standard style for popular worship? And what, if any, loopholes might there be if the artists aren't singing specifically God-directed hymns or psalms, but rather, mere spiritual songs about God or about Christianity?

Recommended Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter

We've done some polls here at Beliefnet, and a surprising number of Democrats at least say they are religious. Some 61 percent say they pray daily and 72 percent attend worship services once a month or more. How would you explain that?

Just curious: What percentage of them know which Testament the Book of Job is in?

You say: “The core of environmentalism is that they hate mankind.” But in February the National Association of Evangelicals, including such signers as Ted Haggard, James Dobson, and Chuck Colson, etc., issued a statement urging Christian stewardship of the environment, “creation care,” and so forth. Are these people godless liberals who hate mankind?

Of course not--but I'm beginning to suspect you are. As Dobson and Colson say: God asks us to be good stewards--a statement that presupposes we are stewards of the plants and the animals, they are not stewards of us, as liberals prefer. We are commanded to worship the Creator of the environment, not the environment. As Jesus said, we are of “more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:21).

You say you're a Christian. Do you think Jesus would want you to be nicer to your political opponents?

Who knows? Maybe He'll say I was too tough or maybe He'll chastise me for not being tough enough on those who hate Him. Ask the money-changers in the temple how “nice” Jesus was. Maybe He'll say I needed more jokes or fewer adjectives. I'll just apologize for not getting it right and thank him for dying for my sins.

Recommended Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper

[. . .] There is no final conflict between God's passion to be glorified and my passion to be satisfied. I have grown up, for whatever reason [. . .] thinking: You can't have both of those; either God is going to be glorified or I'm going to be happy. Because I heard — maybe it wasn't said, but this is what I heard — people would say, “Well, you should stop doing your will, and do God's will!” And I kind of wanted to say, “Isn't there a third alternative? Like, maybe I would want to do God's will; maybe I would enjoy doing God's will?”

Recommended Hell's Best Kept Secret by Ray Comfort

Within the last 100 years, a new gospel has crept into our churches. It has been designed to not offend you. It has been carefully crafted not to be too “in your face.” It gently suggests that you open your heart to Jesus if your current lifestyle isn't working for you, and try God “when the time is right for you.”

This “seeker centered” and “no offense” approach is no gospel at all; it is “another gospel.” If we continue to define sin as “honest mistakes,” we will continue to fill our churches with “backsliders” and false converts who fail to repent because they don't see the seriousness of their sin. We will give them a cruel false hope, and make them comfortable aboard the “Jesus loves you” pleasure cruiser, singing songs to the Captain, while they blindly speed toward the iceberg of Eternal Justice.

Recommended Superman Returns

SAN DIEGO — If director Bryan Singer has his way, Superman will take to the air a second time.Singer, who directed the current “Superman Returns,” told fans Friday at Comic-Con International, that he has had discussions with Warner Bros. Pictures about directing a sequel for release in the summer of 2009.

“Superman Returns,” starring Brandon Routh, has grossed $169 million domestically to date, a figure that has been regarded by some observers as a disappointment given the movie's production costs of more than $200 million.

But while Singer stressed that plans for the sequel are still tentative, he expressed his interests in keeping the franchise aloft.

Batman, Jim Gordon and DA Harvey Dent battle the evil Clown Prince of Crime, The Joker to save Gotham City from his reign of terror and death.

-- IMDB.com, “Untitled Batman Begins Sequel” (2008)

Recommended The Way Of The Master: How to Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically-- The Way Jesus Did by Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron

[Quoting a chuch's altar call speech (more about Antique Evangelism):]

“Let's face it, we've all made honest mistakes. You're not perfect, I'm not perfect, nobody's perfect. But God doesn't expect you to be perfect, that's why He sent His Perfect Son — so that you could have that relationship with Him again.

”If you will just admit your honest mistakes to God and say 'yes' to Jesus as your Savior, He will come into your heart and you will become a child of God. You will never be alone again, because you'll have Jesus, the ultimate friend riding 'shot-gun,' guiding you through life. That is eternal life — the abundant life Jesus came to give you. Would you like to have that life, that peace, that joy, that friend?

“If you want to know Jesus and find what you've been looking for, then invite Jesus into your heart. He's been waiting for you. He's been waiting for this very moment. Come now and simply accept Him.”

Now you may be thinking, “What's wrong with that?” What's wrong is that it's not the gospel; it's a recipe for disaster. Sin is not an honest mistake and Jesus did not die to make you happy. Sins aren't accidents and God is not a lovesick celestial being, hoping for some nice person to ask Him into their heart so He can make them happy — as though He has a man-shaped hole in His heart that only we can fill.

The first problem with the false modern gospel is a watered-down definition of “sin.” Sin is not an “honest mistake”; it is an honest choice from a sinful heart to do what you know is wrong. Would a good judge describe the crimes of a vicious murderer as “honest mistakes”? While it sounds ridiculous to call murder and rape “honest mistakes,” God sees hatred to be as wicked as murder (1 John 3:15), and lust as deceitful as adultery (Matt 5:28). In God's world, those who lie are liars. If we have stolen, we are thieves. If we have broken God's Law in any way (in word, thought, or deed) we are Lawbreakers.

[N]o one was ever won to the faith without being “cut to the heart.” C.S. Lewis, describing the process, noted: “The Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort. It begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay.”

That's not something we can put on the back burner till we've shown people a nice, affectionate Jesus. And however good our intentions, it does a disservice to Jesus to try. For it's in seeing the magnitude of our sin that we see the magnitude of God's love — the love of Him “Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).

Recommended Heaven by Randy C. Alcorn

The next time you hear someone say, “We can't begin to imagine what Heaven will be like,” you'll be able to tell them, “I can.”

-- from the back cover of Heaven by Randy Alcorn

In setting the stage for a deep theology of Heaven, then further thrilling studies — and some conjecture — about what it will be like in this incredible realm, Alcorn realizes many will think, Well, what about 1 Corinthians 2:9?

[A]s it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

For this, Alcorn highly recommends reading on to verse 10:

— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:10 (NIV)

It seems the ESV translates it more effectively:

[A]s it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”--

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

1 Corinthians 2: 9-13 (ESV)

“The context makes it clear that this revelation is God's Word (v. 13), which tells us what God has prepared for us,” Alcorn writes (page 19). “After reading a few dozen books about Heaven, I came to instinctively cringe whenever I saw 1 Corinthians 2:9. It's a wonderful verse; it's just that it's nearly always misused. It says precisely the opposite of what it's cited to prove!”

Another highly popular Biblical myth-conception, debunked — I just love it when that happens. Clearly, Heaven will imbue things that are wildly beyond our imaginations, but that doesn't at all mean it will be so otherworldly that it resembles nothing on Earth. Satan wants to get us thinking that way about death, Alcorn writes — so much so that even many Christians are either fearful about or bored with the idea of the splendors of the after-world!

Recommended Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter

Godless
Ann Coulter

Content: Liberalism is a religion, with sacraments, a priesthood, and dogma that must not be challenged.

Gist: Ann Coulter isn't in the persuasion business. She's out to destory with words her ideological enemies, and even friends cringe at her often cruel verbal excesses, such as her critique of four 9/11 widows who have become propagandists: “I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.” She criticizes liberals for denying “that we are moral beings made in God's image,” but then she dehumanizes her opponents.

Ann Coulter is a talented and gutsy conservative polemecist. She's proven that she can incite controversy and sell books, and maybe savage ripostes are the inevitable response to liberal media tendencies to downplay conservative ideas and ignore thoughtful Christian viewpoints.

But as a Christian, Coulter could learn from John Robinson, pastor to the Pilgrims, who was saddened when he heard that Miles Standish had attacked and killed some Indians. Mayflower quotes Robinson's leter to Gov. Bradford: “You say they deserved it. I grant it, but . . . it is . . . a thing more glorious in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor barbarous people.”

Have you ever wondered if a wise being, somewhere, is looking upon the state of his world, and crying?

What would happen if you met him? And you found not the angry God you imagined, but a tearful father who wishes to lavish his love on you?

God is not angry with the world. In fact, he is sorrowful over the things so many people do to cheat themselves. They give up their dreams, they settle for less, and they fall for so many lesser things than the love and acceptance he has promised.

He weeps over you, just as he once did. And Ralph Lee Laufenburger will show you anew how to allow yourself healthful sorrow in your newfound love and hope.

A Pensacola evangelist was arrested Thursday and indicted in federal court on 58 charges that include income tax evasion, making threats against investigators and filing false complaints against Internal Revenue Service agents.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Miles Davis handed down the indictment against Kent Hovind, who operated a creationist theme park Dinosaur Adventure Land, off Old Palafox Road.

Hovind’s wife, Jo Hovind, was also indicted on 44 of the counts and appeared in court alongside her husband.

Arraignment for the Hovinds is scheduled for2 p.m. Monday. The couple was released pending their trial but are not allowed to travel outside the Northern District of Florida.

Recommended Jane Eyre (Dover Thrift Editions) by Charlotte Brontë

“[. . .] St. John is a good man,” said Diana.

[Jane replies:] “He is a good and great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way lest, in his progress, he should trample them down.”

Recommended The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen Edition)

Early in the 20th century the reaction of many evangelicals to the movies was [. . .] Don't go to productions viewed as tawdry or (at best) consumers of time that could better be spent at church picnics. But the appeal of lights/camera/action overwhelmed strict separationism, and films were increasingly seen as delights of life like vines and fig trees (some of which produced rotten figs and deserved to wither).

A month ago I asked evangelicals from a variety of fields—some pastors, some writers or directors, some heading political or nonprofit offices, even Tony Campolo and a Texas Supreme Court justice—to answer this question: “What are your favorite novels and movies (up to five of each) published or produced during the past 20 years?”

The results might be surprising. As much as conservative Christian publications like World tend to complain about the prevalence of the R rating in Hollywood, it seems many of the people they admire actually enjoy that sort of fare.

The respondents — including preachers, screenwriters, and journalists — named a total of 97 different film titles. Of these movies, according to my tally, the largest number have R ratings. In fact, the less family-friendly a film’s classification, the more likely the title is to be on the list at least once.

Recommended Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest” poses some important moral questions, commends some redemptive actions and presents some theological Christian content in a positive way, but is set in a dark, scary fallen world where there is lots of evil, grotesqueries and even cannibalism. For the most part, the movie is a high-octane action adventure, but a little editing would have given it more zip.

[. . .]

“Pirates of the Caribbean” is not for children. Cannibalism is a strong theme, and grotesque images such as birds eating the eyes of people, a heart beating outside of a body, a necklace of fingers and toes and explosions will linger a long time in children's minds. If some of these images had been toned down, the movie would have been more acceptable for a broad audience.

A little editing would have helped the movie become a little more tight and exciting, but as it is, the movie is very entertaining. Some of the acting in “Dead Man's Chest” is very good, some slightly campy and some staged. The music, photography and special effects are very, very good, but again, as in so many recent movies, spectacle sometimes overwhelms the story. When that happens, it slows the story down tremendously.

In the final analysis, “Pirates of the Caribbean” is an exciting, entertaining movie. It should be a starting point of discussion about these important moral and theological studies. If it is not used to dig deeper, it is of debatable value since there are so many frightening elements in the film.

You make me happy
You make me feel so good
I want to make you happy too

It's all around
Pressure from my so-called friends
It's all around
I'm measured by some stupid trend
It's all around
Everyone is just like them
It's all around
It's all around
It's all around

[Chorus:]
So I'm anticonformity
I don't try too hard to be
I'm not what you think you see
Inside I've made a change
And I'll never be the same
NO WAY!

CUSTOMER (checking out with David Crowder* Band CD): Someone told me this was really good.

MYSELF: I don't know; I've heard some of his songs, and somehow I just don't like the style.

CUSTOMER: What is his style?

MYSELF (beat, uncertain): Umm ... whiny.

CUSTOMER: Uh-oh, really?

MYSELF (ctnd.): He kind of sounds like a singing sheep.

* No actual footnote included; band names are very silly.

Fortunately for the store, she wound up purchasing it anyway. Unfortunately for her — he still sounds like a singing sheep. And a former fan I know claims the band's music has turned into “cotton candy” substance anyway.